configure: error: no, libmemcached sasl support is not enabled

When trying to install a PECL extension for PHP with name memcached a configure process ends with an error: 

checking sasl/sasl.h usability... yes
checking sasl/sasl.h presence... yes
checking for sasl/sasl.h... yes
checking whether libmemcached supports sasl... no
configure: error: no, libmemcached sasl support is not enabled. 
Run configure with --disable-memcached-sasl to disable this check
make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found.  Stop.

Here is a picture of the error from a shell console:

So, let's discover why it happens and how to deal with it.

Why it happens?

If you installed libmemcached from a default CentOS repository, then it's has no support for SASL:

libmemcached-0.31-1.1.el6.x86_64
libmemcached-devel-0.31-1.1.el6.x86_64
memcached-1.4.4-5.el6.x86_64
memcached-devel-1.4.4-5.el6.x86_64

It really does not matter that you have SASL installed. It won't resolve the issue.

How to solve it?

If you want to solve it and install the extension for PHP there are two possible ways on how to achieve the desired:

• To configure PECL memcached with "--disable-memcached-sasl"
• To install libmemcached with SASL support.

How to install a PECL extension on Directadmin server?

Here you can find instructions on how to install a PECL extension for PHP on a directadmin server. Run configure with "--disable-memcached-sasl" to disable this SASL support check in libmemcached.

How to install libmemcached with SASL support?

First you need to download its sources from https://launchpad.net/libmemcached/+download, then you need to compile libmemcached:

cd /usr/local/src/
wget https://launchpad.net/libmemcached/1.0/1.0.18/+download/libmemcached-1.0.18.tar.gz
tar -zxvf libmemcached-1.0.18.tar.gz
cd libmemcached-1.0.18/
./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make
make install

and configure the PECL extension memcached with an additional option "--with-libmemcached-dir=/usr/local" (a short version of commands):

phpize
./configure --with-libmemcached-dir=/usr/local
make
make install

Check the link for more detailed instructions on how to install a PECL extension on a directadmin server.