How to build NGINX against OpenSSL 3.0.0

The latest stable version of OpenSSL is the 3.0 series. Also available is the 1.1.1 series of OpenSSL which is a Long Term Support (LTS) version, supported until 11th September 2023. We use the new version 3.0.0 of the software to have a support of TLSv1.3 in NGINX on CentOS 7 and Debian servers which still run old versions of the library.

This guide covers only the installation of NGINX+OpenSSL 3.0.0 on a server with DirectAdmin. Other cases are not mentioned here.

Dependencies on CentOS/AlmaLinux/CloudLinux

In order to get the things compiled we will need to install the following package:

yum -y install perl-IPC-Cmd

There might be other packages required as well. We will update the list as soon as we discover them.

Dependencies on Debian/Ubuntu

In order to get the things compiled we will need to install the following package:

apt -y install libgd-dev

There might be other packages required as well. We will update the list as soon as we discover them.

CustomBuild 2.0 and DirectAdmin

Now we need to make sure there is no custom script for configuring NGINX. It might exist if another custom modules were already added in NGINX.

cd /usr/local/directadmin/custombuild/
mkdir -p custom/nginx_reverse/
ls -la custom/nginx_reverse/
cat custom/nginx_reverse/configure.nginx

The latest command from the list should return empty (nothing). It's an expected output. 

If we see any lines from the file, stop here. Copy the file 

cp -p custom/nginx_reverse/configure.nginx custom/nginx_reverse/configure.nginx~bak

Analyse its content. And compare it with /usr/local/directadmin/custombuild/configure/nginx_reverse/configure.nginx. It is the original, i.e. default, script. See what lines differ.

And we install a custom script for compiling NGINX:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/poralix/directadmin-utils/master/nginx/nginx_reverse/configure.nginx~openssl-3.0.0 -O custom/nginx_reverse/configure.nginx
chmod 755 custom/nginx_reverse/configure.nginx

Install custom config:

cd /usr/local/directadmin/custombuild/
mkdir -p custom/nginx_reverse/conf/
cp -p custom/nginx_reverse/conf/nginx-defaults.conf custom/nginx_reverse/conf/nginx-defaults.conf~bak
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/poralix/directadmin-utils/master/nginx/nginx_reverse/conf/nginx-defaults.conf~TLSv1.3 -O custom/nginx_reverse/conf/nginx-defaults.conf

Then install NGINX:

cd /usr/local/directadmin/custombuild/
./build update
./build nginx
./build rewrite_confs

If any error occurs during the installation you will need to investigate it by yourself, or contact us for a help.

Undo changes:

Copy saved files to their original places (if you had custom copies of them before following this guide):

/usr/local/directadmin/custombuild/
mv -f custom/nginx_reverse/configure.nginx~bak custom/nginx_reverse/configure.nginx
mv -f custom/nginx_reverse/conf/nginx-defaults.conf~bak custom/nginx_reverse/conf/nginx-defaults.conf

Or remove custom files (if you used a default NGINX installation):

/usr/local/directadmin/custombuild/
rm -f custom/nginx_reverse/configure.nginx
rm -f custom/nginx_reverse/conf/nginx-defaults.conf

and re-install NGINX:

cd /usr/local/directadmin/custombuild/
./build update
./build nginx
./build rewrite_confs

That's it.