Rename NOTES*, README*, VERSION, HACKING, LICENSE to .md or .txt

Reviewed-by: Tim Hudson <tjh@openssl.org>
(Merged from https://github.com/openssl/openssl/pull/12109)

1 files changed, 117 insertions, 0 deletions

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+
+ NOTES FOR UNIX LIKE PLATFORMS
+ =============================
+
+ For Unix/POSIX runtime systems on Windows, please see NOTES.WIN.
+
+
+ OpenSSL uses the compiler to link programs and shared libraries
+ ---------------------------------------------------------------
+
+ OpenSSL's generated Makefile uses the C compiler command line to
+ link programs, shared libraries and dynamically loadable shared
+ objects.  Because of this, any linking option that's given to the
+ configuration scripts MUST be in a form that the compiler can accept.
+ This varies between systems, where some have compilers that accept
+ linker flags directly, while others take them in '-Wl,' form.  You need
+ to read your compiler documentation to figure out what is acceptable,
+ and ld(1) to figure out what linker options are available.
+
+
+ Shared libraries and installation in non-default locations
+ ----------------------------------------------------------
+
+ Every Unix system has its own set of default locations for shared
+ libraries, such as /lib, /usr/lib or possibly /usr/local/lib.  If
+ libraries are installed in non-default locations, dynamically linked
+ binaries will not find them and therefore fail to run, unless they get
+ a bit of help from a defined runtime shared library search path.
+
+ For OpenSSL's application (the 'openssl' command), our configuration
+ scripts do NOT generally set the runtime shared library search path for
+ you.  It's therefore advisable to set it explicitly when configuring,
+ unless the libraries are to be installed in directories that you know
+ to be in the default list.
+
+ Runtime shared library search paths are specified with different
+ linking options depending on operating system and versions thereof, and
+ are talked about differently in their respective documentation;
+ variations of RPATH are the most usual (note: ELF systems have two such
+ tags, more on that below).
+
+ Possible options to set the runtime shared library search path include
+ the following:
+
+    -Wl,-rpath,/whatever/path	# Linux, *BSD, etc.
+    -R /whatever/path		# Solaris
+    -Wl,-R,/whatever/path	# AIX (-bsvr4 is passed internally)
+    -Wl,+b,/whatever/path	# HP-UX
+    -rpath /whatever/path	# Tru64, IRIX
+
+ OpenSSL's configuration scripts recognise all these options and pass
+ them to the Makefile that they build. (In fact, all arguments starting
+ with '-Wl,' are recognised as linker options.)
+
+ Please do not use verbatim directories in your runtime shared library
+ search path!  Some OpenSSL config targets add an extra directory level
+ for multilib installations.  To help with that, the produced Makefile
+ includes the variable LIBRPATH, which is a convenience variable to be
+ used with the runtime shared library search path options, as shown in
+ this example:
+
+    $ ./Configure --prefix=/usr/local/ssl --openssldir=/usr/local/ssl \
+        '-Wl,-rpath,$(LIBRPATH)'
+
+ On modern ELF based systems, there are two runtime search paths tags to
+ consider, DT_RPATH and DT_RUNPATH.  Shared objects are searched for in
+ this order:
+
+    1. Using directories specified in DT_RPATH, unless DT_RUNPATH is
+       also set.
+    2. Using the environment variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH
+    3. Using directories specified in DT_RUNPATH.
+    4. Using system shared object caches and default directories.
+
+ This means that the values in the environment variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH
+ won't matter if the library is found in the paths given by DT_RPATH
+ (and DT_RUNPATH isn't set).
+
+ Exactly which of DT_RPATH or DT_RUNPATH is set by default appears to
+ depend on the system.  For example, according to documentation,
+ DT_RPATH appears to be deprecated on Solaris in favor of DT_RUNPATH,
+ while on Debian GNU/Linux, either can be set, and DT_RPATH is the
+ default at the time of writing.
+
+ How to choose which runtime search path tag is to be set depends on
+ your system, please refer to ld(1) for the exact information on your
+ system.  As an example, the way to ensure the DT_RUNPATH is set on
+ Debian GNU/Linux systems rather than DT_RPATH is to tell the linker to
+ set new dtags, like this:
+
+    $ ./Configure --prefix=/usr/local/ssl --openssldir=/usr/local/ssl \
+        '-Wl,--enable-new-dtags,-rpath,$(LIBRPATH)'
+
+ It might be worth noting that some/most ELF systems implement support
+ for runtime search path relative to the directory containing current
+ executable, by interpreting $ORIGIN along with some other internal
+ variables. Consult your system documentation.
+
+ Linking your application
+ ------------------------
+
+ Third-party applications dynamically linked with OpenSSL (or any other)
+ shared library face exactly the same problem with non-default locations.
+ The OpenSSL config options mentioned above might or might not have bearing
+ on linking of the target application. "Might" means that under some
+ circumstances it would be sufficient to link with OpenSSL shared library
+ "naturally", i.e. with -L/whatever/path -lssl -lcrypto. But there are
+ also cases when you'd have to explicitly specify runtime search path
+ when linking your application. Consult your system documentation and use
+ above section as inspiration...
+
+ Shared OpenSSL builds also install static libraries. Linking with the
+ latter is likely to require special care, because linkers usually look
+ for shared libraries first and tend to remain "blind" to static OpenSSL
+ libraries. Referring to system documentation would suffice, if not for
+ a corner case. On AIX static libraries (in shared build) are named
+ differently, add _a suffix to link with them, e.g. -lcrypto_a.