How to compile OpenSSL on Windows?

Question

I have been following the instructions in the OpenSSL User Guide, which links to a guide by 3noch for compiling OpenSSL. Here are the tools/versions I am using:

• ActiveState Perl v5.20.2
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2012
• Netwide Assembler (NASM) v2.12.02
• OpenSSL 1.0.2j (source tarball)

Following the instructions, I am able to execute the following commands without issue:

perl Configure VC-WIN32 --prefix=C:\Build-OpenSSL-VC-32
ms\do_ms

Then, when I go on to execute

nmake -f ms\nt.mak

I receive the following

 Assembling: tmp32\sha1-586.asm
tmp32\sha1-586.asm(1432) : error A2070:invalid instruction operands
tmp32\sha1-586.asm(1576) : error A2070:invalid instruction operands
NMAKE : fatal error U1077: '"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0
\VC\BIN\ml.EXE"' : return code '0x1'
Stop.

After looking into that issue, I found a blog post by HostageBrain that mentions that exact error, stating to use nasm to perform the compiling. So, I switched to this command sequence:

perl Configure VC-WIN32 --prefix=C:\Build-OpenSSL-VC-32
ms\do_nasm
nmake -f ms\nt.mak

However, once switching to the NASM variation, I receive the following errors:

tmp32\sha1-586.asm:1: error: parser: instruction expected
tmp32\sha1-586.asm:2: error: parser: instruction expected
tmp32\sha1-586.asm:3: error: parser: instruction expected
tmp32\sha1-586.asm:4: warning: label alone on a line without a colon might be in error
tmp32\sha1-586.asm:5: warning: label alone on a line without a colon might be in error
tmp32\sha1-586.asm:6: warning: label alone on a line without a colon might be in error
tmp32\sha1-586.asm:7: error: symbol `IF' redefined
tmp32\sha1-586.asm:7: error: parser: instruction expected
tmp32\sha1-586.asm:8: error: parser: instruction expected
tmp32\sha1-586.asm:9: error: comma expected after operand 1

What I am looking for is to be able to compile OpenSSL into .lib files that I can then link to from other C++ projects, such as when compiling FreeTDS.

Answer 1

On the same my blog page which you refer I also describe 'no-asm' case - this case is simpler for compiling (it won't require nasm at all), but drawback is - some algorithms performance will be 2x-4x slower than assembler versions. If your case can accept this performance - try to compile 'no-asm' case.

perl Configure VC-WIN32 no-asm --prefix=C:\Build-OpenSSL-VC-32