Quickstart Build Error Linux "Cannot find OpenSSL" #260
Description
TLDR
- Followed quickstart guide
- Build fails with "Cannot find OPEN_SSL_DIR" despite having openssl installed using apt.
- Fixed by exporting proper envvars to openssl path. Longterm fix update bash profile to export envvars.
💻 Environment
- Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS
- cargo 1.88.0 (873a06493 2025-05-10)
- rustc 1.88.0 (6b00bc388 2025-06-23)
📝 Details
Rust/Cargo cannot find OpenSSL library and fails to compile.
🔢 Code to reproduce bug
Follow quickstart on a Linux machine that doesn't configure the OPENSSL_DIR envvar.
Solution
I recommend updating the readme.
Update your bash/zsh profile to export the envvars.
For example, I updated my ~/.zshenv with
export OPENSSL_DIR=/usr
export OPENSSL_INCLUDE_DIR=/usr/include
export OPENSSL_LIB_DIR=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/pkgconfig