Looking to build the latest cURL from the source?

cURL shipped with the OS may not be up-to-date, and if you need the newest version for a particular requirement, then you need to build from the source.

Lately, I was testing HTTP/3 using cURL with the default shipped version on CentOS, but that didn’t work. BTW, there are more you can do with cURL.

[[email protected] ~]# curl --version
curl 7.29.0 (x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.29.0 NSS/3.44 zlib/1.2.7 libidn/1.28 libssh2/1.8.0
Protocols: dict file ftp ftps gopher http https imap imaps ldap ldaps pop3 pop3s rtsp scp sftp smtp smtps telnet tftp 
Features: AsynchDNS GSS-Negotiate IDN IPv6 Largefile NTLM NTLM_WB SSL libz unix-sockets 
[[email protected] ~]#

However, the latest cURL version (7.67) supports HTTP/3. So, I had only one option – build from the source. This is just one example; you may have some other requirements.

The following example is for 7.67 (latest as I write) on CentOS 8.x and Ubuntu 20.x. But the procedure remains the same for any other version.

Prerequisite

Let’s get the required dependencies installed.

  • Update the system. Though this is optional, I prefer doing so. I always have up-to-date installed packages.
yum update -y
  • Installing the required packages
yum install wget gcc openssl-devel -y
  • Download the latest cURL source – you can refer to their official download page to know the latest version.
wget https://curl.haxx.se/download/curl-7.67.0.tar.gz
  • Extract the downloaded gz file
gunzip -c curl-7.67.0.tar.gz | tar xvf -

It would create a new folder on the present working directory

Building cURL on CentOS/RHEL

Once you’ve downloaded and extracted the latest cURL, it’s time to build them.

  • Go inside the newly created folder after extraction
cd curl-7.67.0
  • Configure with SSL as below
./configure --with-ssl
  • You will see output something like below.
configure: Configured to build curl/libcurl:

  Host setup:       x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
  Install prefix:   /usr/local
  Compiler:         gcc
   CFLAGS:          -Werror-implicit-function-declaration -O2 -Wno-system-headers -pthread
   CPPFLAGS:        
   LDFLAGS:         
   LIBS:            -lssl -lcrypto -lssl -lcrypto -lz

  curl version:     7.67.0
  SSL:              enabled (OpenSSL)
  SSH:              no      (--with-libssh2)
  zlib:             enabled
  brotli:           no      (--with-brotli)
  GSS-API:          no      (--with-gssapi)
  TLS-SRP:          no      (--enable-tls-srp)
  resolver:         POSIX threaded
  IPv6:             enabled
  Unix sockets:     enabled
  IDN:              no      (--with-{libidn2,winidn})
  Build libcurl:    Shared=yes, Static=yes
  Built-in manual:  enabled
  --libcurl option: enabled (--disable-libcurl-option)
  Verbose errors:   enabled (--disable-verbose)
  Code coverage:    disabled
  SSPI:             no      (--enable-sspi)
  ca cert bundle:   /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt
  ca cert path:     no
  ca fallback:      no
  LDAP:             no      (--enable-ldap / --with-ldap-lib / --with-lber-lib)
  LDAPS:            no      (--enable-ldaps)
  RTSP:             enabled
  RTMP:             no      (--with-librtmp)
  Metalink:         no      (--with-libmetalink)
  PSL:              no      (libpsl not found)
  Alt-svc:          no      (--enable-alt-svc)
  HTTP2:            disabled (--with-nghttp2)
  HTTP3:            disabled (--with-ngtcp2, --with-quiche)
  ESNI:             no      (--enable-esni)
  Protocols:        DICT FILE FTP FTPS GOPHER HTTP HTTPS IMAP IMAPS POP3 POP3S RTSP SMB SMBS SMTP SMTPS TELNET TFTP
  Features:         SSL IPv6 UnixSockets libz AsynchDNS NTLM NTLM_WB HTTPS-proxy
  • Let’s install them
make
make install

It will take a few seconds to complete, and once done; you can verify the version to ensure it has installed successfully.

Building cURL on Ubuntu

I assume you have downloaded the latest version as explained in the prerequisite section.

  • Go to the folder where the downloaded cURL is extracted
  • Install the dependencies
apt-get install -y binutils-common binutils make
  • If you don’t have the above dependencies (binutils) installed then you may get the following error.
configure: error: ar not found in PATH. Cannot continue without ar.
  • And, it’s time to build now with the configure command.
./configure --with-ssl
  • If no error from the above execution, then finally install with the make command.
make 
make install

That’s all!

Verification

Use --version to see the version details.

# curl --version
curl 7.67.0 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.67.0 OpenSSL/1.0.2k-fips zlib/1.2.7
Release-Date: 2019-11-06
Protocols: dict file ftp ftps gopher http https imap imaps pop3 pop3s rtsp smb smbs smtp smtps telnet tftp
Features: AsynchDNS HTTPS-proxy IPv6 Largefile libz NTLM NTLM_WB SSL UnixSockets
#

Conclusion

You see, its easy when you have the steps. I hope this helps you install cURL from the source.