--enable-static-tor cannot succeed
Build environment: CentOS v5.8/x86_64 with GCC v4.4.6.
Use of the --enable-static-tor cannot result in a successful build, at least not with GLibC v2.5.
Use of this flag causes the --static switch to be placed on the compiler command line when running tests from the configure script. So when the script tries to verify, say, a working libevent library, the test fails. Then the script falsely believes that the intended test (e.g. finding a linkable libevent lib) has failed. The actual failure is the inability to staticly link GLibC.
Here's as example:
$ gcc44 -o /tmp/conftest -static -I/home/rpmbuild/BUILD/tor-0.2.3.20-rc/dependencies/include -I${top_srcdir}/src/common -L/home/rpmbuild/BUILD/tor-0.2.3.20-rc/dependencies/lib -L/home/rpmbuild/BUILD/tor-0.2.3.20-rc/dependencies/lib /tmp/conftest.c -lpthread -ldl -lrt -levent
/home/rpmbuild/BUILD/tor-0.2.3.20-rc/dependencies/lib/libevent.a(evutil.o): In function test_for_getaddrinfo_hacks': /home/rpmbuild/BUILD/tor-0.2.3.20-rc/libevent-2.0.19-stable/evutil.c:1105: warning: Using 'getaddrinfo' in statically linked applications requires at runtime the shared libraries from the glibc version used for linking /home/rpmbuild/BUILD/tor-0.2.3.20-rc/dependencies/lib/libevent.a(evutil.o): In function evutil_unparse_protoname':
/home/rpmbuild/BUILD/tor-0.2.3.20-rc/libevent-2.0.19-stable/evutil.c:758: warning: Using 'getprotobynumber' in statically linked applications requires at runtime the shared libraries from the glibc version used for linking
/home/rpmbuild/BUILD/tor-0.2.3.20-rc/dependencies/lib/libevent.a(event.o): In function gettime': /home/rpmbuild/BUILD/tor-0.2.3.20-rc/libevent-2.0.19-stable/event.c:366: undefined reference to clock_gettime'
/home/rpmbuild/BUILD/tor-0.2.3.20-rc/dependencies/lib/libevent.a(event.o): In function detect_monotonic': /home/rpmbuild/BUILD/tor-0.2.3.20-rc/libevent-2.0.19-stable/event.c:336: undefined reference to clock_gettime'
Ouch! Guess it couldn't find a working libevent.a, right? Wrong!
What linker couldn't do is staticly link GLibC's runtime libraries. Remove that --static from the command line and the configure script's test succeeds in linking against the specified static libevent library.
Tor can be successfully linked against static zlib/openssl/libevent libraries but it cannot be staticly linked against gLibC. This makes --enable-static-tor pointless, a least for Linux builds.
Trac:
Username: tmpname0901