Advanced Usage

Notes for Advanced Usage of libsasl

Using Cyrus SASL as a static library

As of v2.0.2-ALPHA, Cyrus SASL supports the option to compile all of the supported mechanisms and glue code into a single static library that may be linked into any application. In practice, this saves memory by avoiding the need to have a jump table for each process’s reference into the shared library, and ensures that all the mechanisms are loaded when the application loads (thus reducing the overhead of loading the DSOs).

However, this is not a recommended procedure to use in general. It loses the flexibility of the DSOs that allow one to simply drop in a new mechanism that even currently-running applications will see for each new connection. That is, if you choose to use the static version of the library, not only will you need to recompile the library each time you add a mechanism (provided the mechanisms even support being compiled staticly), but you will need to recompile every application that uses Cyrus SASL as well.

However, if you are sure you wish to use a static version of Cyrus SASL, compile it by giving configure the --enable-static option. This will compile both a dynamic and a static version. Then, whenever an application links to libsasl, it will also need to explicitly pull in any dynamic libraries that may be needed by Cyrus SASL. Most notably, these might include the GSSAPI, Kerberos, and Database libraries. To avoid compiling the dynamic version, pass --disable-shared.