Mac OSX users: update openssl. Also: openssl built-in to Mac OSX is different than brew version

If you use openssl on Mac OSX to maintain certs, etc, you should keep it up-to-date.

Worth knowing, courtesy of a comment by Gordon Davisson on THIS Stackoverflow question

…the major problem isn’t the openssl command, it’s the openssl libraries (which are used by other programs) — those aren’t API compatible between versions 0.9.x and 1.0.x, so you do not want to update the system-supplied openssl libraries!

Here’s how you get the latest openssl from brew. First, make sure you have brew installed and updated (per brew.sh):

If you already have brew installed, the output of that command will tell you.

OK, at this point you have brew installed. Then, update brew and update openssl:

If your brew is somehow broken, this command will give you lame messages. To fix, you can try “brew doctor”. (Once I resorted to simply re-installing brew. I ran the “brew install” command, which said “brew is already installed”, and then told me how to uninstall. I uninstalled, then ran the brew install again.)

Be aware that /usr/bin will probably be first on your path, so if you want to use the latest openssl you will have to explicitly request it with the fully qualified path name.

And also be aware that brew does not yet have openssl v1.0.2f, which includes the fix for CVE-2016-0701.


One thought on “Mac OSX users: update openssl. Also: openssl built-in to Mac OSX is different than brew version

  1. Becca Clark Reply

    Thank you!! It worked. Been struggling with this one for a while now.

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