openssh unix dev - Nov 2014 - [BUG] openssh portable configure script disrespects/mispositions user's LDFLAGS

hello. when trying to add a custom -l flag thats needed for my setup, i 
noticed that

1) openssh's configure script ignores LDFLAGS passed via environment 
variables. this is contrary to the expectation of the user and to the 
behaviour of 99% of autoconf based packages.

2) the LDFLAGS passed via the special --with-ldflags options are not 
used in the last place on the command line, rendering any -l flags 
passed unfunctional, because the .c file is passed as last element. that 
way user passed libraries cannot satisfy missing link dependencies 
because for static libraries the order on the command line is crucial.
example: if i use
--with-ldflags=-lfoo
the configure tests will look like
gcc -lfoo conftest.c and thus references of conftest.c to symbols in 
libfoo.a not satisfied.

that makes it impossible to feed missing libraries manually into the 
build process without patching the configure script. (in my case the 
library i want to inject into the build process is related to the stack 
protector feature of gcc, but there are plenty of other uses, for 
example when trying to use a static linked openssl/libressl which 
depends on libz.a or similar).


--JS

John Spencer wrote:
> 1) openssh's configure script ignores LDFLAGS passed via environment 
> variables. this is contrary to the expectation of the user and to the 
> behaviour of 99% of autoconf based packages.
>
> 2) the LDFLAGS passed via the special --with-ldflags options are not used 
> in the last place on the command line,
Does LIBS work?


//Peter