libcrypto.a located inside /hbb_shlib/lib64 is not compiled with -fPIC

[PMarinov1994]

I am building a Python binary with the _ssl module. Python creates shared libraries which wrap functions of other libraries. With the _ssl module, the python script is building _ssl.cpython-313-x86_64-linux-gnu.so. When this shared library is created, it needs to be linked with libcrypto.a static library.

I use the environment from /hbb_shlib. The static libraries there should be compiled with -fPIC, but libcrypto.a is not.

I looked what is the cause and here is what I found:
image/variants/shlib.sh does not provide -fPIC for EXTRA_SHLIB_CFLAGS which in turn is used for SHLIB_CFLAGS.

When building the openSSL library inside image/build.sh:175 install_openssl(), the LIB_CFLAGS variable is set to SHLIB_CFLAGS (this variable does not contain -fPIC flag), which results in the libcrypto.a static library to not be usable in shared libraries.

Possible solutions:

1. Add -fPIC to image/variants/shlib.sh

activate_holy_build_box /hbb_shlib \
	"" \
	"-static-libstdc++" \
	"-fPIC" \
	"-fPIC" \  # <---- CHANGE
	"-static-libstdc++"

2. Change the build function of install_openssl (line 195 @ image/build.sh)

export LIB_CFLAGS="$SHLIB_CFLAGS" # <---- OLD LINE
export LIB_CFLAGS="$STATICLIB_CFLAGS" # <---- NEW LINE

Here is the build script that will trigger the error.

source /hbb_shlib/activate
curl -L -O https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.13.0/Python-3.13.0.tar.xz

tar -xf Python-3.13.0.tar.xz
cd Python-3.13.0

sed -i 's|-lssl -lcrypto|-lssl -lcrypto -lz -ldl|' configure
./configure --prefix=$PWD/_install --with-openssl=/hbb_shlib

make -j4

Let me know what you think :)