use ${OPENSSL_LIBS} instead of -lssl -lcrypto This made the difference between segfaulting and not segfaulting for me when I run https-client, when I've built libevent using an OpenSSL in a non-standard location. In the same spirit as 1d9d5110a4aebf5833f6fd78bd0252affde0f4d0 and d70af27d0152d0a87a25127faf215604beb8ffe0.