OpenSSL missing during ./configure. How to fix?

Yes, it's a mandatory step. You cannot remove OpenSSL from a program uses it, the same way you couldn't remove random engine parts from a car.

The OpenSSL library is usually already installed, but you have to install the header files. Depending on your Linux distribution, you'll need these packages:

• Red Hat, Fedora, CentOS - openssl-devel
• Debian, Ubuntu - libssl-dev
• Arch - openssl

_{Technically one could replace OpenSSL with, say, NSS, but that's not the point here.}

debian:

apt-get install libssl-dev

apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)

No, it isn't.

You can still compile nodejs with ./configure --without-ssl

This is showing up on Google for a problem that may come up with some installations - possibly links-g. I had the problem on Archlinux with links-utf8 and links-g-directfb.

Likely presentation:

checking OPENSSL_CFLAGS... 
checking OPENSSL_LIBS... -lssl -lcrypto 
checking for OpenSSL... no
configure: error: OpenSSL not found

Try this:

sed -i "/ac_cpp=/s/\$CPPFLAGS/\$CPPFLAGS -O2/" configure

Using this command before your ./configure step should fix it.

You must install openssl-devel in your OS with:

yum install openssl-devel.x86_64

./configure --with-tls

make install