If you've ever compiled PHP from source (any version) you may be familiar with the [in]famous MCRYPT_BLOWFISH_128 compilation error that appears when you attempt to compile --with-mcrypt. It occurs often on Debian but not only there. The problem: during compilation, the PHP configure script always assumes that libmcrypt has been built in conjunction with libltdl. Whenever that is not the case, PHP compilation will fail later saying certain headers (such as the above blowfish example) are missing from mcrypt.h (which is misleading, they're not supposed to be there nor looked after if libltdl was properly involved). Solution: make sure your libmcrypt was linked against libltdl before you even start configuring PHP. You can check by running 'ldd lybmcrypt.so' and verifying that libltdl appears in the output. libltdl can be found in libltld[3][-dev] on Debian or in libtool-libs on Red Hat.