Apache + mod_ssl build not linking to my OpenSSL build

I have spent some time searching online but none of what I found seems to help.

I’m running CentOS 6 64bit and would like to compile Apache with mod_ssl and need to link it to my own OpenSSL build (which is newer than the OS provided version).

OpenSSL 1.1.0i is configured with:

./config --prefix=/opt/openssl-1.1.0 --openssldir=/opt/openssl-1.1.0 shared

Apache 2.4 is configured with:

./configure --enable-layout=mycustomlayout 
    --prefix=/opt/httpd-2.4.34 
    --exec-prefix=/opt/httpd-2.4.34 
    --with-mpm=prefork 
    --enable-so 
    --enable-ssl 
    --with-ssl=/opt/openssl-1.1.0 
    --enable-cgi 
    --enable-http2 
    --enable-proxy-http2 
    --with-included-apr

It appears to compile just fine but mod_ssl isn’t aware of where OpenSSL 1.1.0 is installed:

[root@host .libs]# ldd ./mod_ssl.so | grep -iP 'ssl|crypto'
    libssl.so.1.1 => not found
    libcrypto.so.1.1 => not found

And so only works when you explicitly tell it where to look:

[root@host .libs]# export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/openssl-1.1.0/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
[root@host .libs]# ldd ./mod_ssl.so | grep -iP 'ssl|crypto'
    libssl.so.1.1 => /opt/openssl-1.1.0/lib/libssl.so.1.1 (0x00007f069149a000)
    libcrypto.so.1.1 => /opt/openssl-1.1.0/lib/libcrypto.so.1.1 (0x00007f069100a000)

Even building mod_ssl statically into httpd binary with --enable-mods-static=ssl doesn’t help.

I tried --enable-ssl, --enable-ssl --enable-ssl-staticlib-deps, and --enable-ssl --enable-ssl-staticlib-deps --enable-mods-static=ssl and still the same result:

    libssl.so.1.1 => not found
    libcrypto.so.1.1 => not found

Also tried, without luck, setting these variables before ./configure:

export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/opt/openssl-1.1.0/lib/pkgconfig:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH 
       LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/openssl-1.1.0/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH 
       LDFLAGS="-L/opt/openssl-1.1.0/lib"

I know I can just add to /etc/ld.so.conf.d to autoload the new OpenSSL library or adjust Apache’s init script to add to LD_LIBRARY_PATH but I’d much prefer to have it working properly, have the program where to look for libssl.so / libcrypto.so, just like my PHP build:

[root@host php]# export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/opt/openssl-1.1.0/lib/pkgconfig:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH 
       LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/openssl-1.1.0/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH 
       LDFLAGS="-L/opt/openssl-1.1.0/lib" 
       PHP_PREFIX=/opt/php-7.2.9 
       EXTENSION_DIR=$PHP_PREFIX/usr/lib64/php/modules
[root@host php]# ./configure […] 
    --with-imap=shared 
    --with-imap-ssl 
    --with-openssl=shared 
    --with-openssl-dir=/opt/openssl-1.1.0/bin

[root@host php]# make
[root@host php]# unset PKG_CONFIG_PATH LD_LIBRARY_PATH LDFLAGS

[root@host modules]# ldd ./openssl.so | grep -iP 'ssl|crypto'
    libssl.so.1.1 => /opt/openssl-1.1.0/lib/libssl.so.1.1 (0x00007fc2220a6000)
    libcrypto.so.1.1 => /opt/openssl-1.1.0/lib/libcrypto.so.1.1 (0x00007fc221c17000)

What am I doing wrong? Could this be a bug?

-Bstatic -lssl -lcrypto