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+.. % $Id: installing.rst,v 1.15 2011/07/24 19:00:53 stroeder Exp $
+
+***********************
+Building and installing
+***********************
+
+python-ldap is built and installed using the Python DistUtils installed
+along with your Python installation:
+
+::
+
+  python setup.py build
+  python setup.py install
+
+If you have more than one Python interpreter installed locally you should
+use the same one you plan to use python-ldap with.
+
+See further instructions for using DistUtils here: http://docs.python.org/install/index.html
+
+Prerequisites
+=============
+
+The following software packages are required to be installed
+on the local system when building python-ldap:
+
+- Python version 2.3 or later including its development files: http://www.python.org/
+- OpenLDAP client libs version 2.4.11 or later: http://www.openldap.org/
+  It is not possible and not supported to build with prior versions.
+- OpenSSL (optional): http://www.openssl.org/
+- cyrus-sasl (optional): http://www.cyrussasl.org
+- Kerberos libs, MIT or heimdal (optional)
+
+Furthermore some sub-modules of :py:mod:`ldap.controls` and :py:mod:`ldap.extop`
+require :py:mod:`pyasn1` and :py:mod:`pyasn1_modules` to be installed.
+
+  http://pyasn1.sf.net
+
+
+setup.cfg
+=========
+
+The file setup.cfg allows to set some build and installation
+parameters for reflecting the local installation of required
+software packages. Only section [_ldap] is described here.
+More information about other sections can be found in the
+documentation of Python's DistUtils.
+
+.. data:: library_dirs
+
+   Specifies in which directories to search for required libraries.
+
+.. data:: include_dirs
+
+   Specifies in which directories to search for include files of required libraries.
+
+.. data:: libs
+
+   A space-separated list of library names to link to (see :ref:`libs-used-label`).
+
+.. data:: extra_compile_args
+
+   Compiler options.
+
+.. data:: extra_objects
+
+.. _libs-used-label:
+
+Libs used
+---------
+
+.. data:: ldap
+.. data:: ldap_r
+
+   The LDAP protocol library of OpenLDAP. ldap_r is the reentrant version
+   and should be preferred.
+
+.. data:: lber
+
+   The BER encoder/decoder library of OpenLDAP.
+
+.. data:: sasl2
+
+   The Cyrus-SASL library if needed and present during build
+
+.. data:: ssl
+
+   The SSL/TLS library of OpenSSL if needed and present during build
+
+.. data:: crypto
+
+   The basic cryptographic library of OpenSSL if needed and present during build
+
+Example
+=============
+
+The following example is for a full-featured build (including SSL and SASL support)
+of python-ldap with OpenLDAP installed in a different prefix directory
+(here /opt/openldap-2.3) and SASL header files found in /usr/include/sasl.
+Debugging symbols are preserved with compile option -g.
+
+::
+
+  [_ldap]
+  library_dirs = /opt/openldap-2.3/lib
+  include_dirs = /opt/openldap-2.3/include /usr/include/sasl
+
+  extra_compile_args = -g
+  extra_objects =
+
+  libs = ldap_r lber sasl2 ssl crypto
+