Downloading and installing OpenSSL

We have now learned enough about the building blocks of symmetric encryption. It is time to use our knowledge to encrypt some data using OpenSSL, but first, we need to get the required components of OpenSSL.

The OpenSSL toolkit is distributed from its official website (https://www.openssl.org/) in the form of source code. If you are a software developer, you can compile OpenSSL using the documentation supplied with the source code. Compiling OpenSSL from the source is the preferred way if you want a particular version of OpenSSL or want to compile it with specific options.

You can also get OpenSSL in a compiled form. Almost all Linux distributions contain OpenSSL in the form of one or several installable packages. For example, in order to install OpenSSL on Debian or Ubuntu Linux, you only need to issue one command:

$ sudo apt install openssl libssl3 libssl-dev libssl-doc

Another Linux distribution may use a different command, but for...