Most users who realize that INSTALL files still exist should simply follow the directions at https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-doc-unix If you got the source from git, run "./autogen.sh", which will run the various auto* programs. Then you can run ./configure, and refer to the above instructions. If it doesn't build for you: If you have problems finding libraries, try CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include" LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/lib" \ ./configure or ./configure --with-libevent-dir=/usr/local rather than simply ./configure. If you have mysterious autoconf failures while linking openssl, consider setting your LD_LIBRARY_PATH to the openssl lib directory. For example, "setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH /usr/athena/lib". Lastly, check out https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq#DoesntWork How to do static builds of tor: Tor supports linking each of the libraries it needs statically. Use the --enable-static-X ./configure option in conjunction with the --with-X-dir option for libevent, zlib, and openssl. For this to work sanely, libevent should be built with --disable-shared --enable-static --with-pic, and OpenSSL should be built with no-shared no-dso. If you need to build tor so that system libraries are also statically linked, use the --enable-static-tor ./configure option. This won't work on OS X unless you build the required crt0.o yourself. It is also incompatible with the --enable-gcc-hardening option. An example of how to build a mostly static tor: ./configure --enable-static-libevent \ --enable-static-openssl \ --enable-static-zlib \ --with-libevent-dir=/tmp/static-tor/libevent-1.4.14b-stable \ --with-openssl-dir=/tmp/static-tor/openssl-0.9.8r/ \ --with-zlib-dir=/tmp/static-tor/zlib-1.2.5 An example of how to build an entirely static tor: ./configure --enable-static-tor \ --with-libevent-dir=/tmp/static-tor/libevent-1.4.14b-stable \ --with-openssl-dir=/tmp/static-tor/openssl-0.9.8r/ \ --with-zlib-dir=/tmp/static-tor/zlib-1.2.5