Command explanations mv doc/apps/passwd.pod doc/apps/openssl-passwd.pod : We do this because otherwise openssl installs it's passwd man page over the existing system one which isn't what we want. make MANDIR=/usr/share/man make MANDIR=/usr/share/man install These commands install openssl with the man pages in /usr/share/man instead of the default which is /etc/ssl/man. rmdir /etc/ssl/lib : This is simply a tidy-up command. For some reason, the openssl install routine creates the /etc/ssl/lib directory even though the libraries have been installed in /usr/lib. We remove it to keep things nice and tidy!