aclocal and automake Automake includes a number of Autoconf macros which can be used in packages; some of them are actually required by Automake in certain situations. These macros must be defined in the aclocal.m4-file; otherwise they will not be seen by autoconf. The aclocal program will automatically generate aclocal.m4 files based on the contents of configure.in. This provides a convenient way to get Automake-provided macros, without having to search around. Also, the aclocal mechanism is extensible for use by other packages. To create all the Makefile.in's for a package, run the automake program in the top level directory, with no arguments. automake will automatically find each appropriate Makefile.am (by scanning configure.in) and generate the corresponding Makefile.in.