LibMcrypt and Mcrypt and Mhash - OH MY!

I've beaten my head against the desk repeatedly, RTFM'ing until my eyes are sore, the boss is still at my back.. and I'm completely lost. I'd love to grok intricacies of compiling C code and setting environment variables.. but I am dead once February 15th rolls around and may have to find another job soon. All I'm trying to do is get an OpenBSD 3.6 box with the following components installed: MySQL 4.1 (or 5.0.2) Apache 2 Mcrypt Mhash Libmcrypt PHP OpenSSL And that's it. Nothing fancy, just something that is highly secure and easy to lock down to 2 ports. I've gotten a bunch of shell scripts written up for each portion of the install.. most of them are ./configure -prefix=/usr/local/(program name) with the configuration files in the conf directory for each. I'm currently hung up on Mcrypt. It's a total monster! It's a key component in so many programs and libraries, and yet Googl'ing news groups, checking out the main site for them, and going through the config.log files I can't understand a darn thing anyone is saying. I'm an intro PHP fella.. I can tie into databases, loop through if statements, store images, handle usernames and passwords.. but encryption is something completely alien to me. I've done ASP before and installing the packages may not be as secure/customizable/reliable/intelligent.. it involved double-clicking and maybe doing something in DOS like adding a "-v" at the end. Don't get me wrong, I'd kindly RTFM and leave the vicious cerebral types be, but I don't have that luxury. Surely someone else out there has experienced something like this before and can bestow a nugget of wisdom upon me. Steven Altsman Webmaster and Program Analyst EFast Funding, LLC. 713.983.4069 - work 832.527.3786 - cell saltsman@efastfunding.com "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)