Resolve: Your web-server does not have the mcrypt module installed. Without it, encryption will be a lot slower.

Resolve: Your web-server does not have the mcrypt module installed. Without it, encryption will be a lot slower.

(How to install mcrypt in an Ubuntu server)

I have installed UpdraftPlus in order to manage backups of the site. The downside is they seem to be moving towards having you buy addons for a lot of the functionality but for now it gets the job done and it is a very complete plugin. One of the big issues I am facing with it though is that the message “Your web-server does not have the mcrypt module installed. Without it, encryption will be a lot slower.” keeps popping up. I am sure I have installed and re-installed mcrypt several times but still no dice so I finally figured out what was wrong:

The installation of mcrypt does not link the apache php (runtime?) to mcrypt. So follow this simple instructions to install mcrypt and make sure it is linked correctly:

1. Install mcrypt by running the following command: apt-get install php5-mcrypt
2. Make sure the following file exists: /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/mcrypt.ini
3. If the file is missing, you can copy it from: /etc/php5/cli/conf.d/mcrypt.ini or /etc/php5/conf.d/mcrypt.ini
4. If you need to re-install mcrypt you can do so with this command: apt-get –reinstall install php5-mcrypt
5. Don’t forget to restart apache: sudo service apache2 restart

If for some reason you can’t find mcrypt.ini anywhere, you can create the file with the following text inside of it:

; configuration for php MCrypt module

extension=mcrypt.so

Consider also creating a symbolic link if you want to keep your settings in sync:

ln -s /etc/php5/conf.d/mcrypt.ini /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/mcrypt.ini