HOW TO: Build Libsodium from source on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

Introduction and Summary:

Shadowsocks supports various ciphers that require the LibSodium plug-in, like CHACHA20-IETF-POLY1305.  Some Linux server repositories do not have the package or if they do, the packages might be old since the server and client are under constant development.  These commands will help to download and build the latest Libsodium plug-in from source.

WARNING: The build from source version of libsodium CANNOT exist on the same server with the packages installed from APT sources.  Shadowsocks will often fail to load the ciphers properly and you will get errors.  If you have installed both the APT and the source-code versions of libsodium, remove the APT version with a command like sudo apt remove libsodium

Prerequisites:

• Linux Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Server
• Console Access
• Root level permissions
• The following Ubuntu packages (some might be obsolete or unnecessary, send me a message if you discover an improvement): build-essential autoconf automake libtool git 

Instructions:

When logged into the server, run the following commands:

cd /tmp
git clone https://github.com/jedisct1/libsodium.git
cd libsodium
git submodule update --init --recursive && ./autogen.sh
./configure
make
sudo make install
cd ..
rm libsodium -r -f

NOTE: The entire set of commands can be chained together in one long command:
cd /tmp && git clone https://github.com/jedisct1/libsodium.git && cd libsodium && git submodule update --init --recursive && ./autogen.sh && ./configure && make && sudo make install && cd .. && rm libsodium -r -f

Blog Formatting Guide:

• Commands written in Consolas in BLUE are LOCAL Client Shell Commands (I'm running an Ubuntu local client)
• Commands written in Consolas in RED are REMOTE Server Shell Commands (usually in SSH)
• All commands in BOLD are CUSTOM user variables that your should change for your configuration.

Helpful References, for Shadowsocks:

Shadowsocks-libev on Github
Simple-obfs on Github
Libsodium on Github