Configured with:
./configure --with-mysql --with-apache=../apache_1.3.26 --enable-track-vars
make, make install produce no fatal errors.

sapi/modules/apache copied over to src/modules/php4
(which I had to mkdir manually- not actually mentioned in docs that this had to be done or be named php4 vs php)..

when configuring apache 1.3.26 via mod_ssl-2.8.10, 
./configure 
  --with-apache=../apache_1.3.26
  --with-ssl=../open_ssl-0.9.6e
  --activate-module=src/modules/php4/libphp4.a
  --activate-module=src/modules/perl/libperl.a
  --enable-module=php4 --enable-module=perl
  --enable-module=ssl --enable-shared=ssl
  --enable-module=so

...and the test-make fails because it can't find -lmodphp4.
This became a many-houred hair-pulling event since libmodphp4.a or .so could not be found as a file, and references to it were in the php configure scripts.

Final solution idea came from http://www.iodbc.org/iodbc-phposxHOWTO.html which mentioned:
"If you get an error that libmodphp4.a is out of date:
cd src/modules/php4 
ranlib libmodphp4.a
"

Sure enough, I ranlib'd where specified, and the file was created with abosultely no fanfare, and configuration via mod_ssl continued, completed, and everything was happy ever more. Except me, I lost 4 hours of sleep.

Since what I suspect the real problem is, is that the changes made to the apache configure template APACI thing made by php got trounced by mod_ssl, and so when apache builds everything, it has no directives to build libmodphp4.

Could it not be built when php builds? Could php's mucking with the apache configure be changed so that this kind of trouncing doesn't happen? Would it really hurt to mention this kinda stuff in the documentation? It *would* help if the online docs pages weren't a disorganized forum of install tribulations.

-Tony, otherwise known as Cryptomancer