py 2.7.1 & openssl

[V N]

Thank you for your response. Here's some more information:

RHEL 5.3 / x86_64,  using gcc

I am now compiling openssl-1.0.0d using:
    ./config --prefix=/usr/local --openssldir=/usr/local/openssl -fPIC
shared threads zlib
I do have the logs for config, make and make install. There are no
errors in any of them. When I run make test, there are no errors
reported. And, the following files are created in /usr/local/lib64:
libssl.a, libssl.so, libcrypto.a, libcrypto.so.  Also, the binary
openssl is created in the bin directory.

When I compile Python, I do not get any errors. In fact, I am able to
import hashlib, ssl, md5  and
>>> hashlib.md5
<built-in function openssl_md5>

The issue is only with setup tools. I tried the following:

tar xzf bin/setuptools-0.6c11.tar.gz
cd setuptools-0.6c11
$PYHOME/bin/python setup.py build

I tried to see exactly what fails in the install:
sudo $PYHOME/bin/python setup.py install_lib  <== works fine
sudo $PYHOME/bin/python setup.py install_headers <== works fine
sudo $PYHOME/bin/python setup.py install_scripts <== get ERROR

  File "setup.py", line 94, in <module>
    scripts = scripts,
  File "/usr/local/Python-2.7.1/lib/python2.7/distutils/core.py", line
138, in setup
    ok = dist.parse_command_line()
  File "/export/home/vnori/setuptools-0.6c11/setuptools/dist.py", line
271, in parse_command_line
    result = _Distribution.parse_command_line(self)
  File "/usr/local/Python-2.7.1/lib/python2.7/distutils/dist.py", line
467, in parse_command_line
    args = self._parse_command_opts(parser, args)
  File "/export/home/vnori/setuptools-0.6c11/setuptools/dist.py", line
590, in _parse_command_opts
    nargs = _Distribution._parse_command_opts(self, parser, args)
  File "/usr/local/Python-2.7.1/lib/python2.7/distutils/dist.py", line
523, in _parse_command_opts
    cmd_class = self.get_command_class(command)
  File "/export/home/vnori/setuptools-0.6c11/setuptools/dist.py", line
395, in get_command_class
    self.cmdclass[command] = cmdclass = ep.load()
  File "/export/home/vnori/setuptools-0.6c11/pkg_resources.py", line
1954, in load
    entry = __import__(self.module_name, globals(),globals(),
['__name__'])
  File "/export/home/vnori/setuptools-0.6c11/setuptools/command/
install_scripts.py", line 3, in <module>
    from easy_install import get_script_args, sys_executable, chmod
  File "/export/home/vnori/setuptools-0.6c11/setuptools/command/
easy_install.py", line 12, in <module>
    import sys, os.path, zipimport, shutil, tempfile, zipfile, re,
stat, random
  File "/usr/local/Python-2.7.1/lib/python2.7/tempfile.py", line 34,
in <module>
    from random import Random as _Random
  File "/usr/local/Python-2.7.1/lib/python2.7/random.py", line 49, in
<module>
    import hashlib as _hashlib
  File "/usr/local/Python-2.7.1/lib/python2.7/hashlib.py", line 136,
in <module>
    globals()[__func_name] = __get_hash(__func_name)
  File "/usr/local/Python-2.7.1/lib/python2.7/hashlib.py", line 71, in
__get_builtin_constructor
    import _md5
ImportError: No module named _md5

Any idea(s)?