diff --git a/configure.in b/configure.in
index cc4160f4f4dc69d0569238d1da6d069c0fca8362..effe2ee80e24153a0bc38168c190fe04303e69ab 100644
--- a/configure.in
+++ b/configure.in
@@ -437,7 +437,7 @@ AC_HEADER_STDC
 #
 dnl ** check for specific header (.h) files that we are interested in
 #
-AC_CHECK_HEADERS(dirent.h fcntl.h grp.h malloc.h memory.h nlist.h pwd.h siginfo.h signal.h stdlib.h string.h sys/fault.h sys/file.h sys/mman.h sys/param.h sys/procfs.h sys/resource.h sys/signal.h sys/socket.h sys/stat.h sys/syscall.h sys/time.h sys/timeb.h sys/timers.h sys/times.h sys/types.h sys/utsname.h sys/vadvise.h sys/wait.h termios.h time.h types.h unistd.h utime.h vfork.h readline/readline.h )
+AC_CHECK_HEADERS(dirent.h fcntl.h grp.h malloc.h memory.h nlist.h pwd.h siginfo.h signal.h stdlib.h string.h sys/fault.h sys/file.h sys/mman.h sys/param.h sys/procfs.h sys/resource.h sys/signal.h sys/socket.h sys/stat.h sys/syscall.h sys/time.h sys/timeb.h sys/timers.h sys/times.h sys/types.h sys/utsname.h sys/vadvise.h sys/wait.h termios.h time.h types.h unistd.h utime.h vfork.h readline/readline.h bfd.h)
 
 #
 dnl ** check if it is safe to include both <time.h> and <sys/time.h>
@@ -481,6 +481,11 @@ dnl ** check whether this machine has GMP 2.0 installed
 AC_CHECK_LIB(gmp, mpz_fdiv_qr, HaveLibGmp=YES, HaveLibGmp=NO)
 AC_SUBST(HaveLibGmp)
 
+#
+dnl ** check whether this machine has BFD installed (used for debugging)
+#
+AC_CHECK_LIB(bfd, bfd_init)
+
 #
 # Misc
 #