diff --git a/package/c-icap/Config.in b/package/c-icap/Config.in
index 8f7963c26a..3c1325ee39 100644
--- a/package/c-icap/Config.in
+++ b/package/c-icap/Config.in
@@ -3,6 +3,9 @@ config BR2_PACKAGE_C_ICAP
 	depends on !BR2_STATIC_LIBS
 	depends on BR2_TOOLCHAIN_HAS_THREADS
 	depends on BR2_USE_MMU # fork()
+	# the libmemcached code uses <crypt.h>
+	select BR2_PACKAGE_LIBXCRYPT if \
+	       BR2_PACKAGE_LIBMEMCACHED && BR2_TOOLCHAIN_USES_GLIBC
 	help
 	  c-icap is an implementation of an ICAP server. It can be
 	  used with HTTP proxies that support the ICAP protocol to
diff --git a/package/c-icap/c-icap.mk b/package/c-icap/c-icap.mk
index 36ef1c8b12..4ece4c4b26 100644
--- a/package/c-icap/c-icap.mk
+++ b/package/c-icap/c-icap.mk
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ endif
 
 ifeq ($(BR2_PACKAGE_LIBMEMCACHED),y)
 C_ICAP_CONF_OPTS += --with-memcached
-C_ICAP_DEPENDENCIES += libmemcached
+C_ICAP_DEPENDENCIES += libmemcached $(if $(BR2_PACKAGE_LIBXCRYPT),libxcrypt)
 else
 C_ICAP_CONF_OPTS += --without-memcached
 endif