diff --git a/pkgs/development/tools/misc/universal-ctags/default.nix b/pkgs/development/tools/misc/universal-ctags/default.nix
index 2a77fc42602..eb51abe0321 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/tools/misc/universal-ctags/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/tools/misc/universal-ctags/default.nix
@@ -2,22 +2,25 @@
 
 stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
   name = "universal-ctags-${version}";
-  version = "2017-09-22";
+  version = "2018-01-05";
 
   src = fetchFromGitHub {
     owner = "universal-ctags";
     repo = "ctags";
-    rev = "b9537289952cc7b26526aaff3094599d714d1729";
-    sha256 = "1kbw9ycl2ddzpfs1v4rbqa4gdhw4inrisf4awyaxb7zxfxmbzk1g";
+    rev = "c66bdfb4db99977c1bd0568e33e60853a48dca65";
+    sha256 = "0fdzhr0704cj84ym00plkl5l9w83haal6i6w70lx6f4968pcliyi";
   };
 
   nativeBuildInputs = [ autoreconfHook pkgconfig pythonPackages.docutils ];
   buildInputs = stdenv.lib.optional stdenv.isDarwin libiconv;
 
+  # to generate makefile.in
   autoreconfPhase = ''
-    ./autogen.sh --tmpdir
+    ./autogen.sh
   '';
 
+  configureFlags = [ "--enable-tmpdir=/tmp" ];
+
   postConfigure = ''
     sed -i 's|/usr/bin/env perl|${perl}/bin/perl|' misc/optlib2c
   '';