Multiple glibc libraries on a single host

by

It is very possible to have multiple versions of glibc on the same system (we do that every day).

However, you need to know that glibc consists of many pieces (200+ shared libraries) which all must match. One of the pieces is ld-linux.so.2, and it must match libc.so.6, or you’ll see the errors you are seeing.

The absolute path to ld-linux.so.2 is hard-coded into the executable at link time, and can not be easily changed after the link is done (Update: can be done with patchelf; see this answer below).

To build an executable that will work with the new glibc, do this:

g++ main.o -o myapp ... \
   -Wl,--rpath=/path/to/newglibc \
   -Wl,--dynamic-linker=/path/to/newglibc/ld-linux.so.2

The -rpath linker option will make the runtime loader search for libraries in /path/to/newglibc (so you wouldn’t have to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH before running it), and the -dynamic-linker option will “bake” path to correct ld-linux.so.2 into the application.

If you can’t relink the myapp application (e.g. because it is a third-party binary), not all is lost, but it gets trickier. One solution is to set a proper chroot environment for it. Another possibility is to use rtldi and a binary editor. Update: or you can use patchelf.

More Related Contents:

  1. How can I link to a specific glibc version?
  2. Linux static linking is dead?
  3. 32-bit absolute addresses no longer allowed in x86-64 Linux?
  4. How to add a default include path for GCC in Linux?
  5. how to install gcc 4.9.2 on RHEL 7.4
  6. How to print the ld(linker) search path
  7. ld cannot find an existing library
  8. How do I set the working directory of the parent process?
  9. How to compile a 32-bit binary on a 64-bit linux machine with gcc/cmake
  10. Linking OpenSSL libraries to a program
  11. “/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lz”
  12. How to upgrade glibc from version 2.12 to 2.14 on CentOS?
  13. What’s the difference between “statically linked” and “not a dynamic executable” from Linux ldd?
  14. Linux clock_gettime(CLOCK_MONOTONIC) strange non-monotonic behavior
  15. Can _start be the thumb function?
  16. How to compile my own glibc C standard library from source and use it?
  17. How to avoid STT_GNU_IFUNC symbols in your binary?
  18. What is the ‘soname’ option for building shared libraries for?
  19. Hierarchical ldd(1)
  20. Number of executed Instructions different for Hello World program Nasm Assembly and C
  21. How can I add a default include path for GCC in Linux?
  22. Is there a way to get gcc to output raw binary?
  23. Trying to understand gcc’s complicated stack-alignment at the top of main that copies the return address
  24. get string length in inline GNU Assembler
  25. Make install, but not to default directories?
  26. undefined reference to symbol even when nm indicates that this symbol is present in the shared library
  27. /usr/bin/ld: skipping incompatible foo.so when searching for foo
  28. Does gcc have any options to add version info in ELF binary file?
  29. How do I recover a semaphore when the process that decremented it to zero crashes?
  30. Disable AVX-optimized functions in glibc (LD_HWCAP_MASK, /etc/ld.so.nohwcap) for valgrind & gdb record

Leave a Comment