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Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU C Library
This document tries to answer questions a user might have when installing
and using glibc. Please make sure you read this before sending questions or
bug reports to the maintainers.
The GNU C library is very complex. The installation process has not been
completely automated; there are too many variables. You can do substantial
damage to your system by installing the library incorrectly. Make sure you
understand what you are undertaking before you begin.
If you have any questions you think should be answered in this document,
please let me know.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
1. Compiling glibc
1.1. What systems does the GNU C Library run on?
1.2. What compiler do I need to build GNU libc?
1.3. When I try to compile glibc I get only error messages.
What's wrong?
1.4. Do I need a special linker or assembler?
1.5. Which compiler should I use for powerpc?
1.6. Which tools should I use for ARM?
1.7. Do I need some more things to compile the GNU C Library?
1.8. What version of the Linux kernel headers should be used?
1.9. The compiler hangs while building iconvdata modules. What's
wrong?
1.10. When I run `nm -u libc.so' on the produced library I still
find unresolved symbols. Can this be ok?
1.11. What are these `add-ons'?
1.12. My XXX kernel emulates a floating-point coprocessor for me.
Should I enable --with-fp?
1.13. When compiling GNU libc I get lots of errors saying functions
in glibc are duplicated in libgcc.
1.14. Why do I get messages about missing thread functions when I use
librt? I don't even use threads.
1.15. What's the problem with configure --enable-omitfp?
1.16. I get failures during `make check'. What should I do?
1.17. What is symbol versioning good for? Do I need it?
1.18. How can I compile on my fast ix86 machine a working libc for my slow
i386? After installing libc, programs abort with "Illegal
Instruction".
1.19. `make' complains about a missing dlfcn/libdl.so when building
malloc/libmemprof.so. How can I fix this?
1.20. Which tools should I use for MIPS?
1.21. Which compiler should I use for powerpc64?
1.22. `make' fails when running rpcgen the first time,
what is going on? How do I fix this?
1.23. Why do I get:
`#error "glibc cannot be compiled without optimization"',
when trying to compile GNU libc with GNU CC?
2. Installation and configuration issues
2.1. Can I replace the libc on my Linux system with GNU libc?
2.2. How do I configure GNU libc so that the essential libraries
like libc.so go into /lib and the other into /usr/lib?
2.3. How should I avoid damaging my system when I install GNU libc?
2.4. Do I need to use GNU CC to compile programs that will use the
GNU C Library?
2.5. When linking with the new libc I get unresolved symbols
`crypt' and `setkey'. Why aren't these functions in the
libc anymore?
2.6. When I use GNU libc on my Linux system by linking against
the libc.so which comes with glibc all I get is a core dump.
2.7. Looking through the shared libc file I haven't found the
functions `stat', `lstat', `fstat', and `mknod' and while
linking on my Linux system I get error messages. How is
this supposed to work?
2.8. When I run an executable on one system which I compiled on
another, I get dynamic linker errors. Both systems have the same
version of glibc installed. What's wrong?
2.9. How can I compile gcc 2.7.2.1 from the gcc source code using
glibc 2.x?
2.10. The `gencat' utility cannot process the catalog sources which
were used on my Linux libc5 based system. Why?
2.11. Programs using libc have their messages translated, but other
behavior is not localized (e.g. collating order); why?
2.12. I have set up /etc/nis.conf, and the Linux libc 5 with NYS
works great. But the glibc NIS+ doesn't seem to work.
2.13. I have killed ypbind to stop using NIS, but glibc
continues using NIS.
2.14. Under Linux/Alpha, I always get "do_ypcall: clnt_call:
RPC: Unable to receive; errno = Connection refused" when using NIS.
2.15. After installing glibc name resolving doesn't work properly.
2.16. How do I create the databases for NSS?
2.17. I have /usr/include/net and /usr/include/scsi as symlinks
into my Linux source tree. Is that wrong?
2.18. Programs like `logname', `top', `uptime' `users', `w' and
`who', show incorrect information about the (number of)
users on my system. Why?
2.19. After upgrading to glibc 2.1 with symbol versioning I get
errors about undefined symbols. What went wrong?
2.20. When I start the program XXX after upgrading the library
I get
XXX: Symbol `_sys_errlist' has different size in shared
object, consider re-linking
Why? What should I do?
2.21. What do I need for C++ development?
2.22. Even statically linked programs need some shared libraries
which is not acceptable for me. What can I do?
2.23. I just upgraded my Linux system to glibc and now I get
errors whenever I try to link any program.
2.24. When I use nscd the machine freezes.
2.25. I need lots of open files. What do I have to do?
2.26. How do I get the same behavior on parsing /etc/passwd and
/etc/group as I have with libc5 ?
2.27. What needs to be recompiled when upgrading from glibc 2.0 to glibc
2.1?
2.28. Why is extracting files via tar so slow?
2.29. Compiling programs I get parse errors in libio.h (e.g. "parse error
before `_IO_seekoff'"). How should I fix this?
2.30. After upgrading to glibc 2.1, libraries that were compiled against
glibc 2.0.x don't work anymore.
2.31. What happened to the Berkeley DB libraries? Can I still use db
in /etc/nsswitch.conf?
2.32. What has do be done when upgrading to glibc 2.2?
2.33. The makefiles want to do a CVS commit.
2.34. When compiling C++ programs, I get a compilation error in streambuf.h.
2.35. When recompiling GCC, I get compilation errors in libio.
2.36. Why shall glibc never get installed on GNU/Linux systems in
/usr/local?
2.37. When recompiling GCC, I get compilation errors in libstdc++.
3. Source and binary incompatibilities, and what to do about them
3.1. I expect GNU libc to be 100% source code compatible with
the old Linux based GNU libc. Why isn't it like this?
3.2. Why does getlogin() always return NULL on my Linux box?
3.3. Where are the DST_* constants found in <sys/time.h> on many
systems?
3.4. The prototypes for `connect', `accept', `getsockopt',
`setsockopt', `getsockname', `getpeername', `send',
`sendto', and `recvfrom' are different in GNU libc from
any other system I saw. This is a bug, isn't it?
3.5. On Linux I've got problems with the declarations in Linux
kernel headers.
3.6. I don't include any kernel headers myself but the compiler
still complains about redeclarations of types in the kernel
headers.
3.7. Why don't signals interrupt system calls anymore?
3.8. I've got errors compiling code that uses certain string
functions. Why?
3.9. I get compiler messages "Initializer element not constant" with
stdin/stdout/stderr. Why?
3.10. I can't compile with gcc -traditional (or
-traditional-cpp). Why?
3.11. I get some errors with `gcc -ansi'. Isn't glibc ANSI compatible?
3.12. I can't access some functions anymore. nm shows that they do
exist but linking fails nevertheless.
3.13. When using the db-2 library which comes with glibc is used in
the Perl db modules the testsuite is not passed. This did not
happen with db-1, gdbm, or ndbm.
3.14. The pow() inline function I get when including <math.h> is broken.
I get segmentation faults when I run the program.
3.15. The sys/sem.h file lacks the definition of `union semun'.
3.16. Why has <netinet/ip_fw.h> disappeared?
3.17. I get floods of warnings when I use -Wconversion and include
<string.h> or <math.h>.
3.18. After upgrading to glibc 2.1, I receive errors about
unresolved symbols, like `_dl_initial_searchlist' and can not
execute any binaries. What went wrong?
3.19. bonnie reports that char i/o with glibc 2 is much slower than with
libc5. What can be done?
3.20. Programs compiled with glibc 2.1 can't read db files made with glibc
2.0. What has changed that programs like rpm break?
3.21. Autoconf's AC_CHECK_FUNC macro reports that a function exists, but
when I try to use it, it always returns -1 and sets errno to ENOSYS.
3.22. My program segfaults when I call fclose() on the FILE* returned
from setmntent(). Is this a glibc bug?
3.23. I get "undefined reference to `atexit'"
4. Miscellaneous
4.1. After I changed configure.in I get `Autoconf version X.Y.
or higher is required for this script'. What can I do?
4.2. When I try to compile code which uses IPv6 headers and
definitions on my Linux 2.x.y system I am in trouble.
Nothing seems to work.
4.3. When I set the timezone by setting the TZ environment variable
to EST5EDT things go wrong since glibc computes the wrong time
from this information.
4.4. What other sources of documentation about glibc are available?
4.5. The timezone string for Sydney/Australia is wrong since even when
daylight saving time is in effect the timezone string is EST.
4.6. I've build make 3.77 against glibc 2.1 and now make gets
segmentation faults.
4.7. Why do so many programs using math functions fail on my AlphaStation?
4.8. The conversion table for character set XX does not match with
what I expect.
4.9. How can I find out which version of glibc I am using in the moment?
4.10. Context switching with setcontext() does not work from within
signal handlers.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
1. Compiling glibc
1.1. What systems does the GNU C Library run on?
{UD} This is difficult to answer. The file `README' lists the architectures
GNU libc was known to run on *at some time*. This does not mean that it
still can be compiled and run on them now.
The systems glibc is known to work on as of this release, and most probably
in the future, are:
*-*-gnu GNU Hurd
i[3456]86-*-linux-gnu Linux-2.x on Intel
m68k-*-linux-gnu Linux-2.x on Motorola 680x0
alpha*-*-linux-gnu Linux-2.x on DEC Alpha
powerpc-*-linux-gnu Linux and MkLinux on PowerPC systems
powerpc64-*-linux-gnu Linux-2.4+ on 64-bit PowerPC systems
sparc-*-linux-gnu Linux-2.x on SPARC
sparc64-*-linux-gnu Linux-2.x on UltraSPARC
arm-*-none ARM standalone systems
arm-*-linux Linux-2.x on ARM
arm-*-linuxaout Linux-2.x on ARM using a.out binaries
mips*-*-linux-gnu Linux-2.x on MIPS
ia64-*-linux-gnu Linux-2.x on ia64
s390-*-linux-gnu Linux-2.x on IBM S/390
s390x-*-linux-gnu Linux-2.x on IBM S/390 64-bit
cris-*-linux-gnu Linux-2.4+ on CRIS
Ports to other Linux platforms are in development, and may in fact work
already, but no one has sent us success reports for them. Currently no
ports to other operating systems are underway, although a few people have
expressed interest.
If you have a system not listed above (or in the `README' file) and you are
really interested in porting it, see the GNU C Library web pages to learn
how to start contributing:
http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/resources.html
1.2. What compiler do I need to build GNU libc?
{UD} You must use GNU CC to compile GNU libc. A lot of extensions of GNU CC
are used to increase portability and speed.
GNU CC is found, like all other GNU packages, on
ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu
and the many mirror sites. ftp.gnu.org is always overloaded, so try to find
a local mirror first.
You should always try to use the latest official release. Older versions
may not have all the features GNU libc requires. The current releases of
gcc (3.2 or newer) should work with the GNU C library (for MIPS see question 1.20).
Please note that gcc 2.95 and 2.95.x cannot compile glibc on Alpha due to
problems in the complex float support.
1.3. When I try to compile glibc I get only error messages.
What's wrong?
{UD} You definitely need GNU make to build GNU libc. No other make
program has the needed functionality.
We recommend version GNU make version 3.79 or newer. Older versions have
bugs and/or are missing features.
1.4. Do I need a special linker or assembler?
{ZW} If you want a shared library, you need a linker and assembler that
understand all the features of ELF, including weak and versioned symbols.
The static library can be compiled with less featureful tools, but lacks key
features such as NSS.
For Linux or Hurd, you want binutils 2.13 or higher. These are the only
versions we've tested and found reliable. Other versions may work but we
don't recommend them, especially not when C++ is involved.
Other operating systems may come with system tools that have all the
necessary features, but this is moot because glibc hasn't been ported to
them.
1.5. Which compiler should I use for powerpc?
{} Removed. Does not apply anymore.
1.6. Which tools should I use for ARM?
{} Removed. Does not apply anymore.
1.7. Do I need some more things to compile the GNU C Library?
{UD} Yes, there are some more :-).
* GNU gettext. This package contains the tools needed to construct
`message catalog' files containing translated versions of system
messages. See ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu or better any mirror
site. (We distribute compiled message catalogs, but they may not be
updated in patches.)
* Some files are built with special tools. E.g., files ending in .gperf
need a `gperf' program. The GNU version (now available in a separate
package, formerly only as part of libg++) is known to work while some
vendor versions do not.
You should not need these tools unless you change the source files.
* Perl 5 is needed if you wish to test an installation of GNU libc
as the primary C library.
* When compiling for Linux, the header files of the Linux kernel must
be available to the compiler as <linux/*.h> and <asm/*.h>.
* lots of disk space (~400MB for i?86-linux; more for RISC platforms).
* plenty of time. Compiling just the shared and static libraries for
35mins on a 2xPIII@550Mhz w/ 512MB RAM. On a 2xUltraSPARC-II@360Mhz
w/ 1GB RAM it takes about 14 minutes. Multiply this by 1.5 or 2.0
if you build profiling and/or the highly optimized version as well.
For Hurd systems times are much higher.
You should avoid compiling in a NFS mounted filesystem. This is
very slow.
James Troup <[email protected]> reports a compile time for
an earlier (and smaller!) version of glibc of 45h34m for a full build
(shared, static, and profiled) on Atari Falcon (Motorola 68030 @ 16 Mhz,
14 Mb memory) and Jan Barte <[email protected]> reports
22h48m on Atari TT030 (Motorola 68030 @ 32 Mhz, 34 Mb memory)
A full build of the PowerPC library took 1h on a PowerPC 750@400Mhz w/
64MB of RAM, and about 9h on a 601@60Mhz w/ 72Mb.
1.8. What version of the Linux kernel headers should be used?
{AJ,UD} The headers from the most recent Linux kernel should be used. The
headers used while compiling the GNU C library and the kernel binary used
when using the library do not need to match. The GNU C library runs without
problems on kernels that are older than the kernel headers used. The other
way round (compiling the GNU C library with old kernel headers and running
on a recent kernel) does not necessarily work. For example you can't use
new kernel features if you used old kernel headers to compile the GNU C
library.
{ZW} Even if you are using a 2.0 kernel on your machine, we recommend you
compile GNU libc with 2.2 kernel headers. That way you won't have to
recompile libc if you ever upgrade to kernel 2.2. To tell libc which
headers to use, give configure the --with-headers switch
(e.g. --with-headers=/usr/src/linux-2.2.0/include).
Note that you must configure the 2.2 kernel if you do this, otherwise libc
will be unable to find <linux/version.h>. Just change the current directory
to the root of the 2.2 tree and do `make include/linux/version.h'.
1.9. The compiler hangs while building iconvdata modules. What's
wrong?
{} Removed. Does not apply anymore.
1.10. When I run `nm -u libc.so' on the produced library I still
find unresolved symbols. Can this be ok?
{UD} Yes, this is ok. There can be several kinds of unresolved symbols:
* magic symbols automatically generated by the linker. These have names
like __start_* and __stop_*
* symbols starting with _dl_* come from the dynamic linker
* weak symbols, which need not be resolved at all (fabs for example)
Generally, you should make sure you find a real program which produces
errors while linking before deciding there is a problem.
1.11. What are these `add-ons'?
{UD} To avoid complications with export rules or external source code some
optional parts of the libc are distributed as separate packages, e.g., the
linuxthreads package.
To use these packages as part of GNU libc, just unpack the tarfiles in the
libc source directory and tell the configuration script about them using the
--enable-add-ons option. If you give just --enable-add-ons configure tries
to find all the add-on packages in your source tree. This may not work. If
it doesn't, or if you want to select only a subset of the add-ons, give a
comma-separated list of the add-ons to enable:
configure --enable-add-ons=linuxthreads
for example.
Add-ons can add features (including entirely new shared libraries), override
files, provide support for additional architectures, and just about anything
else. The existing makefiles do most of the work; only some few stub rules
must be written to get everything running.
Most add-ons are tightly coupled to a specific GNU libc version. Please
check that the add-ons work with the GNU libc. For example the linuxthreads
add-on has the same numbering scheme as the libc and will in general only
work with the corresponding libc.
{AJ} With glibc 2.2 the crypt add-on and with glibc 2.1 the localedata
add-on have been integrated into the normal glibc distribution, crypt and
localedata are therefore not anymore add-ons.
1.12. My XXX kernel emulates a floating-point coprocessor for me.
Should I enable --with-fp?
{ZW} An emulated FPU is just as good as a real one, as far as the C library
is concerned. You only need to say --without-fp if your machine has no way
to execute floating-point instructions.
People who are interested in squeezing the last drop of performance
out of their machine may wish to avoid the trap overhead, but this is
far more trouble than it's worth: you then have to compile
*everything* this way, including the compiler's internal libraries
(libgcc.a for GNU C), because the calling conventions change.
1.13. When compiling GNU libc I get lots of errors saying functions
in glibc are duplicated in libgcc.
{EY} This is *exactly* the same problem that I was having. The problem was
due to the fact that configure didn't correctly detect that the linker flag
--no-whole-archive was supported in my linker. In my case it was because I
had run ./configure with bogus CFLAGS, and the test failed.
One thing that is particularly annoying about this problem is that once this
is misdetected, running configure again won't fix it unless you first delete
config.cache.
{UD} Starting with glibc-2.0.3 there should be a better test to avoid some
problems of this kind. The setting of CFLAGS is checked at the very
beginning and if it is not usable `configure' will bark.
1.14. Why do I get messages about missing thread functions when I use
librt? I don't even use threads.
{UD} In this case you probably mixed up your installation. librt uses
threads internally and has implicit references to the thread library.
Normally these references are satisfied automatically but if the thread
library is not in the expected place you must tell the linker where it is.
When using GNU ld it works like this:
gcc -o foo foo.c -Wl,-rpath-link=/some/other/dir -lrt
The `/some/other/dir' should contain the thread library. `ld' will use the
given path to find the implicitly referenced library while not disturbing
any other link path.
1.15. What's the problem with configure --enable-omitfp?
{AJ} When --enable-omitfp is set the libraries are built without frame
pointers. Some compilers produce buggy code for this model and therefore we
don't advise using it at the moment.
If you use --enable-omitfp, you're on your own. If you encounter problems
with a library that was build this way, we advise you to rebuild the library
without --enable-omitfp. If the problem vanishes consider tracking the
problem down and report it as compiler failure.
Since a library built with --enable-omitfp is undebuggable on most systems,
debuggable libraries are also built - you can use them by appending "_g" to
the library names.
The compilation of these extra libraries and the compiler optimizations slow
down the build process and need more disk space.
1.16. I get failures during `make check'. What should I do?
{AJ} The testsuite should compile and run cleanly on your system; every
failure should be looked into. Depending on the failures, you probably
should not install the library at all.
You should consider reporting it in bugzilla
<http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/> providing as much detail as possible.
If you run a test directly, please remember to set up the environment
correctly. You want to test the compiled library - and not your installed
one. The best way is to copy the exact command line which failed and run
the test from the subdirectory for this test in the sources.
There are some failures which are not directly related to the GNU libc:
- Some compilers produce buggy code. No compiler gets single precision
complex numbers correct on Alpha. Otherwise, gcc-3.2 should be ok.
- The kernel might have bugs. For example on Linux/Alpha 2.0.34 the
floating point handling has quite a number of bugs and therefore most of
the test cases in the math subdirectory will fail. Linux 2.2 has
fixes for the floating point support on Alpha. The Linux/SPARC kernel has
also some bugs in the FPU emulation code (as of Linux 2.2.0).
- Other tools might have problems. For example bash 2.03 gives a
segmentation fault running the tst-rpmatch.sh test script.
1.17. What is symbol versioning good for? Do I need it?
{AJ} Symbol versioning solves problems that are related to interface
changes. One version of an interface might have been introduced in a
previous version of the GNU C library but the interface or the semantics of
the function has been changed in the meantime. For binary compatibility
with the old library, a newer library needs to still have the old interface
for old programs. On the other hand, new programs should use the new
interface. Symbol versioning is the solution for this problem. The GNU
libc version 2.1 uses symbol versioning by default if the installed binutils
supports it.
We don't advise building without symbol versioning, since you lose binary
compatibility - forever! The binary compatibility you lose is not only
against the previous version of the GNU libc (version 2.0) but also against
all future versions.
1.18. How can I compile on my fast ix86 machine a working libc for my slow
i386? After installing libc, programs abort with "Illegal
Instruction".
{AJ} glibc and gcc might generate some instructions on your machine that
aren't available on i386. You've got to tell glibc that you're configuring
for i386 with adding i386 as your machine, for example:
../configure --prefix=/usr i386-pc-linux-gnu
And you need to tell gcc to only generate i386 code, just add `-mcpu=i386'
(just -m386 doesn't work) to your CFLAGS.
{UD} This applies not only to the i386. Compiling on a i686 for any older
model will also fail if the above methods are not used.
1.19. `make' complains about a missing dlfcn/libdl.so when building
malloc/libmemprof.so. How can I fix this?
{AJ} Older make version (<= 3.78.90) have a bug which was hidden by a bug in
glibc (<= 2.1.2). You need to upgrade make to a newer or fixed version.
After upgrading make, you should remove the file sysd-sorted in your build
directory. The problem is that the broken make creates a wrong order for
one list in that file. The list has to be recreated with the new make -
which happens if you remove the file.
You might encounter this bug also in other situations where make scans
directories. I strongly advise to upgrade your make version to 3.79 or
newer.
1.20. Which tools should I use for MIPS?
{AJ} You should use the current development version of gcc 3.2 or newer from
CVS.
You need also recent binutils, anything before and including 2.11 will not
work correctly. Either try the Linux binutils 2.11.90.0.5 from HJ Lu or the
current development version of binutils from CVS.
Please note that `make check' might fail for a number of the math tests
because of problems of the FPU emulation in the Linux kernel (the MIPS FPU
doesn't handle all cases and needs help from the kernel).
1.21. Which compiler should I use for powerpc64?
{SM} You want to use at least gcc 3.2 (together with the right versions
of all the other tools, of course).
1.22. `make' fails when running rpcgen the first time,
what is going on? How do I fix this?
{CO} The first invocation of rpcgen is also the first use of the recently
compiled dynamic loader. If there is any problem with the dynamic loader
it will more than likely fail to run rpcgen properly. This could be due to
any number of problems.
The only real solution is to debug the loader and determine the problem
yourself. Please remember that for each architecture there may be various
patches required to get glibc HEAD into a runnable state. The best course
of action is to determine if you have all the required patches.
1.23. Why do I get:
`#error "glibc cannot be compiled without optimization"',
when trying to compile GNU libc with GNU CC?
{AJ,CO} There are a couple of reasons why the GNU C library will not work
correctly if it is not complied with optimzation.
In the early startup of the dynamic loader (_dl_start), before
relocation of the PLT, you cannot make function calls. You must inline
the functions you will use during early startup, or call compiler
builtins (__builtin_*).
Without optimizations enabled GNU CC will not inline functions. The
early startup of the dynamic loader will make function calls via an
unrelocated PLT and crash.
Without auditing the dynamic linker code it would be difficult to remove
this requirement.
Another reason is that nested functions must be inlined in many cases to
avoid executable stacks.
In practice there is no reason to compile without optimizations, therefore
we require that GNU libc be compiled with optimizations enabled.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2. Installation and configuration issues
2.1. Can I replace the libc on my Linux system with GNU libc?
{UD} You cannot replace any existing libc for Linux with GNU libc. It is
binary incompatible and therefore has a different major version. You can,
however, install it alongside your existing libc.
For Linux there are three major libc versions:
libc-4 a.out libc
libc-5 original ELF libc
libc-6 GNU libc
You can have any combination of these three installed. For more information
consult documentation for shared library handling. The Makefiles of GNU
libc will automatically generate the needed symbolic links which the linker
will use.
2.2. How do I configure GNU libc so that the essential libraries
like libc.so go into /lib and the other into /usr/lib?
{UD,AJ} Like all other GNU packages GNU libc is designed to use a base
directory and install all files relative to this. The default is
/usr/local, because this is safe (it will not damage the system if installed
there). If you wish to install GNU libc as the primary C library on your
system, set the base directory to /usr (i.e. run configure --prefix=/usr
<other_options>). Note that this can damage your system; see question 2.3 for
details.
Some systems like Linux have a filesystem standard which makes a difference
between essential libraries and others. Essential libraries are placed in
/lib because this directory is required to be located on the same disk
partition as /. The /usr subtree might be found on another
partition/disk. If you configure for Linux with --prefix=/usr, then this
will be done automatically.
To install the essential libraries which come with GNU libc in /lib on
systems other than Linux one must explicitly request it. Autoconf has no
option for this so you have to use a `configparms' file (see the `INSTALL'
file for details). It should contain:
slibdir=/lib
sysconfdir=/etc
The first line specifies the directory for the essential libraries, the
second line the directory for system configuration files.
2.3. How should I avoid damaging my system when I install GNU libc?
{ZW} If you wish to be cautious, do not configure with --prefix=/usr. If
you don't specify a prefix, glibc will be installed in /usr/local, where it
will probably not break anything. (If you wish to be certain, set the
prefix to something like /usr/local/glibc2 which is not used for anything.)
The dangers when installing glibc in /usr are twofold:
* glibc will overwrite the headers in /usr/include. Other C libraries
install a different but overlapping set of headers there, so the effect
will probably be that you can't compile anything. You need to rename
/usr/include out of the way before running `make install'. (Do not throw
it away; you will then lose the ability to compile programs against your
old libc.)
* None of your old libraries, static or shared, can be used with a
different C library major version. For shared libraries this is not a
problem, because the filenames are different and the dynamic linker
will enforce the restriction. But static libraries have no version
information. You have to evacuate all the static libraries in
/usr/lib to a safe location.
The situation is rather similar to the move from a.out to ELF which
long-time Linux users will remember.
2.4. Do I need to use GNU CC to compile programs that will use the
GNU C Library?
{ZW} In theory, no; the linker does not care, and the headers are supposed
to check for GNU CC before using its extensions to the C language.
However, there are currently no ports of glibc to systems where another
compiler is the default, so no one has tested the headers extensively
against another compiler. You may therefore encounter difficulties. If you
do, please report them as bugs.
Also, in several places GNU extensions provide large benefits in code
quality. For example, the library has hand-optimized, inline assembly
versions of some string functions. These can only be used with GCC. See
question 3.8 for details.
2.5. When linking with the new libc I get unresolved symbols
`crypt' and `setkey'. Why aren't these functions in the
libc anymore?
{} Removed. Does not apply anymore.
2.6. When I use GNU libc on my Linux system by linking against
the libc.so which comes with glibc all I get is a core dump.
{UD} On Linux, gcc sets the dynamic linker to /lib/ld-linux.so.1 unless the
user specifies a --dynamic-linker argument. This is the name of the libc5
dynamic linker, which does not work with glibc.
For casual use of GNU libc you can just specify to the linker
--dynamic-linker=/lib/ld-linux.so.2
which is the glibc dynamic linker, on Linux systems. On other systems the
name is /lib/ld.so.1. When linking via gcc, you've got to add
-Wl,--dynamic-linker=/lib/ld-linux.so.2
to the gcc command line.
To change your environment to use GNU libc for compiling you need to change
the `specs' file of your gcc. This file is normally found at
/usr/lib/gcc-lib/<arch>/<version>/specs
In this file you have to change a few things:
- change `ld-linux.so.1' to `ld-linux.so.2'
- remove all expression `%{...:-lgmon}'; there is no libgmon in glibc
- fix a minor bug by changing %{pipe:-} to %|
Here is what the gcc-2.7.2 specs file should look like when GNU libc is
installed at /usr:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
*asm:
%{V} %{v:%{!V:-V}} %{Qy:} %{!Qn:-Qy} %{n} %{T} %{Ym,*} %{Yd,*} %{Wa,*:%*}
*asm_final:
%|
*cpp:
%{fPIC:-D__PIC__ -D__pic__} %{fpic:-D__PIC__ -D__pic__} %{!m386:-D__i486__} %{posix:-D_POSIX_SOURCE} %{pthread:-D_REENTRANT}
*cc1:
%{profile:-p}
*cc1plus:
*endfile:
%{!shared:crtend.o%s} %{shared:crtendS.o%s} crtn.o%s
*link:
-m elf_i386 %{shared:-shared} %{!shared: %{!ibcs: %{!static: %{rdynamic:-export-dynamic} %{!dynamic-linker:-dynamic-linker /lib/ld-linux.so.2}} %{static:-static}}}
*lib:
%{!shared: %{pthread:-lpthread} %{profile:-lc_p} %{!profile: -lc}}
*libgcc:
-lgcc
*startfile:
%{!shared: %{pg:gcrt1.o%s} %{!pg:%{p:gcrt1.o%s} %{!p:%{profile:gcrt1.o%s} %{!profile:crt1.o%s}}}} crti.o%s %{!shared:crtbegin.o%s} %{shared:crtbeginS.o%s}
*switches_need_spaces:
*signed_char:
%{funsigned-char:-D__CHAR_UNSIGNED__}
*predefines:
-D__ELF__ -Dunix -Di386 -Dlinux -Asystem(unix) -Asystem(posix) -Acpu(i386) -Amachine(i386)
*cross_compile:
0
*multilib:
. ;
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Things get a bit more complicated if you have GNU libc installed in some
other place than /usr, i.e., if you do not want to use it instead of the old
libc. In this case the needed startup files and libraries are not found in
the regular places. So the specs file must tell the compiler and linker
exactly what to use.
Version 2.7.2.3 does and future versions of GCC will automatically
provide the correct specs.
2.7. Looking through the shared libc file I haven't found the
functions `stat', `lstat', `fstat', and `mknod' and while
linking on my Linux system I get error messages. How is
this supposed to work?
{RM} Believe it or not, stat and lstat (and fstat, and mknod) are supposed
to be undefined references in libc.so.6! Your problem is probably a missing
or incorrect /usr/lib/libc.so file; note that this is a small text file now,
not a symlink to libc.so.6. It should look something like this:
GROUP ( libc.so.6 libc_nonshared.a )
2.8. When I run an executable on one system which I compiled on
another, I get dynamic linker errors. Both systems have the same
version of glibc installed. What's wrong?
{ZW} Glibc on one of these systems was compiled with gcc 2.7 or 2.8, the
other with egcs (any version). Egcs has functions in its internal
`libgcc.a' to support exception handling with C++. They are linked into
any program or dynamic library compiled with egcs, whether it needs them or
not. Dynamic libraries then turn around and export those functions again
unless special steps are taken to prevent them.
When you link your program, it resolves its references to the exception
functions to the ones exported accidentally by libc.so. That works fine as
long as libc has those functions. On the other system, libc doesn't have
those functions because it was compiled by gcc 2.8, and you get undefined
symbol errors. The symbols in question are named things like
`__register_frame_info'.
For glibc 2.0, the workaround is to not compile libc with egcs. We've also
incorporated a patch which should prevent the EH functions sneaking into
libc. It doesn't matter what compiler you use to compile your program.
For glibc 2.1, we've chosen to do it the other way around: libc.so
explicitly provides the EH functions. This is to prevent other shared
libraries from doing it.
{UD} Starting with glibc 2.1.1 you can compile glibc with gcc 2.8.1 or
newer since we have explicitly add references to the functions causing the
problem. But you nevertheless should use EGCS for other reasons
(see question 1.2).
{GK} On some Linux distributions for PowerPC, you can see this when you have
built gcc or egcs from the Web sources (gcc versions 2.95 or earlier), then
re-built glibc. This happens because in these versions of gcc, exception
handling is implemented using an older method; the people making the
distributions are a little ahead of their time.
A quick solution to this is to find the libgcc.a file that came with the
distribution (it would have been installed under /usr/lib/gcc-lib), do
`ar x libgcc.a frame.o' to get the frame.o file out, and add a line saying
`LDLIBS-c.so += frame.o' to the file `configparms' in the directory you're
building in. You can check you've got the right `frame.o' file by running
`nm frame.o' and checking that it has the symbols defined that you're
missing.
This will let you build glibc with the C compiler. The C++ compiler
will still be binary incompatible with any C++ shared libraries that
you got with your distribution.
2.9. How can I compile gcc 2.7.2.1 from the gcc source code using
glibc 2.x?
{AJ} There's only correct support for glibc 2.0.x in gcc 2.7.2.3 or later.
But you should get at least gcc 2.95.3 (or later versions) anyway
2.10. The `gencat' utility cannot process the catalog sources which
were used on my Linux libc5 based system. Why?
{UD} The `gencat' utility provided with glibc complies to the XPG standard.
The older Linux version did not obey the standard, so they are not
compatible.
To ease the transition from the Linux version some of the non-standard
features are also present in the `gencat' program of GNU libc. This mainly
includes the use of symbols for the message number and the automatic
generation of header files which contain the needed #defines to map the
symbols to integers.
Here is a simple SED script to convert at least some Linux specific catalog
files to the XPG4 form:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
# Change catalog source in Linux specific format to standard XPG format.
# Ulrich Drepper <[email protected]>, 1996.
#
/^\$ #/ {
h
s/\$ #\([^ ]*\).*/\1/
x
s/\$ #[^ ]* *\(.*\)/\$ \1/
}
/^# / {
s/^# \(.*\)/\1/
G
s/\(.*\)\n\(.*\)/\2 \1/
}
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
2.11. Programs using libc have their messages translated, but other
behavior is not localized (e.g. collating order); why?
{ZW} Translated messages are automatically installed, but the locale
database that controls other behaviors is not. You need to run localedef to
install this database, after you have run `make install'. For example, to
set up the French Canadian locale, simply issue the command
localedef -i fr_CA -f ISO-8859-1 fr_CA
Please see localedata/README in the source tree for further details.
2.12. I have set up /etc/nis.conf, and the Linux libc 5 with NYS
works great. But the glibc NIS+ doesn't seem to work.
{TK} The glibc NIS+ implementation uses a /var/nis/NIS_COLD_START file for
storing information about the NIS+ server and their public keys, because the
nis.conf file does not contain all the necessary information. You have to
copy a NIS_COLD_START file from a Solaris client (the NIS_COLD_START file is
byte order independent) or generate it with nisinit from the nis-tools
package; available at
http://www.suse.de/~kukuk/linux/nisplus.html
2.13. I have killed ypbind to stop using NIS, but glibc
continues using NIS.
{TK} For faster NIS lookups, glibc uses the /var/yp/binding/ files from
ypbind. ypbind 3.3 and older versions don't always remove these files, so
glibc will continue to use them. Other BSD versions seem to work correctly.
Until ypbind 3.4 is released, you can find a patch at
<ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/net/NIS/ypbind-3.3-glibc4.diff.gz>
2.14. Under Linux/Alpha, I always get "do_ypcall: clnt_call:
RPC: Unable to receive; errno = Connection refused" when using NIS.
{TK} You need a ypbind version which is 64bit clean. Some versions are not
64bit clean. A 64bit clean implementation is ypbind-mt. For ypbind 3.3,
you need the patch from ftp.kernel.org (See the previous question). I don't
know about other versions.
2.15. After installing glibc name resolving doesn't work properly.
{AJ} You probably should read the manual section describing nsswitch.conf
(just type `info libc "NSS Configuration File"'). The NSS configuration
file is usually the culprit.
2.16. How do I create the databases for NSS?
{AJ} If you have an entry "db" in /etc/nsswitch.conf you should also create
the database files. The glibc sources contain a Makefile which does the
necessary conversion and calls to create those files. The file is
`db-Makefile' in the subdirectory `nss' and you can call it with `make -f
db-Makefile'. Please note that not all services are capable of using a
database. Currently passwd, group, ethers, protocol, rpc, services shadow
and netgroup are implemented. See also question 2.31.
2.17. I have /usr/include/net and /usr/include/scsi as symlinks
into my Linux source tree. Is that wrong?
{PB} This was necessary for libc5, but is not correct when using glibc.
Including the kernel header files directly in user programs usually does not
work (see question 3.5). glibc provides its own <net/*> and <scsi/*> header
files to replace them, and you may have to remove any symlink that you have
in place before you install glibc. However, /usr/include/asm and
/usr/include/linux should remain as they were.
2.18. Programs like `logname', `top', `uptime' `users', `w' and
`who', show incorrect information about the (number of)
users on my system. Why?
{MK} See question 3.2.
2.19. After upgrading to glibc 2.1 with symbol versioning I get
errors about undefined symbols. What went wrong?