| 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. | |
| --drepper@redhat.com | |
| ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ | |
| 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 <J.J.Troup@comp.brad.ac.uk> 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 <yann@plato.uni-paderborn.de> 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 <drepper@redhat.com>, 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? | |
| {AJ} The problem is caused either by wrong program code or tools. In the | |
| versioned libc a lot of symbols are now local that were global symbols in | |
| previous versions. It seems that programs linked against older versions | |
| often accidentally used libc global variables -- something that should not | |
| happen. | |
| The only way to fix this is to recompile your program. Sorry, that's the | |
| price you might have to pay once for quite a number of advantages with | |
| symbol versioning. | |
| 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? | |
| {UD} As the message says, relink the binary. The problem is that a few | |
| symbols from the library can change in size and there is no way to avoid | |
| this. _sys_errlist is a good example. Occasionally there are new error | |
| numbers added to the kernel and this must be reflected at user level, | |
| breaking programs that refer to them directly. | |
| Such symbols should normally not be used at all. There are mechanisms to | |
| avoid using them. In the case of _sys_errlist, there is the strerror() | |
| function which should _always_ be used instead. So the correct fix is to | |
| rewrite that part of the application. | |
| In some situations (especially when testing a new library release) it might | |
| be possible that a symbol changed size when that should not have happened. | |
| So in case of doubt report such a warning message as a problem. | |
| 2.21. What do I need for C++ development? | |
| {HJ,AJ} You need either egcs 1.1 which comes directly with libstdc++ or | |
| gcc-2.8.1 together with libstdc++ 2.8.1.1. egcs 1.1 has the better C++ | |
| support and works directly with glibc 2.1. If you use gcc-2.8.1 with | |
| libstdc++ 2.8.1.1, you need to modify libstdc++ a bit. A patch is available | |
| as: | |
| <ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/libstdc++-2.8.1.1-glibc2.1-diff.gz> | |
| Please note that libg++ 2.7.2 (and the Linux Versions 2.7.2.x) doesn't work | |
| very well with the GNU C library due to vtable thunks. If you're upgrading | |
| from glibc 2.0.x to 2.1 you have to recompile libstdc++ since the library | |
| compiled for 2.0 is not compatible due to the new Large File Support (LFS) | |
| in version 2.1. | |
| {UD} But since in the case of a shared libstdc++ the version numbers should | |
| be different existing programs will continue to work. | |
| 2.22. Even statically linked programs need some shared libraries | |
| which is not acceptable for me. What can I do? | |
| {AJ} NSS (for details just type `info libc "Name Service Switch"') won't | |
| work properly without shared libraries. NSS allows using different services | |
| (e.g. NIS, files, db, hesiod) by just changing one configuration file | |
| (/etc/nsswitch.conf) without relinking any programs. The only disadvantage | |
| is that now static libraries need to access shared libraries. This is | |
| handled transparently by the GNU C library. | |
| A solution is to configure glibc with --enable-static-nss. In this case you | |
| can create a static binary that will use only the services dns and files | |
| (change /etc/nsswitch.conf for this). You need to link explicitly against | |
| all these services. For example: | |
| gcc -static test-netdb.c -o test-netdb \ | |
| -Wl,--start-group -lc -lnss_files -lnss_dns -lresolv -Wl,--end-group | |
| The problem with this approach is that you've got to link every static | |
| program that uses NSS routines with all those libraries. | |
| {UD} In fact, one cannot say anymore that a libc compiled with this | |
| option is using NSS. There is no switch anymore. Therefore it is | |
| *highly* recommended *not* to use --enable-static-nss since this makes | |
| the behaviour of the programs on the system inconsistent. | |
| 2.23. I just upgraded my Linux system to glibc and now I get | |
| errors whenever I try to link any program. | |
| {ZW} This happens when you have installed glibc as the primary C library but | |
| have stray symbolic links pointing at your old C library. If the first | |
| `libc.so' the linker finds is libc 5, it will use that. Your program | |
| expects to be linked with glibc, so the link fails. | |
| The most common case is that glibc put its `libc.so' in /usr/lib, but there | |
| was a `libc.so' from libc 5 in /lib, which gets searched first. To fix the | |
| problem, just delete /lib/libc.so. You may also need to delete other | |
| symbolic links in /lib, such as /lib/libm.so if it points to libm.so.5. | |
| {AJ} The perl script test-installation.pl which is run as last step during | |
| an installation of glibc that is configured with --prefix=/usr should help | |
| detect these situations. If the script reports problems, something is | |
| really screwed up. | |
| 2.24. When I use nscd the machine freezes. | |
| {UD} You cannot use nscd with Linux 2.0.*. There is functionality missing | |
| in the kernel and work-arounds are not suitable. Besides, some parts of the | |
| kernel are too buggy when it comes to using threads. | |
| If you need nscd, you have to use at least a 2.1 kernel. | |
| Note that I have at this point no information about any other platform. | |
| 2.25. I need lots of open files. What do I have to do? | |
| {AJ} This is at first a kernel issue. The kernel defines limits with | |
| OPEN_MAX the number of simultaneous open files and with FD_SETSIZE the | |
| number of used file descriptors. You need to change these values in your | |
| kernel and recompile the kernel so that the kernel allows more open | |
| files. You don't necessarily need to recompile the GNU C library since the | |
| only place where OPEN_MAX and FD_SETSIZE is really needed in the library | |
| itself is the size of fd_set which is used by select. | |
| The GNU C library is now select free. This means it internally has no | |
| limits imposed by the `fd_set' type. Instead all places where the | |
| functionality is needed the `poll' function is used. | |
| If you increase the number of file descriptors in the kernel you don't need | |
| to recompile the C library. | |
| {UD} You can always get the maximum number of file descriptors a process is | |
| allowed to have open at any time using | |
| number = sysconf (_SC_OPEN_MAX); | |
| This will work even if the kernel limits change. | |
| 2.26. How do I get the same behavior on parsing /etc/passwd and | |
| /etc/group as I have with libc5 ? | |
| {TK} The name switch setup in /etc/nsswitch.conf selected by most Linux | |
| distributions does not support +/- and netgroup entries in the files like | |
| /etc/passwd. Though this is the preferred setup some people might have | |
| setups coming over from the libc5 days where it was the default to recognize | |
| lines like this. To get back to the old behaviour one simply has to change | |
| the rules for passwd, group, and shadow in the nsswitch.conf file as | |
| follows: | |
| passwd: compat | |
| group: compat | |
| shadow: compat | |
| passwd_compat: nis | |
| group_compat: nis | |
| shadow_compat: nis | |
| 2.27. What needs to be recompiled when upgrading from glibc 2.0 to glibc | |
| 2.1? | |
| {AJ,CG} If you just upgrade the glibc from 2.0.x (x <= 7) to 2.1, binaries | |
| that have been linked against glibc 2.0 will continue to work. | |
| If you compile your own binaries against glibc 2.1, you also need to | |
| recompile some other libraries. The problem is that libio had to be changed | |
| and therefore libraries that are based or depend on the libio of glibc, | |
| e.g. ncurses, slang and most C++ libraries, need to be recompiled. If you | |
| experience strange segmentation faults in your programs linked against glibc | |
| 2.1, you might need to recompile your libraries. | |
| Another problem is that older binaries that were linked statically against | |
| glibc 2.0 will reference the older nss modules (libnss_files.so.1 instead of | |
| libnss_files.so.2), so don't remove them. Also, the old glibc-2.0 compiled | |
| static libraries (libfoo.a) which happen to depend on the older libio | |
| behavior will be broken by the glibc 2.1 upgrade. We plan to produce a | |
| compatibility library that people will be able to link in if they want | |
| to compile a static library generated against glibc 2.0 into a program | |
| on a glibc 2.1 system. You just add -lcompat and you should be fine. | |
| The glibc-compat add-on will provide the libcompat.a library, the older | |
| nss modules, and a few other files. Together, they should make it | |
| possible to do development with old static libraries on a glibc 2.1 | |
| system. This add-on is still in development. You can get it from | |
| <ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/glibc/glibc-compat-2.1.tar.gz> | |
| but please keep in mind that it is experimental. | |
| 2.28. Why is extracting files via tar so slow? | |
| {AJ} Extracting of tar archives might be quite slow since tar has to look up | |
| userid and groupids and doesn't cache negative results. If you have nis or | |
| nisplus in your /etc/nsswitch.conf for the passwd and/or group database, | |
| each file extractions needs a network connection. There are two possible | |
| solutions: | |
| - do you really need NIS/NIS+ (some Linux distributions add by default | |
| nis/nisplus even if it's not needed)? If not, just remove the entries. | |
| - if you need NIS/NIS+, use the Name Service Cache Daemon nscd that comes | |
| with glibc 2.1. | |
| 2.29. Compiling programs I get parse errors in libio.h (e.g. "parse error | |
| before `_IO_seekoff'"). How should I fix this? | |
| {AJ} You might get the following errors when upgrading to glibc 2.1: | |
| In file included from /usr/include/stdio.h:57, | |
| from ... | |
| /usr/include/libio.h:335: parse error before `_IO_seekoff' | |
| /usr/include/libio.h:335: parse error before `_G_off64_t' | |
| /usr/include/libio.h:336: parse error before `_IO_seekpos' | |
| /usr/include/libio.h:336: parse error before `_G_fpos64_t' | |
| The problem is a wrong _G_config.h file in your include path. The | |
| _G_config.h file that comes with glibc 2.1 should be used and not one from | |
| libc5 or from a compiler directory. To check which _G_config.h file the | |
| compiler uses, compile your program with `gcc -E ...|grep G_config.h' and | |
| remove that file. Your compiler should pick up the file that has been | |
| installed by glibc 2.1 in your include directory. | |
| 2.30. After upgrading to glibc 2.1, libraries that were compiled against | |
| glibc 2.0.x don't work anymore. | |
| {AJ} See question 2.27. | |
| 2.31. What happened to the Berkeley DB libraries? Can I still use db | |
| in /etc/nsswitch.conf? | |
| {AJ} Due to too many incompatible changes in disk layout and API of Berkeley | |
| DB and a too tight coupling of libc and libdb, the db library has been | |
| removed completely from glibc 2.2. The only place that really used the | |
| Berkeley DB was the NSS db module. | |
| The NSS db module has been rewritten to support a number of different | |
| versions of Berkeley DB for the NSS db module. Currently the releases 2.x | |
| and 3.x of Berkeley DB are supported. The older db 1.85 library is not | |
| supported. You can use the version from glibc 2.1.x or download a version | |
| from Sleepycat Software (http://www.sleepycat.com). The library has to be | |
| compiled as shared library and installed in the system lib directory | |
| (normally /lib). The library needs to have a special soname to be found by | |
| the NSS module. | |
| If public structures change in a new Berkeley db release, this needs to be | |
| reflected in glibc. | |
| Currently the code searches for libraries with a soname of "libdb.so.3" | |
| (that's the name from db 2.4.14 which comes with glibc 2.1.x) and | |
| "libdb-3.0.so" (the name used by db 3.0.55 as default). | |
| The nss_db module is now in a separate package since it requires a database | |
| library being available. | |
| 2.32. What has do be done when upgrading to glibc 2.2? | |
| {AJ} The upgrade to glibc 2.2 should run smoothly, there's in general no | |
| need to recompile programs or libraries. Nevertheless, some changes might | |
| be needed after upgrading: | |
| - The utmp daemon has been removed and is not supported by glibc anymore. | |
| If it has been in use, it should be switched off. | |
| - Programs using IPv6 have to be recompiled due to incompatible changes in | |
| sockaddr_in6 by the IPv6 working group. | |
| - The Berkeley db libraries have been removed (for details see question 2.31). | |
| - The format of the locale files has changed, all locales should be | |
| regenerated with localedef. All statically linked applications which use | |
| i18n should be recompiled, otherwise they'll not be localized. | |
| - glibc comes with a number of new applications. For example ldconfig has | |
| been implemented for glibc, the libc5 version of ldconfig is not needed | |
| anymore. | |
| - There's no more K&R compatibility in the glibc headers. The GNU C library | |
| requires a C compiler that handles especially prototypes correctly. | |
| Especially gcc -traditional will not work with glibc headers. | |
| Please read also the NEWS file which is the authoritative source for this | |
| and gives more details for some topics. | |
| 2.33. The makefiles want to do a CVS commit. | |
| {UD} Only if you are not specifying the --without-cvs flag at configure | |
| time. This is what you always have to use if you are checking sources | |
| directly out of the public CVS repository or you have your own private | |
| repository. | |
| 2.34. When compiling C++ programs, I get a compilation error in streambuf.h. | |
| {BH} You are using g++ 2.95.2? After upgrading to glibc 2.2, you need to | |
| apply a patch to the include files in /usr/include/g++, because the fpos_t | |
| type has changed in glibc 2.2. The patch is at | |
| http://www.haible.de/bruno/gccinclude-glibc-2.2-compat.diff | |
| 2.35. When recompiling GCC, I get compilation errors in libio. | |
| {BH} You are trying to recompile gcc 2.95.2? Use gcc 2.95.3 instead. | |
| This version is needed because the fpos_t type and a few libio internals | |
| have changed in glibc 2.2, and gcc 2.95.3 contains a corresponding patch. | |
| 2.36. Why shall glibc never get installed on GNU/Linux systems in | |
| /usr/local? | |
| {AJ} The GNU C compiler treats /usr/local/include and /usr/local/lib in a | |
| special way, these directories will be searched before the system | |
| directories. Since on GNU/Linux the system directories /usr/include and | |
| /usr/lib contain a --- possibly different --- version of glibc and mixing | |
| certain files from different glibc installations is not supported and will | |
| break, you risk breaking your complete system. If you want to test a glibc | |
| installation, use another directory as argument to --prefix. If you like to | |
| install this glibc version as default version, overriding the existing one, | |
| use --prefix=/usr and everything will go in the right places. | |
| 2.37. When recompiling GCC, I get compilation errors in libstdc++. | |
| {BH} You are trying to recompile gcc 3.2? You need to patch gcc 3.2, | |
| because some last minute changes were made in glibc 2.3 which were not | |
| known when gcc 3.2 was released. The patch is at | |
| http://www.haible.de/bruno/gcc-3.2-glibc-2.3-compat.diff | |
| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | |
| 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? | |
| {DMT,UD} Not every extension in Linux libc's history was well thought-out. | |
| In fact it had a lot of problems with standards compliance and with | |
| cleanliness. With the introduction of a new version number these errors can | |
| now be corrected. Here is a list of the known source code | |
| incompatibilities: | |
| * _GNU_SOURCE: glibc does not make the GNU extensions available | |
| automatically. If a program depends on GNU extensions or some | |
| other non-standard functionality, it is necessary to compile it | |
| with the C compiler option -D_GNU_SOURCE, or better, to put | |
| `#define _GNU_SOURCE' at the beginning of your source files, before | |
| any C library header files are included. This difference normally | |
| manifests itself in the form of missing prototypes and/or data type | |
| definitions. Thus, if you get such errors, the first thing you | |
| should do is try defining _GNU_SOURCE and see if that makes the | |
| problem go away. | |
| For more information consult the file `NOTES' in the GNU C library | |
| sources. | |
| * reboot(): GNU libc sanitizes the interface of reboot() to be more | |
| compatible with the interface used on other OSes. reboot() as | |
| implemented in glibc takes just one argument. This argument | |
| corresponds to the third argument of the Linux reboot system call. | |
| That is, a call of the form reboot(a, b, c) needs to be changed into | |
| reboot(c). Beside this the header <sys/reboot.h> defines the needed | |
| constants for the argument. These RB_* constants should be used | |
| instead of the cryptic magic numbers. | |
| * swapon(): the interface of this function didn't change, but the | |
| prototype is in a separate header file <sys/swap.h>. This header | |
| file also provides the SWAP_* constants defined by <linux/swap.h>; | |
| you should use them for the second argument to swapon(). | |
| * errno: If a program uses the variable "errno", then it _must_ | |
| include <errno.h>. The old libc often (erroneously) declared this | |
| variable implicitly as a side-effect of including other libc header | |
| files. glibc is careful to avoid such namespace pollution, which, | |
| in turn, means that you really need to include the header files that | |
| you depend on. This difference normally manifests itself in the | |
| form of the compiler complaining about references to an undeclared | |
| symbol "errno". | |
| * Linux-specific syscalls: All Linux system calls now have appropriate | |
| library wrappers and corresponding declarations in various header files. | |
| This is because the syscall() macro that was traditionally used to | |
| work around missing syscall wrappers are inherently non-portable and | |
| error-prone. The following table lists all the new syscall stubs, | |
| the header-file declaring their interface and the system call name. | |
| syscall name: wrapper name: declaring header file: | |
| ------------- ------------- ---------------------- | |
| bdflush bdflush <sys/kdaemon.h> | |
| syslog ksyslog_ctl <sys/klog.h> | |
| * lpd: Older versions of lpd depend on a routine called _validuser(). | |
| The library does not provide this function, but instead provides | |
| __ivaliduser() which has a slightly different interface. Simply | |
| upgrading to a newer lpd should fix this problem (e.g., the 4.4BSD | |
| lpd is known to be working). | |
| * resolver functions/BIND: like on many other systems the functions of | |
| the resolver library are not included in libc itself. There is a | |
| separate library libresolv. If you get undefined symbol errors for | |
| symbols starting with `res_*' simply add -lresolv to your linker | |
| command line. | |
| * the `signal' function's behavior corresponds to the BSD semantic and | |
| not the SysV semantic as it was in libc-5. The interface on all GNU | |
| systems shall be the same and BSD is the semantic of choice. To use | |
| the SysV behavior simply use `sysv_signal', or define _XOPEN_SOURCE. | |
| See question 3.7 for details. | |
| 3.2. Why does getlogin() always return NULL on my Linux box? | |
| {UD} The GNU C library has a format for the UTMP and WTMP file which differs | |
| from what your system currently has. It was extended to fulfill the needs | |
| of the next years when IPv6 is introduced. The record size is different and | |
| some fields have different positions. The files written by functions from | |
| the one library cannot be read by functions from the other library. Sorry, | |
| but this is what a major release is for. It's better to have a cut now than | |
| having no means to support the new techniques later. | |
| 3.3. Where are the DST_* constants found in <sys/time.h> on many | |
| systems? | |
| {UD} These constants come from the old BSD days and are not used anymore | |
| (libc5 does not actually implement the handling although the constants are | |
| defined). | |
| Instead GNU libc contains zone database support and compatibility code for | |
| POSIX TZ environment variable handling. For former is very much preferred | |
| (see question 4.3). | |
| 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? | |
| {UD} No, this is no bug. This version of GNU libc already follows the new | |
| Single Unix specifications (and I think the POSIX.1g draft which adopted the | |
| solution). The type for a parameter describing a size is now `socklen_t', a | |
| new type. | |
| 3.5. On Linux I've got problems with the declarations in Linux | |
| kernel headers. | |
| {UD,AJ} On Linux, the use of kernel headers is reduced to the minimum. This | |
| gives Linus the ability to change the headers more freely. Also, user | |
| programs are now insulated from changes in the size of kernel data | |
| structures. | |
| For example, the sigset_t type is 32 or 64 bits wide in the kernel. In | |
| glibc it is 1024 bits wide. This guarantees that when the kernel gets a | |
| bigger sigset_t (for POSIX.1e realtime support, say) user programs will not | |
| have to be recompiled. Consult the header files for more information about | |
| the changes. | |
| Therefore you shouldn't include Linux kernel header files directly if glibc | |
| has defined a replacement. Otherwise you might get undefined results because | |
| of type conflicts. | |
| 3.6. I don't include any kernel headers myself but the compiler | |
| still complains about redeclarations of types in the kernel | |
| headers. | |
| {UD} The kernel headers before Linux 2.1.61 and 2.0.32 don't work correctly | |
| with glibc. Compiling C programs is possible in most cases but C++ programs | |
| have (due to the change of the name lookups for `struct's) problems. One | |
| prominent example is `struct fd_set'. | |
| There might be some problems left but 2.1.61/2.0.32 fix most of the known | |
| ones. See the BUGS file for other known problems. | |
| 3.7. Why don't signals interrupt system calls anymore? | |
| {ZW} By default GNU libc uses the BSD semantics for signal(), unlike Linux | |
| libc 5 which used System V semantics. This is partially for compatibility | |
| with other systems and partially because the BSD semantics tend to make | |
| programming with signals easier. | |
| There are three differences: | |
| * BSD-style signals that occur in the middle of a system call do not | |
| affect the system call; System V signals cause the system call to | |
| fail and set errno to EINTR. | |
| * BSD signal handlers remain installed once triggered. System V signal | |
| handlers work only once, so one must reinstall them each time. | |
| * A BSD signal is blocked during the execution of its handler. In other | |
| words, a handler for SIGCHLD (for example) does not need to worry about | |
| being interrupted by another SIGCHLD. It may, however, be interrupted | |
| by other signals. | |
| There is general consensus that for `casual' programming with signals, the | |
| BSD semantics are preferable. You don't need to worry about system calls | |
| returning EINTR, and you don't need to worry about the race conditions | |
| associated with one-shot signal handlers. | |
| If you are porting an old program that relies on the old semantics, you can | |
| quickly fix the problem by changing signal() to sysv_signal() throughout. | |
| Alternatively, define _XOPEN_SOURCE before including <signal.h>. | |
| For new programs, the sigaction() function allows you to specify precisely | |
| how you want your signals to behave. All three differences listed above are | |
| individually switchable on a per-signal basis with this function. | |
| If all you want is for one specific signal to cause system calls to fail and | |
| return EINTR (for example, to implement a timeout) you can do this with | |
| siginterrupt(). | |
| 3.8. I've got errors compiling code that uses certain string | |
| functions. Why? | |
| {AJ} glibc 2.1 has special string functions that are faster than the normal | |
| library functions. Some of the functions are additionally implemented as | |
| inline functions and others as macros. This might lead to problems with | |
| existing codes but it is explicitly allowed by ISO C. | |
| The optimized string functions are only used when compiling with | |
| optimizations (-O1 or higher). The behavior can be changed with two feature | |
| macros: | |
| * __NO_STRING_INLINES: Don't do any string optimizations. | |
| * __USE_STRING_INLINES: Use assembly language inline functions (might | |
| increase code size dramatically). | |
| Since some of these string functions are now additionally defined as macros, | |
| code like "char *strncpy();" doesn't work anymore (and is unnecessary, since | |
| <string.h> has the necessary declarations). Either change your code or | |
| define __NO_STRING_INLINES. | |
| {UD} Another problem in this area is that gcc still has problems on machines | |
| with very few registers (e.g., ix86). The inline assembler code can require | |
| almost all the registers and the register allocator cannot always handle | |
| this situation. | |
| One can disable the string optimizations selectively. Instead of writing | |
| cp = strcpy (foo, "lkj"); | |
| one can write | |
| cp = (strcpy) (foo, "lkj"); | |
| This disables the optimization for that specific call. | |
| 3.9. I get compiler messages "Initializer element not constant" with | |
| stdin/stdout/stderr. Why? | |
| {RM,AJ} Constructs like: | |
| static FILE *InPtr = stdin; | |
| lead to this message. This is correct behaviour with glibc since stdin is | |
| not a constant expression. Please note that a strict reading of ISO C does | |
| not allow above constructs. | |
| One of the advantages of this is that you can assign to stdin, stdout, and | |
| stderr just like any other global variable (e.g. `stdout = my_stream;'), | |
| which can be very useful with custom streams that you can write with libio | |
| (but beware this is not necessarily portable). The reason to implement it | |
| this way were versioning problems with the size of the FILE structure. | |
| To fix those programs you've got to initialize the variable at run time. | |
| This can be done, e.g. in main, like: | |
| static FILE *InPtr; | |
| int main(void) | |
| { | |
| InPtr = stdin; | |
| } | |
| or by constructors (beware this is gcc specific): | |
| static FILE *InPtr; | |
| static void inPtr_construct (void) __attribute__((constructor)); | |
| static void inPtr_construct (void) { InPtr = stdin; } | |
| 3.10. I can't compile with gcc -traditional (or | |
| -traditional-cpp). Why? | |
| {AJ} glibc2 does break -traditional and -traditonal-cpp - and will continue | |
| to do so. For example constructs of the form: | |
| enum {foo | |
| #define foo foo | |
| } | |
| are useful for debugging purposes (you can use foo with your debugger that's | |
| why we need the enum) and for compatibility (other systems use defines and | |
| check with #ifdef). | |
| 3.11. I get some errors with `gcc -ansi'. Isn't glibc ANSI compatible? | |
| {AJ} The GNU C library is compatible with the ANSI/ISO C standard. If | |
| you're using `gcc -ansi', the glibc includes which are specified in the | |
| standard follow the standard. The ANSI/ISO C standard defines what has to be | |
| in the include files - and also states that nothing else should be in the | |
| include files (btw. you can still enable additional standards with feature | |
| flags). | |
| The GNU C library is conforming to ANSI/ISO C - if and only if you're only | |
| using the headers and library functions defined in the standard. | |
| 3.12. I can't access some functions anymore. nm shows that they do | |
| exist but linking fails nevertheless. | |
| {AJ} With the introduction of versioning in glibc 2.1 it is possible to | |
| export only those identifiers (functions, variables) that are really needed | |
| by application programs and by other parts of glibc. This way a lot of | |
| internal interfaces are now hidden. nm will still show those identifiers | |
| but marking them as internal. ISO C states that identifiers beginning with | |
| an underscore are internal to the libc. An application program normally | |
| shouldn't use those internal interfaces (there are exceptions, | |
| e.g. __ivaliduser). If a program uses these interfaces, it's broken. These | |
| internal interfaces might change between glibc releases or dropped | |
| completely. | |
| 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. | |
| {} Removed. Does not apply anymore. | |
| 3.14. The pow() inline function I get when including <math.h> is broken. | |
| I get segmentation faults when I run the program. | |
| {UD} Nope, the implementation is correct. The problem is with egcs version | |
| prior to 1.1. I.e., egcs 1.0 to 1.0.3 are all broken (at least on Intel). | |
| If you have to use this compiler you must define __NO_MATH_INLINES before | |
| including <math.h> to prevent the inline functions from being used. egcs 1.1 | |
| fixes the problem. I don't know about gcc 2.8 and 2.8.1. | |
| 3.15. The sys/sem.h file lacks the definition of `union semun'. | |
| {UD} Nope. This union has to be provided by the user program. Former glibc | |
| versions defined this but it was an error since it does not make much sense | |
| when thinking about it. The standards describing the System V IPC functions | |
| define it this way and therefore programs must be adopted. | |
| 3.16. Why has <netinet/ip_fw.h> disappeared? | |
| {AJ} The corresponding Linux kernel data structures and constants are | |
| totally different in Linux 2.0 and Linux 2.2. This situation has to be | |
| taken care in user programs using the firewall structures and therefore | |
| those programs (ipfw is AFAIK the only one) should deal with this problem | |
| themselves. | |
| 3.17. I get floods of warnings when I use -Wconversion and include | |
| <string.h> or <math.h>. | |
| {ZW} <string.h> and <math.h> intentionally use prototypes to override | |
| argument promotion. -Wconversion warns about all these. You can safely | |
| ignore the warnings. | |
| -Wconversion isn't really intended for production use, only for shakedown | |
| compiles after converting an old program to standard C. | |
| 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? | |
| {AJ} This normally happens if your libc and ld (dynamic linker) are from | |
| different releases of glibc. For example, the dynamic linker | |
| /lib/ld-linux.so.2 comes from glibc 2.0.x, but the version of libc.so.6 is | |
| from glibc 2.1. | |
| The path /lib/ld-linux.so.2 is hardcoded in every glibc2 binary but | |
| libc.so.6 is searched via /etc/ld.so.cache and in some special directories | |
| like /lib and /usr/lib. If you run configure with another prefix than /usr | |
| and put this prefix before /lib in /etc/ld.so.conf, your system will break. | |
| So what can you do? Either of the following should work: | |
| * Run `configure' with the same prefix argument you've used for glibc 2.0.x | |
| so that the same paths are used. | |
| * Replace /lib/ld-linux.so.2 with a link to the dynamic linker from glibc | |
| 2.1. | |
| You can even call the dynamic linker by hand if everything fails. You've | |
| got to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH so that the corresponding libc is found and also | |
| need to provide an absolute path to your binary: | |
| LD_LIBRARY_PATH=<path-where-libc.so.6-lives> \ | |
| <path-where-corresponding-dynamic-linker-lives>/ld-linux.so.2 \ | |
| <path-to-binary>/binary | |
| For example `LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/libold /libold/ld-linux.so.2 /bin/mv ...' | |
| might be useful in fixing a broken system (if /libold contains dynamic | |
| linker and corresponding libc). | |
| With that command line no path is used. To further debug problems with the | |
| dynamic linker, use the LD_DEBUG environment variable, e.g. | |
| `LD_DEBUG=help echo' for the help text. | |
| If you just want to test this release, don't put the lib directory in | |
| /etc/ld.so.conf. You can call programs directly with full paths (as above). | |
| When compiling new programs against glibc 2.1, you've got to specify the | |
| correct paths to the compiler (option -I with gcc) and linker (options | |
| --dynamic-linker, -L and --rpath). | |
| 3.19. bonnie reports that char i/o with glibc 2 is much slower than with | |
| libc5. What can be done? | |
| {AJ} The GNU C library uses thread safe functions by default and libc5 used | |
| non thread safe versions. The non thread safe functions have in glibc the | |
| suffix `_unlocked', for details check <stdio.h>. Using `putc_unlocked' etc. | |
| instead of `putc' should give nearly the same speed with bonnie (bonnie is a | |
| benchmark program for measuring disk access). | |
| 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? | |
| {} Removed. Does not apply anymore. | |
| 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. | |
| {ZW} You are using a 2.0 Linux kernel, and the function you are trying to | |
| use is only implemented in 2.1/2.2. Libc considers this to be a function | |
| which exists, because if you upgrade to a 2.2 kernel, it will work. One | |
| such function is sigaltstack. | |
| Your program should check at runtime whether the function works, and | |
| implement a fallback. Note that Autoconf cannot detect unimplemented | |
| functions in other systems' C libraries, so you need to do this anyway. | |
| 3.22. My program segfaults when I call fclose() on the FILE* returned | |
| from setmntent(). Is this a glibc bug? | |
| {GK} No. Don't do this. Use endmntent(), that's what it's for. | |
| In general, you should use the correct deallocation routine. For instance, | |
| if you open a file using fopen(), you should deallocate the FILE * using | |
| fclose(), not free(), even though the FILE * is also a pointer. | |
| In the case of setmntent(), it may appear to work in most cases, but it | |
| won't always work. Unfortunately, for compatibility reasons, we can't | |
| change the return type of setmntent() to something other than FILE *. | |
| 3.23. I get "undefined reference to `atexit'" | |
| {UD} This means that your installation is somehow broken. The situation is | |
| the same as for 'stat', 'fstat', etc (see question 2.7). Investigate why the | |
| linker does not pick up libc_nonshared.a. | |
| If a similar message is issued at runtime this means that the application or | |
| DSO is not linked against libc. This can cause problems since 'atexit' is | |
| not exported anymore. | |
| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | |
| 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? | |
| {UD} You have to get the specified autoconf version (or a later one) | |
| from your favorite mirror of ftp.gnu.org. | |
| 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. | |
| {UD} The problem is that IPv6 development still has not reached a point | |
| where the headers are stable. There are still lots of incompatible changes | |
| made and the libc headers have to follow. | |
| {PB} The 2.1 release of GNU libc aims to comply with the current versions of | |
| all the relevant standards. The IPv6 support libraries for older Linux | |
| systems used a different naming convention and so code written to work with | |
| them may need to be modified. If the standards make incompatible changes in | |
| the future then the libc may need to change again. | |
| IPv6 will not work with a 2.0.x kernel. When kernel 2.2 is released it | |
| should contain all the necessary support; until then you should use the | |
| latest 2.1.x release you can find. As of 98/11/26 the currently recommended | |
| kernel for IPv6 is 2.1.129. | |
| Also, as of the 2.1 release the IPv6 API provided by GNU libc is not | |
| 100% complete. | |
| 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. | |
| {UD} The problem is that people still use the braindamaged POSIX method to | |
| select the timezone using the TZ environment variable with a format EST5EDT | |
| or whatever. People, if you insist on using TZ instead of the timezone | |
| database (see below), read the POSIX standard, the implemented behaviour is | |
| correct! What you see is in fact the result of the decisions made while | |
| POSIX.1 was created. We've only implemented the handling of TZ this way to | |
| be POSIX compliant. It is not really meant to be used. | |
| The alternative approach to handle timezones which is implemented is the | |
| correct one to use: use the timezone database. This avoids all the problems | |
| the POSIX method has plus it is much easier to use. Simply run the tzselect | |
| shell script, answer the question and use the name printed in the end by | |
| making a symlink /etc/localtime pointing to /usr/share/zoneinfo/NAME (NAME | |
| is the returned value from tzselect). That's all. You never again have to | |
| worry. | |
| So, please avoid sending bug reports about time related problems if you use | |
| the POSIX method and you have not verified something is really broken by | |
| reading the POSIX standards. | |
| 4.4. What other sources of documentation about glibc are available? | |
| {AJ} The FSF has a page about the GNU C library at | |
| <http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/>. The problem data base of open and | |
| solved bugs in GNU libc is available at | |
| <http://www-gnats.gnu.org:8080/cgi-bin/wwwgnats.pl>. Eric Green has written | |
| a HowTo for converting from Linux libc5 to glibc2. The HowTo is accessible | |
| via the FSF page and at <http://www.imaxx.net/~thrytis/glibc>. Frodo | |
| Looijaard describes a different way installing glibc2 as secondary libc at | |
| <http://huizen.dds.nl/~frodol/glibc>. | |
| Please note that this is not a complete list. | |
| 4.5. The timezone string for Sydney/Australia is wrong since even when | |
| daylight saving time is in effect the timezone string is EST. | |
| {UD} The problem for some timezones is that the local authorities decided | |
| to use the term "summer time" instead of "daylight saving time". In this | |
| case the abbreviation character `S' is the same as the standard one. So, | |
| for Sydney we have | |
| Eastern Standard Time = EST | |
| Eastern Summer Time = EST | |
| Great! To get this bug fixed convince the authorities to change the laws | |
| and regulations of the country this effects. glibc behaves correctly. | |
| 4.6. I've build make 3.77 against glibc 2.1 and now make gets | |
| segmentation faults. | |
| {} Removed. Does not apply anymore, use make 3.79 or newer. | |
| 4.7. Why do so many programs using math functions fail on my AlphaStation? | |
| {AO} The functions floor() and floorf() use an instruction that is not | |
| implemented in some old PALcodes of AlphaStations. This may cause | |
| `Illegal Instruction' core dumps or endless loops in programs that | |
| catch these signals. Updating the firmware to a 1999 release has | |
| fixed the problem on an AlphaStation 200 4/166. | |
| 4.8. The conversion table for character set XX does not match with | |
| what I expect. | |
| {UD} I don't doubt for a minute that some of the conversion tables contain | |
| errors. We tried the best we can and relied on automatic generation of the | |
| data to prevent human-introduced errors but this still is no guarantee. If | |
| you think you found a problem please send a bug report describing it and | |
| give an authoritive reference. The latter is important since otherwise | |
| the current behaviour is as good as the proposed one. | |
| Before doing this look through the list of known problem first: | |
| - the GBK (simplified Chinese) encoding is based on Unicode tables. This | |
| is good. These tables, however, differ slightly from the tables used | |
| by the M$ people. The differences are these [+ Unicode, - M$]: | |
| +0xA1AA 0x2015 | |
| +0xA844 0x2014 | |
| -0xA1AA 0x2014 | |
| -0xA844 0x2015 | |
| In addition the Unicode tables contain mappings for the GBK characters | |
| 0xA8BC, 0xA8BF, 0xA989 to 0xA995, and 0xFE50 to 0xFEA0. | |
| - when mapping from EUC-CN to GBK and vice versa we ignore the fact that | |
| the coded character at position 0xA1A4 maps to different Unicode | |
| characters. Since the iconv() implementation can do whatever it wants | |
| if it cannot directly map a character this is a perfectly good solution | |
| since the semantics and appearance of the character does not change. | |
| 4.9. How can I find out which version of glibc I am using in the moment? | |
| {UD} If you want to find out about the version from the command line simply | |
| run the libc binary. This is probably not possible on all platforms but | |
| where it is simply locate the libc DSO and start it as an application. On | |
| Linux like | |
| /lib/libc.so.6 | |
| This will produce all the information you need. | |
| What always will work is to use the API glibc provides. Compile and run the | |
| following little program to get the version information: | |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| #include <stdio.h> | |
| #include <gnu/libc-version.h> | |
| int main (void) { puts (gnu_get_libc_version ()); return 0; } | |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| This interface can also obviously be used to perform tests at runtime if | |
| this should be necessary. | |
| 4.10. Context switching with setcontext() does not work from within | |
| signal handlers. | |
| {DMT} The Linux implementations (IA-64, S390 so far) of setcontext() | |
| supports synchronous context switches only. There are several reasons for | |
| this: | |
| - UNIX provides no other (portable) way of effecting a synchronous | |
| context switch (also known as co-routine switch). Some versions | |
| support this via setjmp()/longjmp() but this does not work | |
| universally. | |
| - As defined by the UNIX '98 standard, the only way setcontext() | |
| could trigger an asychronous context switch is if this function | |
| were invoked on the ucontext_t pointer passed as the third argument | |
| to a signal handler. But according to draft 5, XPG6, XBD 2.4.3, | |
| setcontext() is not among the set of routines that may be called | |
| from a signal handler. | |
| - If setcontext() were to be used for asynchronous context switches, | |
| all kinds of synchronization and re-entrancy issues could arise and | |
| these problems have already been solved by real multi-threading | |
| libraries (e.g., POSIX threads or Linux threads). | |
| - Synchronous context switching can be implemented entirely in | |
| user-level and less state needs to be saved/restored than for an | |
| asynchronous context switch. It is therefore useful to distinguish | |
| between the two types of context switches. Indeed, some | |
| application vendors are known to use setcontext() to implement | |
| co-routines on top of normal (heavier-weight) pre-emptable threads. | |
| It should be noted that if someone was dead-bent on using setcontext() | |
| on the third arg of a signal handler, then IA-64 Linux could support | |
| this via a special version of sigaction() which arranges that all | |
| signal handlers start executing in a shim function which takes care of | |
| saving the preserved registers before calling the real signal handler | |
| and restoring them afterwards. In other words, we could provide a | |
| compatibility layer which would support setcontext() for asynchronous | |
| context switches. However, given the arguments above, I don't think | |
| that makes sense. setcontext() provides a decent co-routine interface | |
| and we should just discourage any asynchronous use (which just calls | |
| for trouble at any rate). | |
| ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ | |
| Answers were given by: | |
| {UD} Ulrich Drepper, <drepper@redhat.com> | |
| {DMT} David Mosberger-Tang, <davidm@hpl.hp.com> | |
| {RM} Roland McGrath, <roland@gnu.org> | |
| {AJ} Andreas Jaeger, <aj@suse.de> | |
| {EY} Eric Youngdale, <eric@andante.jic.com> | |
| {PB} Phil Blundell, <Philip.Blundell@pobox.com> | |
| {MK} Mark Kettenis, <kettenis@phys.uva.nl> | |
| {ZW} Zack Weinberg, <zack@rabi.phys.columbia.edu> | |
| {TK} Thorsten Kukuk, <kukuk@suse.de> | |
| {GK} Geoffrey Keating, <geoffk@redhat.com> | |
| {HJ} H.J. Lu, <hjl@gnu.org> | |
| {CG} Cristian Gafton, <gafton@redhat.com> | |
| {AO} Alexandre Oliva, <aoliva@redhat.com> | |
| {BH} Bruno Haible, <haible@clisp.cons.org> | |
| {SM} Steven Munroe, <sjmunroe@us.ibm.com> | |
| {CO} Carlos O'Donell, <carlos@systemhalted.org> | |
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