1 Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU C Library
3 This document tries to answer questions a user might have when installing
4 and using glibc. Please make sure you read this before sending questions or
5 bug reports to the maintainers.
7 The GNU C library is very complex. The installation process has not been
8 completely automated; there are too many variables. You can do substantial
9 damage to your system by installing the library incorrectly. Make sure you
10 understand what you are undertaking before you begin.
12 If you have any questions you think should be answered in this document,
19 ?? What systems does the GNU C Library run on?
21 {UD} This is difficult to answer. The file `README' lists the architectures
22 GNU libc was known to run on *at some time*. This does not mean that it
23 still can be compiled and run on them now.
25 The systems glibc is known to work on as of this release, and most probably
29 i[3456]86-*-linux-gnu Linux-2.x on Intel
30 m68k-*-linux-gnu Linux-2.x on Motorola 680x0
31 alpha-*-linux-gnu Linux-2.x on DEC Alpha
32 powerpc-*-linux-gnu Linux and MkLinux on PowerPC systems
33 sparc-*-linux-gnu Linux-2.x on SPARC
34 sparc64-*-linux-gnu Linux-2.x on UltraSPARC
35 arm-*-none ARM standalone systems
36 arm-*-linux Linux-2.x on ARM
37 arm-*-linuxaout Linux-2.x on ARM using a.out binaries
39 Ports to other Linux platforms are in development, and may in fact work
40 already, but no one has sent us success reports for them. Currently no
41 ports to other operating systems are underway, although a few people have
44 If you have a system not listed above (or in the `README' file) and you are
45 really interested in porting it, contact
49 ??binsize What compiler do I need to build GNU libc?
51 {UD} You must use GNU CC to compile GNU libc. A lot of extensions of GNU CC
52 are used to increase portability and speed.
54 GNU CC is found, like all other GNU packages, on
56 ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu
58 and the many mirror sites. ftp.gnu.org is always overloaded, so try to find
61 You should always try to use the latest official release. Older versions
62 may not have all the features GNU libc requires. The current releases of
63 egcs (1.0.3 and 1.1.1) should work with the GNU C library (for powerpc see
64 ?powerpc; for ARM see ?arm).
66 While the GNU CC should be able to compile glibc it is nevertheless adviced
67 to use EGCS. Comparing the sizes of glibc on Intel compiled with a recent
68 EGCS and gcc 2.8.1 shows this:
70 text data bss dec hex filename
71 egcs-2.93.10 862897 15944 12824 891665 d9b11 libc.so
72 gcc-2.8.1 959965 16468 12152 988585 f15a9 libc.so
74 Make up your own decision.
76 ?? When I try to compile glibc I get only error messages.
79 {UD} You definitely need GNU make to build GNU libc. No other make
80 program has the needed functionality.
82 We recommend version GNU make version 3.75 or 3.77. Versions before 3.75
83 have bugs and/or are missing features. Version 3.76 has bugs which
84 appear when building big projects like GNU libc. 3.76.1 appears to work but
85 some people have reported problems. If you build GNU make 3.77 from source,
86 please read ?make first.
88 ?? Do I need a special linker or assembler?
90 {ZW} If you want a shared library, you need a linker and assembler that
91 understand all the features of ELF, including weak and versioned symbols.
92 The static library can be compiled with less featureful tools, but lacks key
95 For Linux or Hurd, you want binutils 2.8.1.0.23, 2.9.1, or 2.9.1.0.15 or
96 higher. These are the only versions we've tested and found reliable. Other
97 versions after 2.8.1.0.23 may work but we don't recommend them, especially
98 not when C++ is involved. Earlier versions do not work at all.
100 Other operating systems may come with system tools that have all the
101 necessary features, but this is moot because glibc hasn't been ported to
104 ??powerpc Which compiler should I use for powerpc?
106 {GK} You want to use egcs 1.1 or later (together with the right versions
107 of all the other tools, of course).
109 In fact, egcs 1.1 has a bug that causes linuxthreads to be
110 miscompiled, resulting in segmentation faults when using condition
111 variables. There is a temporary patch at:
113 <http://discus.anu.edu.au/~geoffk/egcs-3.diff>
115 Later versions of egcs may fix this problem.
117 ??arm Which tools should I use for ARM?
119 {PB} You should use egcs 1.1 or a later version. For ELF systems some
120 changes are needed to the compiler; a patch against egcs-1.1.x can be found
123 <ftp://ftp.netwinder.org/users/p/philb/egcs-1.1.1pre2-diff-981126>
125 Binutils 2.9.1.0.16 or later is also required.
127 ?? Do I need some more things to compile the GNU C Library?
129 {UD} Yes, there are some more :-).
131 * GNU gettext. This package contains the tools needed to construct
132 `message catalog' files containing translated versions of system
133 messages. See ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu or better any mirror
134 site. (We distribute compiled message catalogs, but they may not be
137 * Some files are built with special tools. E.g., files ending in .gperf
138 need a `gperf' program. The GNU version (now available in a separate
139 package, formerly only as part of libg++) is known to work while some
140 vendor versions do not.
142 You should not need these tools unless you change the source files.
144 * Perl 5 is needed if you wish to test an installation of GNU libc
145 as the primary C library.
147 * When compiling for Linux, the header files of the Linux kernel must
148 be available to the compiler as <linux/*.h> and <asm/*.h>.
150 * lots of disk space (~170MB for i?86-linux; more for RISC platforms,
153 * plenty of time. Compiling just the shared and static libraries for
154 i?86-linux takes approximately 1h on an AMD-K6@225MHz w/ 96MB of RAM.
155 Multiply this by 1.5 or 2.0 if you build profiling and/or the highly
156 optimized version as well. For Hurd systems times are much higher.
158 You should avoid compiling in a NFS mounted filesystem. This is
161 James Troup <J.J.Troup@comp.brad.ac.uk> reports a compile time of
162 45h34m for a full build (shared, static, and profiled) on Atari
163 Falcon (Motorola 68030 @ 16 Mhz, 14 Mb memory) and Jan Barte
164 <yann@plato.uni-paderborn.de> reports 22h48m on Atari TT030
165 (Motorola 68030 @ 32 Mhz, 34 Mb memory)
167 If you have some more measurements let me know.
169 ?? What version of the Linux kernel headers should be used?
171 {AJ,UD} The headers from the most recent Linux kernel should be used. The
172 headers used while compiling the GNU C library and the kernel binary used
173 when using the library do not need to match. The GNU C library runs without
174 problems on kernels that are older than the kernel headers used. The other
175 way round (compiling the GNU C library with old kernel headers and running
176 on a recent kernel) does not necessarily work. For example you can't use
177 new kernel features if you used old kernel headers to compile the GNU C
180 {ZW} Even if you are using a 2.0 kernel on your machine, we recommend you
181 compile GNU libc with 2.2 kernel headers. That way you won't have to
182 recompile libc if you ever upgrade to kernel 2.2. To tell libc which
183 headers to use, give configure the --with-headers switch
184 (e.g. --with-headers=/usr/src/linux-2.2.0/include).
186 Note that you must configure the 2.2 kernel if you do this, otherwise libc
187 will be unable to find <linux/version.h>. Just change the current directory
188 to the root of the 2.2 tree and do `make include/linux/version.h'.
190 ?? The compiler hangs while building iconvdata modules. What's
193 {ZW} This is a problem with old versions of GCC. Initialization of large
194 static arrays is very slow. The compiler will eventually finish; give it
197 The problem is fixed in egcs 1.1.
199 ?? When I run `nm -u libc.so' on the produced library I still
200 find unresolved symbols. Can this be ok?
202 {UD} Yes, this is ok. There can be several kinds of unresolved symbols:
204 * magic symbols automatically generated by the linker. These have names
205 like __start_* and __stop_*
207 * symbols starting with _dl_* come from the dynamic linker
209 * weak symbols, which need not be resolved at all (fabs for example)
211 Generally, you should make sure you find a real program which produces
212 errors while linking before deciding there is a problem.
214 ??addon What are these `add-ons'?
216 {UD} To avoid complications with export rules or external source code some
217 optional parts of the libc are distributed as separate packages (e.g., the
218 crypt package, see ?crypt).
220 To use these packages as part of GNU libc, just unpack the tarfiles in the
221 libc source directory and tell the configuration script about them using the
222 --enable-add-ons option. If you give just --enable-add-ons configure tries
223 to find all the add-on packages in your source tree. This may not work. If
224 it doesn't, or if you want to select only a subset of the add-ons, give a
225 comma-separated list of the add-ons to enable:
227 configure --enable-add-ons=crypt,linuxthreads
231 Add-ons can add features (including entirely new shared libraries), override
232 files, provide support for additional architectures, and just about anything
233 else. The existing makefiles do most of the work; only some few stub rules
234 must be written to get everything running.
236 ?? My XXX kernel emulates a floating-point coprocessor for me.
237 Should I enable --with-fp?
239 {ZW} An emulated FPU is just as good as a real one, as far as the C library
240 is concerned. You only need to say --without-fp if your machine has no way
241 to execute floating-point instructions.
243 People who are interested in squeezing the last drop of performance
244 out of their machine may wish to avoid the trap overhead, but this is
245 far more trouble than it's worth: you then have to compile
246 *everything* this way, including the compiler's internal libraries
247 (libgcc.a for GNU C), because the calling conventions change.
249 ?? When compiling GNU libc I get lots of errors saying functions
250 in glibc are duplicated in libgcc.
252 {EY} This is *exactly* the same problem that I was having. The problem was
253 due to the fact that configure didn't correctly detect that the linker flag
254 --no-whole-archive was supported in my linker. In my case it was because I
255 had run ./configure with bogus CFLAGS, and the test failed.
257 One thing that is particularly annoying about this problem is that once this
258 is misdetected, running configure again won't fix it unless you first delete
261 {UD} Starting with glibc-2.0.3 there should be a better test to avoid some
262 problems of this kind. The setting of CFLAGS is checked at the very
263 beginning and if it is not usable `configure' will bark.
265 ?? Why do I get messages about missing thread functions when I use
266 librt? I don't even use threads.
268 {UD} In this case you probably mixed up your installation. librt uses
269 threads internally and has implicit references to the thread library.
270 Normally these references are satisfied automatically but if the thread
271 library is not in the expected place you must tell the linker where it is.
272 When using GNU ld it works like this:
274 gcc -o foo foo.c -Wl,-rpath-link=/some/other/dir -lrt
276 The `/some/other/dir' should contain the thread library. `ld' will use the
277 given path to find the implicitly referenced library while not disturbing
280 ?? What's the problem with configure --enable-omitfp?
282 {AJ} When --enable-omitfp is set the libraries are built without frame
283 pointers. Some compilers produce buggy code for this model and therefore we
284 don't advise using it at the moment.
286 If you use --enable-omitfp, you're on your own. If you encounter problems
287 with a library that was build this way, we advise you to rebuild the library
288 without --enable-omitfp. If the problem vanishes consider tracking the
289 problem down and report it as compiler failure.
291 Since a library built with --enable-omitfp is undebuggable on most systems,
292 debuggable libraries are also built - you can use them by appending "_g" to
295 The compilation of these extra libraries and the compiler optimizations slow
296 down the build process and need more disk space.
298 ?? I get failures during `make check'. What should I do?
300 {AJ} The testsuite should compile and run cleanly on your system; every
301 failure should be looked into. Depending on the failures, you probably
302 should not install the library at all.
304 You should consider using the `glibcbug' script to report the failure,
305 providing as much detail as possible. If you run a test directly, please
306 remember to set up the environment correctly. You want to test the compiled
307 library - and not your installed one. The best way is to copy the exact
308 command line which failed and run the test from the subdirectory for this
311 There are some failures which are not directly related to the GNU libc:
312 - Some compilers produce buggy code. No compiler gets single precision
313 complex numbers correct on Alpha. Otherwise, the egcs 1.1 release should be
314 ok; gcc 2.8.1 might cause some failures; gcc 2.7.2.x is so buggy that
315 explicit checks have been used so that you can't build with it.
316 - The kernel might have bugs. For example on Linux/Alpha 2.0.34 the
317 floating point handling has quite a number of bugs and therefore most of
318 the test cases in the math subdirectory will fail. Linux 2.2 has
319 fixes for the floating point support on Alpha. The Linux/SPARC kernel has
320 also some bugs in the FPU emulation code (as of Linux 2.2.0).
322 ?? What is symbol versioning good for? Do I need it?
324 {AJ} Symbol versioning solves problems that are related to interface
325 changes. One version of an interface might have been introduced in a
326 previous version of the GNU C library but the interface or the semantics of
327 the function has been changed in the meantime. For binary compatibility
328 with the old library, a newer library needs to still have the old interface
329 for old programs. On the other hand, new programs should use the new
330 interface. Symbol versioning is the solution for this problem. The GNU
331 libc version 2.1 uses symbol versioning by default if the installed binutils
334 We don't advise building without symbol versioning, since you lose binary
335 compatibility - forever! The binary compatibility you lose is not only
336 against the previous version of the GNU libc (version 2.0) but also against
340 ? Installation and configuration issues
342 ?? Can I replace the libc on my Linux system with GNU libc?
344 {UD} You cannot replace any existing libc for Linux with GNU libc. It is
345 binary incompatible and therefore has a different major version. You can,
346 however, install it alongside your existing libc.
348 For Linux there are three major libc versions:
350 libc-5 original ELF libc
353 You can have any combination of these three installed. For more information
354 consult documentation for shared library handling. The Makefiles of GNU
355 libc will automatically generate the needed symbolic links which the linker
358 ?? How do I configure GNU libc so that the essential libraries
359 like libc.so go into /lib and the other into /usr/lib?
361 {UD,AJ} Like all other GNU packages GNU libc is designed to use a base
362 directory and install all files relative to this. The default is
363 /usr/local, because this is safe (it will not damage the system if installed
364 there). If you wish to install GNU libc as the primary C library on your
365 system, set the base directory to /usr (i.e. run configure --prefix=/usr
366 <other_options>). Note that this can damage your system; see ?safety for
369 Some systems like Linux have a filesystem standard which makes a difference
370 between essential libraries and others. Essential libraries are placed in
371 /lib because this directory is required to be located on the same disk
372 partition as /. The /usr subtree might be found on another
373 partition/disk. If you configure for Linux with --prefix=/usr, then this
374 will be done automatically.
376 To install the essential libraries which come with GNU libc in /lib on
377 systems other than Linux one must explicitly request it. Autoconf has no
378 option for this so you have to use a `configparms' file (see the `INSTALL'
379 file for details). It should contain:
384 The first line specifies the directory for the essential libraries, the
385 second line the directory for system configuration files.
387 ??safety How should I avoid damaging my system when I install GNU libc?
389 {ZW} If you wish to be cautious, do not configure with --prefix=/usr. If
390 you don't specify a prefix, glibc will be installed in /usr/local, where it
391 will probably not break anything. (If you wish to be certain, set the
392 prefix to something like /usr/local/glibc2 which is not used for anything.)
394 The dangers when installing glibc in /usr are twofold:
396 * glibc will overwrite the headers in /usr/include. Other C libraries
397 install a different but overlapping set of headers there, so the effect
398 will probably be that you can't compile anything. You need to rename
399 /usr/include out of the way before running `make install'. (Do not throw
400 it away; you will then lose the ability to compile programs against your
403 * None of your old libraries, static or shared, can be used with a
404 different C library major version. For shared libraries this is not a
405 problem, because the filenames are different and the dynamic linker
406 will enforce the restriction. But static libraries have no version
407 information. You have to evacuate all the static libraries in
408 /usr/lib to a safe location.
410 The situation is rather similar to the move from a.out to ELF which
411 long-time Linux users will remember.
413 ?? Do I need to use GNU CC to compile programs that will use the
416 {ZW} In theory, no; the linker does not care, and the headers are supposed
417 to check for GNU CC before using its extensions to the C language.
419 However, there are currently no ports of glibc to systems where another
420 compiler is the default, so no one has tested the headers extensively
421 against another compiler. You may therefore encounter difficulties. If you
422 do, please report them as bugs.
424 Also, in several places GNU extensions provide large benefits in code
425 quality. For example, the library has hand-optimized, inline assembly
426 versions of some string functions. These can only be used with GCC. See
429 ??crypt When linking with the new libc I get unresolved symbols
430 `crypt' and `setkey'. Why aren't these functions in the
433 {UD} The US places restrictions on exporting cryptographic programs and
434 source code. Until this law gets abolished we cannot ship the cryptographic
435 functions together with glibc.
437 The functions are available, as an add-on (see ?addon). People in the US
438 may get it from the same place they got GNU libc from. People outside the
439 US should get the code from ftp.funet.fi [128.214.248.6] in the directory
440 pub/gnu/funet, or another archive site outside the USA. The README explains
441 how to install the sources.
443 If you already have the crypt code on your system the reason for the failure
444 is probably that you did not link with -lcrypt. The crypto functions are in
445 a separate library to make it possible to export GNU libc binaries from the
448 ?? When I use GNU libc on my Linux system by linking against
449 the libc.so which comes with glibc all I get is a core dump.
451 {UD} On Linux, gcc sets the dynamic linker to /lib/ld-linux.so.1 unless the
452 user specifies a -dynamic-linker argument. This is the name of the libc5
453 dynamic linker, which does not work with glibc.
455 For casual use of GNU libc you can just specify to the linker
456 --dynamic-linker=/lib/ld-linux.so.2
458 which is the glibc dynamic linker, on Linux systems. On other systems the
459 name is /lib/ld.so.1. When linking via gcc, you've got to add
460 -Wl,--dynamic-linker=/lib/ld-linux.so.2
462 to the gcc command line.
464 To change your environment to use GNU libc for compiling you need to change
465 the `specs' file of your gcc. This file is normally found at
467 /usr/lib/gcc-lib/<arch>/<version>/specs
469 In this file you have to change a few things:
471 - change `ld-linux.so.1' to `ld-linux.so.2'
473 - remove all expression `%{...:-lgmon}'; there is no libgmon in glibc
475 - fix a minor bug by changing %{pipe:-} to %|
477 Here is what the gcc-2.7.2 specs file should look like when GNU libc is
480 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
482 %{V} %{v:%{!V:-V}} %{Qy:} %{!Qn:-Qy} %{n} %{T} %{Ym,*} %{Yd,*} %{Wa,*:%*}
488 %{fPIC:-D__PIC__ -D__pic__} %{fpic:-D__PIC__ -D__pic__} %{!m386:-D__i486__} %{posix:-D_POSIX_SOURCE} %{pthread:-D_REENTRANT}
497 %{!shared:crtend.o%s} %{shared:crtendS.o%s} crtn.o%s
500 -m elf_i386 %{shared:-shared} %{!shared: %{!ibcs: %{!static: %{rdynamic:-export-dynamic} %{!dynamic-linker:-dynamic-linker /lib/ld-linux.so.2}} %{static:-static}}}
503 %{!shared: %{pthread:-lpthread} %{profile:-lc_p} %{!profile: -lc}}
509 %{!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}
511 *switches_need_spaces:
515 %{funsigned-char:-D__CHAR_UNSIGNED__}
518 -D__ELF__ -Dunix -Di386 -Dlinux -Asystem(unix) -Asystem(posix) -Acpu(i386) -Amachine(i386)
526 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
528 Things get a bit more complicated if you have GNU libc installed in some
529 other place than /usr, i.e., if you do not want to use it instead of the old
530 libc. In this case the needed startup files and libraries are not found in
531 the regular places. So the specs file must tell the compiler and linker
534 Version 2.7.2.3 does and future versions of GCC will automatically
535 provide the correct specs.
537 ?? Looking through the shared libc file I haven't found the
538 functions `stat', `lstat', `fstat', and `mknod' and while
539 linking on my Linux system I get error messages. How is
540 this supposed to work?
542 {RM} Believe it or not, stat and lstat (and fstat, and mknod) are supposed
543 to be undefined references in libc.so.6! Your problem is probably a missing
544 or incorrect /usr/lib/libc.so file; note that this is a small text file now,
545 not a symlink to libc.so.6. It should look something like this:
547 GROUP ( libc.so.6 libc_nonshared.a )
549 ?? When I run an executable on one system which I compiled on
550 another, I get dynamic linker errors. Both systems have the same
551 version of glibc installed. What's wrong?
553 {ZW} Glibc on one of these systems was compiled with gcc 2.7 or 2.8, the
554 other with egcs (any version). Egcs has functions in its internal
555 `libgcc.a' to support exception handling with C++. They are linked into
556 any program or dynamic library compiled with egcs, whether it needs them or
557 not. Dynamic libraries then turn around and export those functions again
558 unless special steps are taken to prevent them.
560 When you link your program, it resolves its references to the exception
561 functions to the ones exported accidentally by libc.so. That works fine as
562 long as libc has those functions. On the other system, libc doesn't have
563 those functions because it was compiled by gcc 2.8, and you get undefined
564 symbol errors. The symbols in question are named things like
565 `__register_frame_info'.
567 For glibc 2.0, the workaround is to not compile libc with egcs. We've also
568 incorporated a patch which should prevent the EH functions sneaking into
569 libc. It doesn't matter what compiler you use to compile your program.
571 For glibc 2.1, we've chosen to do it the other way around: libc.so
572 explicitly provides the EH functions. This is to prevent other shared
573 libraries from doing it.
575 {UD} Starting with glibc 2.1.1 you can compile glibc with gcc 2.8.1 or
576 newer since we have explicitly add references to the functions causing the
577 problem. But you nevertheless should use EGCS for other reasons
580 ?? How can I compile gcc 2.7.2.1 from the gcc source code using
583 {AJ} There's only correct support for glibc 2.0.x in gcc 2.7.2.3 or later.
584 But you should get at least gcc 2.8.1 or egcs 1.1 (or later versions)
587 ?? The `gencat' utility cannot process the catalog sources which
588 were used on my Linux libc5 based system. Why?
590 {UD} The `gencat' utility provided with glibc complies to the XPG standard.
591 The older Linux version did not obey the standard, so they are not
594 To ease the transition from the Linux version some of the non-standard
595 features are also present in the `gencat' program of GNU libc. This mainly
596 includes the use of symbols for the message number and the automatic
597 generation of header files which contain the needed #defines to map the
600 Here is a simple SED script to convert at least some Linux specific catalog
601 files to the XPG4 form:
603 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
604 # Change catalog source in Linux specific format to standard XPG format.
605 # Ulrich Drepper <drepper@cygnus.com>, 1996.
609 s/\$ #\([^ ]*\).*/\1/
611 s/\$ #[^ ]* *\(.*\)/\$ \1/
617 s/\(.*\)\n\(.*\)/\2 \1/
619 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
621 ?? Programs using libc have their messages translated, but other
622 behavior is not localized (e.g. collating order); why?
624 {ZW} Translated messages are automatically installed, but the locale
625 database that controls other behaviors is not. You need to run localedef to
626 install this database, after you have run `make install'. For example, to
627 set up the French Canadian locale, simply issue the command
629 localedef -i fr_CA -f ISO-8859-1 fr_CA
631 Please see localedata/README in the source tree for further details.
633 ?? I have set up /etc/nis.conf, and the Linux libc 5 with NYS
634 works great. But the glibc NIS+ doesn't seem to work.
636 {TK} The glibc NIS+ implementation uses a /var/nis/NIS_COLD_START file for
637 storing information about the NIS+ server and their public keys, because the
638 nis.conf file does not contain all the necessary information. You have to
639 copy a NIS_COLD_START file from a Solaris client (the NIS_COLD_START file is
640 byte order independent) or generate it with nisinit from the nis-tools
641 package; available at
643 http://www.suse.de/~kukuk/linux/nisplus.html
645 ?? I have killed ypbind to stop using NIS, but glibc
648 {TK} For faster NIS lookups, glibc uses the /var/yp/binding/ files from
649 ypbind. ypbind 3.3 and older versions don't always remove these files, so
650 glibc will continue to use them. Other BSD versions seem to work correctly.
651 Until ypbind 3.4 is released, you can find a patch at
653 ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/net/NIS/ypbind-3.3-glibc4.diff.gz
655 ?? Under Linux/Alpha, I always get "do_ypcall: clnt_call:
656 RPC: Unable to receive; errno = Connection refused" when using NIS.
658 {TK} You need a ypbind version which is 64bit clean. Some versions are not
659 64bit clean. A 64bit clean implementation is ypbind-mt. For ypbind 3.3,
660 you need the patch from ftp.kernel.org (See the previous question). I don't
661 know about other versions.
664 ?? After installing glibc name resolving doesn't work properly.
666 {AJ} You probably should read the manual section describing nsswitch.conf
667 (just type `info libc "NSS Configuration File"'). The NSS configuration
668 file is usually the culprit.
671 ?? How do I create the databases for NSS?
673 {AJ} If you have an entry "db" in /etc/nsswitch.conf you should also create
674 the database files. The glibc sources contain a Makefile which does the
675 necessary conversion and calls to create those files. The file is
676 `db-Makefile' in the subdirectory `nss' and you can call it with `make -f
677 db-Makefile'. Please note that not all services are capable of using a
678 database. Currently passwd, group, ethers, protocol, rpc, services shadow
679 and netgroup are implemented.
681 ?? I have /usr/include/net and /usr/include/scsi as symlinks
682 into my Linux source tree. Is that wrong?
684 {PB} This was necessary for libc5, but is not correct when using glibc.
685 Including the kernel header files directly in user programs usually does not
686 work (see ?kerhdr). glibc provides its own <net/*> and <scsi/*> header
687 files to replace them, and you may have to remove any symlink that you have
688 in place before you install glibc. However, /usr/include/asm and
689 /usr/include/linux should remain as they were.
691 ?? Programs like `logname', `top', `uptime' `users', `w' and
692 `who', show incorrect information about the (number of)
693 users on my system. Why?
697 ?? After upgrading to glibc 2.1 with symbol versioning I get
698 errors about undefined symbols. What went wrong?
700 {AJ} The problem is caused either by wrong program code or tools. In the
701 versioned libc a lot of symbols are now local that were global symbols in
702 previous versions. It seems that programs linked against older versions
703 often accidentally used libc global variables -- something that should not
706 The only way to fix this is to recompile your program. Sorry, that's the
707 price you might have to pay once for quite a number of advantages with
710 ?? When I start the program XXX after upgrading the library
712 XXX: Symbol `_sys_errlist' has different size in shared
713 object, consider re-linking
714 Why? What should I do?
716 {UD} As the message says, relink the binary. The problem is that a few
717 symbols from the library can change in size and there is no way to avoid
718 this. _sys_errlist is a good example. Occasionally there are new error
719 numbers added to the kernel and this must be reflected at user level,
720 breaking programs that refer to them directly.
722 Such symbols should normally not be used at all. There are mechanisms to
723 avoid using them. In the case of _sys_errlist, there is the strerror()
724 function which should _always_ be used instead. So the correct fix is to
725 rewrite that part of the application.
727 In some situations (especially when testing a new library release) it might
728 be possible that a symbol changed size when that should not have happened.
729 So in case of doubt report such a warning message as a problem.
731 ?? What do I need for C++ development?
733 {HJ,AJ} You need either egcs 1.1 which comes directly with libstdc++ or
734 gcc-2.8.1 together with libstdc++ 2.8.1.1. egcs 1.1 has the better C++
735 support and works directly with glibc 2.1. If you use gcc-2.8.1 with
736 libstdc++ 2.8.1.1, you need to modify libstdc++ a bit. A patch is available
738 ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/libstdc++-2.8.1.1-glibc2.1-diff.gz
740 Please note that libg++ 2.7.2 (and the Linux Versions 2.7.2.x) doesn't work
741 very well with the GNU C library due to vtable thunks. If you're upgrading
742 from glibc 2.0.x to 2.1 you have to recompile libstdc++ since the library
743 compiled for 2.0 is not compatible due to the new Large File Support (LFS)
746 {UD} But since in the case of a shared libstdc++ the version numbers should
747 be different existing programs will continue to work.
749 ?? Even statically linked programs need some shared libraries
750 which is not acceptable for me. What can I do?
752 {AJ} NSS (for details just type `info libc "Name Service Switch"') won't
753 work properly without shared libraries. NSS allows using different services
754 (e.g. NIS, files, db, hesiod) by just changing one configuration file
755 (/etc/nsswitch.conf) without relinking any programs. The only disadvantage
756 is that now static libraries need to access shared libraries. This is
757 handled transparently by the GNU C library.
759 A solution is to configure glibc with --enable-static-nss. In this case you
760 can create a static binary that will use only the services dns and files
761 (change /etc/nsswitch.conf for this). You need to link explicitly against
762 all these services. For example:
764 gcc -static test-netdb.c -o test-netdb.c \
765 -lc -lnss_files -lnss_dns -lresolv
767 The problem with this approach is that you've got to link every static
768 program that uses NSS routines with all those libraries.
770 {UD} In fact, one cannot say anymore that a libc compiled with this
771 option is using NSS. There is no switch anymore. Therefore it is
772 *highly* recommended *not* to use --enable-static-nss since this makes
773 the behaviour of the programs on the system inconsistent.
775 ?? I just upgraded my Linux system to glibc and now I get
776 errors whenever I try to link any program.
778 {ZW} This happens when you have installed glibc as the primary C library but
779 have stray symbolic links pointing at your old C library. If the first
780 `libc.so' the linker finds is libc 5, it will use that. Your program
781 expects to be linked with glibc, so the link fails.
783 The most common case is that glibc put its `libc.so' in /usr/lib, but there
784 was a `libc.so' from libc 5 in /lib, which gets searched first. To fix the
785 problem, just delete /lib/libc.so. You may also need to delete other
786 symbolic links in /lib, such as /lib/libm.so if it points to libm.so.5.
788 {AJ} The perl script test-installation.pl which is run as last step during
789 an installation of glibc that is configured with --prefix=/usr should help
790 detect these situations. If the script reports problems, something is
793 ?? When I use nscd the machine freezes.
795 {UD} You cannot use nscd with Linux 2.0.*. There is functionality missing
796 in the kernel and work-arounds are not suitable. Besides, some parts of the
797 kernel are too buggy when it comes to using threads.
799 If you need nscd, you have to use at least a 2.1 kernel.
801 Note that I have at this point no information about any other platform.
803 ?? I need lots of open files. What do I have to do?
805 {AJ} This is at first a kernel issue. The kernel defines limits with
806 OPEN_MAX the number of simultaneous open files and with FD_SETSIZE the
807 number of used file descriptors. You need to change these values in your
808 kernel and recompile the kernel so that the kernel allows to use more open
809 files. You don't necessarily need to recompile the GNU C library since the
810 only place where OPEN_MAX and FD_SETSIZE is really needed in the library
811 itself is the size of fd_set which is used by select.
813 The GNU C library is now (nearly) select free. This means it internally has
814 no limits imposed by the `fd_set' type. Instead almost all places where the
815 functionality is needed the `poll' function is used.
817 If you increase the number of file descriptors in the kernel you don't need
818 to recompile the C library. The remaining select calls are in the RPC code.
819 If your RPC daemons don't need more than FD_SETSIZE file descriptors, you
820 don't need to change anything at all.
822 {UD} You can always get the maximum number of file descriptors a process is
823 allowed to have open at any time using
825 number = sysconf (_SC_OPEN_MAX);
827 This will work even if the kernel limits change.
829 ?? How do I get the same behavior on parsing /etc/passwd and
830 /etc/group as I have with libc5 ?
832 {TK} The name switch setup in /etc/nsswitch.conf selected by most Linux
833 distributions does not support +/- and netgroup entries in the files like
834 /etc/passwd. Though this is the preferred setup some people might have
835 setups coming over from the libc5 days where it was the default to recognize
836 lines like this. To get back to the old behaviour one simply has to change
837 the rules for passwd, group, and shadow in the nsswitch.conf file as
848 ??libs What needs to be recompiled when upgrading from glibc 2.0 to glibc
851 {AJ,CG} If you just upgrade the glibc from 2.0.x (x <= 7) to 2.1, binaries
852 that have been linked against glibc 2.0 will continue to work.
854 If you compile your own binaries against glibc 2.1, you also need to
855 recompile some other libraries. The problem is that libio had to be
856 changed and therefore libraries that are based or depend on the libio
857 of glibc, e.g. ncurses or slang, need to be recompiled. If you
858 experience strange segmentation faults in your programs linked against
859 glibc 2.1, you might need to recompile your libraries.
861 Another problem is that older binaries that were linked statically against
862 glibc 2.0 will reference the older nss modules (libnss_files.so.1 instead of
863 libnss_files.so.2), so don't remove them. Also, the old glibc-2.0 compiled
864 static libraries (libfoo.a) which happen to depend on the older libio
865 behavior will be broken by the glibc 2.1 upgrade. We plan to produce a
866 compatibility library that people will be able to link in if they want
867 to compile a static library generated against glibc 2.0 into a program
868 on a glibc 2.1 system. You just add -lcompat and you should be fine.
870 The glibc-compat add-on will provide the libcompat.a library, the older
871 nss modules, and a few other files. Together, they should make it
872 possible to do development with old static libraries on a glibc 2.1
873 system. This add-on is still in development. You can get it from
874 ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/glibc-compat-2.1.tar.gz
875 but please keep in mind that it is experimental.
877 ?? Why is extracting files via tar so slow?
879 {AJ} Extracting of tar archives might be quite slow since tar has to look up
880 userid and groupids and doesn't cache negative results. If you have nis or
881 nisplus in your /etc/nsswitch.conf for the passwd and/or group database,
882 each file extractions needs a network connection. There are two possible
885 - do you really need NIS/NIS+ (some Linux distributions add by default
886 nis/nisplus even if it's not needed)? If not, just remove the entries.
888 - if you need NIS/NIS+, use the Name Service Cache Daemon nscd that comes
891 ?? Compiling programs I get parse errors in libio.h (e.g. "parse error
892 before `_IO_seekoff'"). How should I fix this?
894 {AJ} You might get the following errors when upgrading to glibc 2.1:
896 In file included from /usr/include/stdio.h:57,
898 /usr/include/libio.h:335: parse error before `_IO_seekoff'
899 /usr/include/libio.h:335: parse error before `_G_off64_t'
900 /usr/include/libio.h:336: parse error before `_IO_seekpos'
901 /usr/include/libio.h:336: parse error before `_G_fpos64_t'
903 The problem is a wrong _G_config.h file in your include path. The
904 _G_config.h file that comes with glibc 2.1 should be used and not one from
905 libc5 or from a compiler directory. To check which _G_config.h file the
906 compiler uses, compile your program with `gcc -E ...|grep G_config.h' and
907 remove that file. Your compiler should pick up the file that has been
908 installed by glibc 2.1 in your include directory.
910 ?? After upgrading to glibc 2.1, libraries that were compiled against
911 glibc 2.0.x don't work anymore.
916 ? Source and binary incompatibilities, and what to do about them
918 ?? I expect GNU libc to be 100% source code compatible with
919 the old Linux based GNU libc. Why isn't it like this?
921 {DMT,UD} Not every extension in Linux libc's history was well thought-out.
922 In fact it had a lot of problems with standards compliance and with
923 cleanliness. With the introduction of a new version number these errors can
924 now be corrected. Here is a list of the known source code
927 * _GNU_SOURCE: glibc does not make the GNU extensions available
928 automatically. If a program depends on GNU extensions or some
929 other non-standard functionality, it is necessary to compile it
930 with the C compiler option -D_GNU_SOURCE, or better, to put
931 `#define _GNU_SOURCE' at the beginning of your source files, before
932 any C library header files are included. This difference normally
933 manifests itself in the form of missing prototypes and/or data type
934 definitions. Thus, if you get such errors, the first thing you
935 should do is try defining _GNU_SOURCE and see if that makes the
938 For more information consult the file `NOTES' in the GNU C library
941 * reboot(): GNU libc sanitizes the interface of reboot() to be more
942 compatible with the interface used on other OSes. reboot() as
943 implemented in glibc takes just one argument. This argument
944 corresponds to the third argument of the Linux reboot system call.
945 That is, a call of the form reboot(a, b, c) needs to be changed into
946 reboot(c). Beside this the header <sys/reboot.h> defines the needed
947 constants for the argument. These RB_* constants should be used
948 instead of the cryptic magic numbers.
950 * swapon(): the interface of this function didn't change, but the
951 prototype is in a separate header file <sys/swap.h>. This header
952 file also provides the SWAP_* constants defined by <linux/swap.h>;
953 you should use them for the second argument to swapon().
955 * errno: If a program uses the variable "errno", then it _must_
956 include <errno.h>. The old libc often (erroneously) declared this
957 variable implicitly as a side-effect of including other libc header
958 files. glibc is careful to avoid such namespace pollution, which,
959 in turn, means that you really need to include the header files that
960 you depend on. This difference normally manifests itself in the
961 form of the compiler complaining about references to an undeclared
964 * Linux-specific syscalls: All Linux system calls now have appropriate
965 library wrappers and corresponding declarations in various header files.
966 This is because the syscall() macro that was traditionally used to
967 work around missing syscall wrappers are inherently non-portable and
968 error-prone. The following table lists all the new syscall stubs,
969 the header-file declaring their interface and the system call name.
971 syscall name: wrapper name: declaring header file:
972 ------------- ------------- ----------------------
973 bdflush bdflush <sys/kdaemon.h>
974 syslog ksyslog_ctl <sys/klog.h>
976 * lpd: Older versions of lpd depend on a routine called _validuser().
977 The library does not provide this function, but instead provides
978 __ivaliduser() which has a slightly different interface. Simply
979 upgrading to a newer lpd should fix this problem (e.g., the 4.4BSD
980 lpd is known to be working).
982 * resolver functions/BIND: like on many other systems the functions of
983 the resolver library are not included in libc itself. There is a
984 separate library libresolv. If you get undefined symbol errors for
985 symbols starting with `res_*' simply add -lresolv to your linker
988 * the `signal' function's behavior corresponds to the BSD semantic and
989 not the SysV semantic as it was in libc-5. The interface on all GNU
990 systems shall be the same and BSD is the semantic of choice. To use
991 the SysV behavior simply use `sysv_signal', or define _XOPEN_SOURCE.
992 See ?signal for details.
994 ??getlog Why does getlogin() always return NULL on my Linux box?
996 {UD} The GNU C library has a format for the UTMP and WTMP file which differs
997 from what your system currently has. It was extended to fulfill the needs
998 of the next years when IPv6 is introduced. The record size is different and
999 some fields have different positions. The files written by functions from
1000 the one library cannot be read by functions from the other library. Sorry,
1001 but this is what a major release is for. It's better to have a cut now than
1002 having no means to support the new techniques later.
1004 {MK} There is however a (partial) solution for this problem. Please take a
1005 look at the file `login/README.utmpd'.
1007 ?? Where are the DST_* constants found in <sys/time.h> on many
1010 {UD} These constants come from the old BSD days and are not used anymore
1011 (libc5 does not actually implement the handling although the constants are
1014 Instead GNU libc contains zone database support and compatibility code for
1015 POSIX TZ environment variable handling. For former is very much preferred
1018 ?? The prototypes for `connect', `accept', `getsockopt',
1019 `setsockopt', `getsockname', `getpeername', `send',
1020 `sendto', and `recvfrom' are different in GNU libc from
1021 any other system I saw. This is a bug, isn't it?
1023 {UD} No, this is no bug. This version of GNU libc already follows the new
1024 Single Unix specifications (and I think the POSIX.1g draft which adopted the
1025 solution). The type for a parameter describing a size is now `socklen_t', a
1028 ??kerhdr On Linux I've got problems with the declarations in Linux
1031 {UD,AJ} On Linux, the use of kernel headers is reduced to the minimum. This
1032 gives Linus the ability to change the headers more freely. Also, user
1033 programs are now insulated from changes in the size of kernel data
1036 For example, the sigset_t type is 32 or 64 bits wide in the kernel. In
1037 glibc it is 1024 bits wide. This guarantees that when the kernel gets a
1038 bigger sigset_t (for POSIX.1e realtime support, say) user programs will not
1039 have to be recompiled. Consult the header files for more information about
1042 Therefore you shouldn't include Linux kernel header files directly if glibc
1043 has defined a replacement. Otherwise you might get undefined results because
1046 ?? I don't include any kernel headers myself but the compiler
1047 still complains about redeclarations of types in the kernel
1050 {UD} The kernel headers before Linux 2.1.61 and 2.0.32 don't work correctly
1051 with glibc. Compiling C programs is possible in most cases but C++ programs
1052 have (due to the change of the name lookups for `struct's) problems. One
1053 prominent example is `struct fd_set'.
1055 There might be some problems left but 2.1.61/2.0.32 fix most of the known
1056 ones. See the BUGS file for other known problems.
1058 ??signal Why don't signals interrupt system calls anymore?
1060 {ZW} By default GNU libc uses the BSD semantics for signal(), unlike Linux
1061 libc 5 which used System V semantics. This is partially for compatibility
1062 with other systems and partially because the BSD semantics tend to make
1063 programming with signals easier.
1065 There are three differences:
1067 * BSD-style signals that occur in the middle of a system call do not
1068 affect the system call; System V signals cause the system call to
1069 fail and set errno to EINTR.
1071 * BSD signal handlers remain installed once triggered. System V signal
1072 handlers work only once, so one must reinstall them each time.
1074 * A BSD signal is blocked during the execution of its handler. In other
1075 words, a handler for SIGCHLD (for example) does not need to worry about
1076 being interrupted by another SIGCHLD. It may, however, be interrupted
1079 There is general consensus that for `casual' programming with signals, the
1080 BSD semantics are preferable. You don't need to worry about system calls
1081 returning EINTR, and you don't need to worry about the race conditions
1082 associated with one-shot signal handlers.
1084 If you are porting an old program that relies on the old semantics, you can
1085 quickly fix the problem by changing signal() to sysv_signal() throughout.
1086 Alternatively, define _XOPEN_SOURCE before including <signal.h>.
1088 For new programs, the sigaction() function allows you to specify precisely
1089 how you want your signals to behave. All three differences listed above are
1090 individually switchable on a per-signal basis with this function.
1092 If all you want is for one specific signal to cause system calls to fail and
1093 return EINTR (for example, to implement a timeout) you can do this with
1097 ??string I've got errors compiling code that uses certain string
1100 {AJ} glibc 2.1 has special string functions that are faster than the normal
1101 library functions. Some of the functions are additionally implemented as
1102 inline functions and others as macros. This might lead to problems with
1103 existing codes but it is explicitly allowed by ISO C.
1105 The optimized string functions are only used when compiling with
1106 optimizations (-O1 or higher). The behavior can be changed with two feature
1109 * __NO_STRING_INLINES: Don't do any string optimizations.
1110 * __USE_STRING_INLINES: Use assembly language inline functions (might
1111 increase code size dramatically).
1113 Since some of these string functions are now additionally defined as macros,
1114 code like "char *strncpy();" doesn't work anymore (and is unnecessary, since
1115 <string.h> has the necessary declarations). Either change your code or
1116 define __NO_STRING_INLINES.
1118 {UD} Another problem in this area is that gcc still has problems on machines
1119 with very few registers (e.g., ix86). The inline assembler code can require
1120 almost all the registers and the register allocator cannot always handle
1123 One can disable the string optimizations selectively. Instead of writing
1125 cp = strcpy (foo, "lkj");
1129 cp = (strcpy) (foo, "lkj");
1131 This disables the optimization for that specific call.
1133 ?? I get compiler messages "Initializer element not constant" with
1134 stdin/stdout/stderr. Why?
1136 {RM,AJ} Constructs like:
1137 static FILE *InPtr = stdin;
1139 lead to this message. This is correct behaviour with glibc since stdin is
1140 not a constant expression. Please note that a strict reading of ISO C does
1141 not allow above constructs.
1143 One of the advantages of this is that you can assign to stdin, stdout, and
1144 stderr just like any other global variable (e.g. `stdout = my_stream;'),
1145 which can be very useful with custom streams that you can write with libio
1146 (but beware this is not necessarily portable). The reason to implement it
1147 this way were versioning problems with the size of the FILE structure.
1149 To fix those programs you've got to initialize the variable at run time.
1150 This can be done, e.g. in main, like:
1158 or by constructors (beware this is gcc specific):
1161 static void inPtr_construct (void) __attribute__((constructor));
1162 static void inPtr_construct (void) { InPtr = stdin; }
1165 ?? I can't compile with gcc -traditional (or
1166 -traditional-cpp). Why?
1168 {AJ} glibc2 does break -traditional and -traditonal-cpp - and will continue
1169 to do so. For example constructs of the form:
1175 are useful for debugging purposes (you can use foo with your debugger that's
1176 why we need the enum) and for compatibility (other systems use defines and
1179 ?? I get some errors with `gcc -ansi'. Isn't glibc ANSI compatible?
1181 {AJ} The GNU C library is compatible with the ANSI/ISO C standard. If
1182 you're using `gcc -ansi', the glibc includes which are specified in the
1183 standard follow the standard. The ANSI/ISO C standard defines what has to be
1184 in the include files - and also states that nothing else should be in the
1185 include files (btw. you can still enable additional standards with feature
1188 The GNU C library is conforming to ANSI/ISO C - if and only if you're only
1189 using the headers and library functions defined in the standard.
1191 ?? I can't access some functions anymore. nm shows that they do
1192 exist but linking fails nevertheless.
1194 {AJ} With the introduction of versioning in glibc 2.1 it is possible to
1195 export only those identifiers (functions, variables) that are really needed
1196 by application programs and by other parts of glibc. This way a lot of
1197 internal interfaces are now hidden. nm will still show those identifiers
1198 but marking them as internal. ISO C states that identifiers beginning with
1199 an underscore are internal to the libc. An application program normally
1200 shouldn't use those internal interfaces (there are exceptions,
1201 e.g. __ivaliduser). If a program uses these interfaces, it's broken. These
1202 internal interfaces might change between glibc releases or dropped
1205 ?? When using the db-2 library which comes with glibc is used in
1206 the Perl db modules the testsuite is not passed. This did not
1207 happen with db-1, gdbm, or ndbm.
1209 {MK} Db-2 does not support zero-sized keys. The Perl testsuite
1210 tests the support for zero-sized keys and therefore fails when db-2 is
1211 used. The Perl folks are looking for a solution, but thus far have
1212 not found a satisfactory one.
1214 ?? The pow() inline function I get when including <math.h> is broken.
1215 I get segmentation faults when I run the program.
1217 {UD} Nope, the implementation is correct. The problem is with egcs version
1218 prior to 1.1. I.e., egcs 1.0 to 1.0.3 are all broken (at least on Intel).
1219 If you have to use this compiler you must define __NO_MATH_INLINES before
1220 including <math.h> to prevent the inline functions from being used. egcs 1.1
1221 fixes the problem. I don't know about gcc 2.8 and 2.8.1.
1223 ?? The sys/sem.h file lacks the definition of `union semun'.
1225 {UD} Nope. This union has to be provided by the user program. Former glibc
1226 versions defined this but it was an error since it does not make much sense
1227 when thinking about it. The standards describing the System V IPC functions
1228 define it this way and therefore programs must be adopted.
1230 ?? Why has <netinet/ip_fw.h> disappeared?
1232 {AJ} The corresponding Linux kernel data structures and constants are
1233 totally different in Linux 2.0 and Linux 2.2. This situation has to be
1234 taken care in user programs using the firewall structures and therefore
1235 those programs (ipfw is AFAIK the only one) should deal with this problem
1238 ?? I get floods of warnings when I use -Wconversion and include
1239 <string.h> or <math.h>.
1241 {ZW} <string.h> and <math.h> intentionally use prototypes to override
1242 argument promotion. -Wconversion warns about all these. You can safely
1243 ignore the warnings.
1245 -Wconversion isn't really intended for production use, only for shakedown
1246 compiles after converting an old program to standard C.
1249 ?? After upgrading to glibc 2.1, I receive errors about
1250 unresolved symbols, like `_dl_initial_searchlist' and can not
1251 execute any binaries. What went wrong?
1253 {AJ} This normally happens if your libc and ld (dynamic linker) are from
1254 different releases of glibc. For example, the dynamic linker
1255 /lib/ld-linux.so.2 comes from glibc 2.0.x, but the version of libc.so.6 is
1258 The path /lib/ld-linux.so.2 is hardcoded in every glibc2 binary but
1259 libc.so.6 is searched via /etc/ld.so.cache and in some special directories
1260 like /lib and /usr/lib. If you run configure with another prefix than /usr
1261 and put this prefix before /lib in /etc/ld.so.conf, your system will break.
1263 So what can you do? Either of the following should work:
1265 * Run `configure' with the same prefix argument you've used for glibc 2.0.x
1266 so that the same paths are used.
1267 * Replace /lib/ld-linux.so.2 with a link to the dynamic linker from glibc
1270 You can even call the dynamic linker by hand if everything fails. You've
1271 got to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH so that the corresponding libc is found and also
1272 need to provide an absolute path to your binary:
1274 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=<path-where-libc.so.6-lives> \
1275 <path-where-corresponding-dynamic-linker-lives>/ld-linux.so.2 \
1276 <path-to-binary>/binary
1278 For example `LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/libold /libold/ld-linux.so.2 /bin/mv ...'
1279 might be useful in fixing a broken system (if /libold contains dynamic
1280 linker and corresponding libc).
1282 With that command line no path is used. To further debug problems with the
1283 dynamic linker, use the LD_DEBUG environment variable, e.g.
1284 `LD_DEBUG=help echo' for the help text.
1286 If you just want to test this release, don't put the lib directory in
1287 /etc/ld.so.conf. You can call programs directly with full paths (as above).
1288 When compiling new programs against glibc 2.1, you've got to specify the
1289 correct paths to the compiler (option -I with gcc) and linker (options
1290 --dynamic-linker, -L and --rpath).
1292 ?? bonnie reports that char i/o with glibc 2 is much slower than with
1293 libc5. What can be done?
1295 {AJ} The GNU C library uses thread safe functions by default and libc5 used
1296 non thread safe versions. The non thread safe functions have in glibc the
1297 suffix `_unlocked', for details check <stdio.h>. Using `putc_unlocked' etc.
1298 instead of `putc' should give nearly the same speed with bonnie (bonnie is a
1299 benchmark program for measuring disk access).
1301 ?? Programs compiled with glibc 2.1 can't read db files made with glibc
1302 2.0. What has changed that programs like rpm break?
1304 {AJ} The GNU C library 2.1 uses db2 instead of db1 which was used in version
1305 2.0. The internal formats of the actual db files are different. To convert
1306 the db files from db1 format to db2 format, you can use the programs
1307 `db_dump185' and `db_load'. Alternativly programs can be linked with db1
1308 using `-ldb1' instead of linking with db2 which uses `-ldb'. Linking with
1309 db1 might be preferable if older programs need to access the db file.
1311 db2 supports the old db1 programming interface and also a new programming
1312 interface. For compilation with the old API, <db_185.h> has to be included
1313 (and not <db.h>) and you can link with either `-ldb1' or `-ldb' for either
1319 ?? After I changed configure.in I get `Autoconf version X.Y.
1320 or higher is required for this script'. What can I do?
1322 {UD} You have to get the specified autoconf version (or a later one)
1323 from your favorite mirror of ftp.gnu.org.
1325 ?? When I try to compile code which uses IPv6 headers and
1326 definitions on my Linux 2.x.y system I am in trouble.
1327 Nothing seems to work.
1329 {UD} The problem is that IPv6 development still has not reached a point
1330 where the headers are stable. There are still lots of incompatible changes
1331 made and the libc headers have to follow.
1333 {PB} The 2.1 release of GNU libc aims to comply with the current versions of
1334 all the relevant standards. The IPv6 support libraries for older Linux
1335 systems used a different naming convention and so code written to work with
1336 them may need to be modified. If the standards make incompatible changes in
1337 the future then the libc may need to change again.
1339 IPv6 will not work with a 2.0.x kernel. When kernel 2.2 is released it
1340 should contain all the necessary support; until then you should use the
1341 latest 2.1.x release you can find. As of 98/11/26 the currently recommended
1342 kernel for IPv6 is 2.1.129.
1344 Also, as of the 2.1 release the IPv6 API provided by GNU libc is not
1345 100% complete. In particular the getipnodebyname and getipnodebyaddr
1346 functions are not implemented.
1348 ??tzdb When I set the timezone by setting the TZ environment variable
1349 to EST5EDT things go wrong since glibc computes the wrong time
1350 from this information.
1352 {UD} The problem is that people still use the braindamaged POSIX method to
1353 select the timezone using the TZ environment variable with a format EST5EDT
1354 or whatever. People, if you insist on using TZ instead of the timezone
1355 database (see below), read the POSIX standard, the implemented behaviour is
1356 correct! What you see is in fact the result of the decisions made while
1357 POSIX.1 was created. We've only implemented the handling of TZ this way to
1358 be POSIX compliant. It is not really meant to be used.
1360 The alternative approach to handle timezones which is implemented is the
1361 correct one to use: use the timezone database. This avoids all the problems
1362 the POSIX method has plus it is much easier to use. Simply run the tzselect
1363 shell script, answer the question and use the name printed in the end by
1364 making a symlink /etc/localtime pointing to /usr/share/zoneinfo/NAME (NAME
1365 is the returned value from tzselect). That's all. You never again have to
1368 So, please avoid sending bug reports about time related problems if you use
1369 the POSIX method and you have not verified something is really broken by
1370 reading the POSIX standards.
1372 ?? What other sources of documentation about glibc are available?
1374 {AJ} The FSF has a page about the GNU C library at
1375 <http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/>. The problem data base of open and
1376 solved bugs in GNU libc is available at
1377 <http://www-gnats.gnu.org:8080/cgi-bin/wwwgnats.pl>. Eric Green has written
1378 a HowTo for converting from Linux libc5 to glibc2. The HowTo is accessable
1379 via the FSF page and at <http://www.imaxx.net/~thrytis/glibc>. Frodo
1380 Looijaard describes a different way installing glibc2 as secondary libc at
1381 <http://huizen.dds.nl/~frodol/glibc>.
1383 Please note that this is not a complete list.
1385 ?? The timezone string for Sydney/Australia is wrong since even when
1386 daylight saving time is in effect the timezone string is EST.
1388 {UD} The problem for some timezones is that the local authorities decided
1389 to use the term "summer time" instead of "daylight saving time". In this
1390 case the abbreviation character `S' is the same as the standard one. So,
1393 Eastern Standard Time = EST
1394 Eastern Summer Time = EST
1396 Great! To get this bug fixed convince the authorities to change the laws
1397 and regulations of the country this effects. glibc behaves correctly.
1399 ??make I've build make 3.77 against glibc 2.1 and now make gets
1400 segmentation faults.
1402 {AJ} GNU make 3.77 has support for 64 bit filesystems which is slightly
1403 broken (and one of the new features in the GNU C library 2.1 is 64 bit
1404 filesystem support :-( ). To get a working make you can use either make
1405 3.75 or patch 3.77. A working patch is available via RedHat's Rawhide server
1406 (ftp://rawhide.redhat.com/SRPMS/SRPMS/make-3.77-*src.rpm).
1409 Answers were given by:
1410 {UD} Ulrich Drepper, <drepper@cygnus.com>
1411 {DMT} David Mosberger-Tang, <davidm@AZStarNet.com>
1412 {RM} Roland McGrath, <roland@gnu.org>
1413 {AJ} Andreas Jaeger, <aj@arthur.rhein-neckar.de>
1414 {EY} Eric Youngdale, <eric@andante.jic.com>
1415 {PB} Phil Blundell, <Philip.Blundell@pobox.com>
1416 {MK} Mark Kettenis, <kettenis@phys.uva.nl>
1417 {ZW} Zack Weinberg, <zack@rabi.phys.columbia.edu>
1418 {TK} Thorsten Kukuk, <kukuk@suse.de>
1419 {GK} Geoffrey Keating, <geoffk@ozemail.com.au>
1420 {HJ} H.J. Lu, <hjl@gnu.org>
1421 {CG} Cristian Gafton, <gafton@redhat.com>
1425 outline-regexp:"\\?"
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