Does -rpath and $LD_LIBRAY_PATH has same functionality? - c++

The book Advanced Linux Programming contains:
The system searches only /lib and /usr/lib, by default. If a shared library that is linked into your program is installed outside those directories, it will not be found, and the system will refuse to run the program.
One solution to this problem is to use the -Wl, -rpath option when linking the program. Another solution to this problem is to set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable when running the program.
So from information above, I assume adding path to $LD_LIBRARY_PATH is equivalent to passing argument to linker when compiling something like -Wl,-rpath,SOME_PATH until I hit this problem:
I am trying to generate a shared library and this shared library depends on some .so files somewhere at my system. Here's the command for compilation:
g++ -fPIC -shared -Wl,-soname,libA.so -o libA.so SRC.cpp -L PATH_A -I PATH_B -Wl,-rpath,PATH_C:PATH_D:PATH_E -la -lb -lc
After I compile, I use ldd to check if there's any dependency issue and something unexpected to me happens:
Some of dependency are found and some of them are not (libA.so => not found), however all the paths it needs (PATH_C PATH_DPATH_E) have been passed to argument -Wl,-rpath.
So it seems -Wl,-rpath does not work for this case , the only solution to make it work is to add the path to libA.so to $LD_LIBRARY_PATH and ldd returns that all the dependency are found.
I would like to know why -Wl,-rpath fails in, what's the difference between adding the path to $LD_LIBRARY_PATH and passing an argument to -Wl,-rpath?

Related

A simpler method to load shared libraries without root

I am trying to compile and run a C++ program on a server where I don't have root access. I am having trouble linkingboost_iostreams library.
I can successfully compile my program by pointing to the boost installation directory using the -L flag as:
g++ -I path/to/boost/build/include -o out prog1.cpp prog2.cpp -L path/to/boost/build/lib -lboost_iostreams
However, if I run the program as ./out I get the error error while loading shared libraries: libboost_iostreams.so.1.67.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory since the linker is not able to locate libboost_iostreams.so.1.67.0 (which DOES exist under path/to/boost/build/lib)
Thanks to this answer, I was able to explicitly specify LD_LIBRARY_PATH and run the program as
LD_LIBRARY_PATH="path/to/boost/build/lib" ./out.
Since I am not root, I can't run ldconfig either. I was wondering if there is a way to load dynamic libraries without having to prefix LD_LIBRARY_PATH when you run the program and no root access.
I have figured out a way to solve this using the method explained here https://amir.rachum.com/blog/2016/09/17/shared-libraries/. The solution is to use rpath during compilation.
According to the article The only difference between rpath and
runpath is the order they are searched in. Specifically, their
relation to LD_LIBRARY_PATH - rpath is searched in before
LD_LIBRARY_PATH while runpath is searched in after. The meaning of
this is that rpath cannot be changed dynamically with environment
variables while runpath can.
In short once you compile with -rpath path/to/boost/build/lib, the directory containing the library libboost_iostreams.so.1.67.0 is searched at runtime without having to prefix LD_LIBRARY_PATH="path/to/boost/build/lib" ./out.
After compiling with
g++ -I path/to/boost/build/include -o out prog1.cpp prog2.cpp -L path/to/boost/build/lib -lboost_iostreams -rpath path/to/boost/build/lib
I was able to run ./out without any issues.
EDIT 1
As pointed by Nikos in the comments, alternatively you can set your LD_LIBRARY_PATH by export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=path/to/boost/build/lib. Add this line to .~/.bashrc file so that it is not lost when you log out.

g++ compiling: can I link to a directory with symlinked binaries?

The below compiles:
g++ -L../../lib -o my_prog my_prog.cpp -ltest1 -ltest2
where ../../lib contains symlinks to libtest1.so and libtest2.so
But I am getting an error when I run the program: "error while loading shared libraries: libtest1.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory" and am not sure if symlinking is the culprit.
Option -L is for linker ld to find .a and .so during linking.
Option -Wl,-rpath= is for the dynamic linker ld.so to find .so when the application is run. You need to use -Wl,-rpath= when a required shared library is not in (standard system) directories specified in /etc/ld.so.conf.
Use $ORIGIN dynamic linker variable to make rpath relative to the path of your executable:
g++ -L../../lib -Wl,-rpath='${ORIGIN}/../../lib' -o my_prog my_prog.cpp -ltest1 -ltest2
Be careful to make sure ${ORIGIN} is not expanded by the shell or your makefile (this is why it is in single quotes).
${ORIGIN}:
$ORIGIN and rpath
ld.so understands the string $ORIGIN (or equivalently ${ORIGIN}) in an rpath specification (DT_RPATH or DT_RUNPATH) to mean the directory containing the application executable. Thus, an application located in somedir/app could be compiled with gcc -Wl,-rpath,'$ORIGIN/../lib' so that it finds an associated shared library in somedir/lib no matter where somedir is located in the directory hierarchy. This facilitates the creation of "turn-key" applications that do not need to be installed into special directories, but can instead be unpacked into any directory and still find their own shared libraries.
What happens at runtime is related to the rpath.
You may want (not really recommended, see this) to set your LD_LIBRARY_PATH appropriately before running your executable, or better yet you want to set the executable's rpath when linking it (e.g. by passing -Wl,--rpath $(realpath ../../lib/) to the g++ command doing the link.
Read Drepper's How to write shared libraries paper and the Program Library HowTo

How gnu linker choose which dynamic library to link

I was using gpgpu-sim, a GPU simulator, to conduct researches. There are several .so files in my own folder:
And there are some alternatives .so in Nvidia's cudart lib folder:
And there are some .o files and need to be linked with libcudart.so, when I type in the command:
g++ -L "Path/to/MyFolder" -l cudart *.o
I hope the generated a.out would link to libcudart.so, but it just linked to a strange so file:
libcudart_gpgpu-sim_git-commit-6443f21d433f1b642003867e56fe1f54efae55e3_modified_0.so => not found
And when I typed this code:
g++ -L "Path/to/NvidiaFolder" -l cudart *.o
The program can sussessfully find libcudart.so.9 in my LD_LIBRARY_PATH folder,but it shows that the version can't match!:
./a.out: /path/to/myFolder/libcudart.so.9.0: version `libcudart.so.9.0'not found (required by ./a.out)
Can anybody tell me how ld works and how to solve those problems?
I finally find out the reason.
if you use this code to link objects to generate a shared library:
g++ -shared -Wl,-soname,libNAME_A.so -o libNAME_B.so
then, if some on is trying to link NAME_B.so using:
g++ <INPUT> -lNAME_B -o <OUTPUT>
the output will finally look for libNAME_A.so.
refer to g++ man page:
-Wl,option
Pass option as an option to the linker. If option contains commas,
it is split into multiple options at the commas. You can use this
syntax to pass an argument to the option. For example,
-Wl,-Map,output.map passes -Map output.map to the linker. When
using the GNU linker, you can also get the same effect with
-Wl,-Map=output.map.
and for ld man page:
-soname=name
When creating an ELF shared object, set the internal DT_SONAME
field to the specified name. When an executable is linked with a
shared object which has a DT_SONAME field, then when the executable
is run the dynamic linker will attempt to load the shared object
specified by the DT_SONAME field rather than the using the file
name given to the linker.
There is nothing to do with CUDA here, it's just a linking and runtime environment setup problem.
The ld linker searches for objects and library archives following the order specified by -L option parameters, and only after into default system directories. The linker will link the object code that first match this search.
At runtime, if you linked against dynamic libraries (.so files) you will need to properly define the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable with a list of paths to look for dynamic libraries, separated by colon (:).
So if you link to your objects using libraries from your local path (assuming you are looking for libcudart.so):
g++ -o myprogram *.o -L "/Path/to/myFolder" -lcudart
you need to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH as follows before running your program:
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/Path/to/myFolder:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"
./myprogram
I hope this help and clarify your understanding. Frankly I don't understand the origin of your libcudart_gpgpu-sim_git-commit match

shared object library not found when running program, but it's linked during compiling

Update: issue is solved. The library was Made for Armv7a CPUs but it was "soft float" Not "hard float". It seems like my machine is HF and Not SF compatible
My program depends on an externally build .so library called libMyLib.so. When I compile the program like this:
$ g++ -std=c++11 main.cpp -o run -pthread
it reports that there are a lot of undefined references, obviously because i didn't include libMyLib.so when compiling. So the compiler knows what he needs to compile the program. When i compile the program like this:
$ g++ -std=c++11 main.cpp -o run -pthread -lMyLib
it doesn't report any errors and creates the file "run". Notice that libMyLib.so is already in /usr/local/lib and it looks like it is linked when compiling since the references are defined now and the "run" file is created. But as i run the file, this happens:
$ ./run
./run: error while loading shared libraries: libMyLib.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
I've checked with ldd and it shows me this:
$ ldd run
...
libMyLib.so => not found
...
So ldd doesn't find the library on execution, but it finds it while compiling. I'm quite new to Linux and linking libraries so i don't know what to do.
Also, running ldd on the .so file returns this:
$ ldd /usr/local/lib/libMyLib.so
not a dynamic executable
I've already checked an this message may occur when running a .so file on the wrong platform. But i've checked, the library is compiled for arm (I'm running on a raspberry pi -> arm):
$ objdump -f /usr/local/lib/libMyLib.so | grep ^architecture
architecture: arm, flags 0x00000150:
I also update the linker:
$ sudo ldconfig -v
...
/usr/local/lib:
libwiringPi.so -> libwiringPi.so.2.44
libwiringPiDev.so -> libwiringPiDev.so.2.44
libMyLib.so -> libMyLib.so.1
...
I really have no clue why this might still happen. Can anyone help me?
/usr/local/lib is one of the directories that the linker searches by default
for libraries specified with the -l option, so your linkage succeeds.
At runtime however, the program loader by default searches for the linked
libraries in:-
/lib, /usr/lib and among the libraries whose names and locations have been cached in the ldconfig cache, /etc/ld.so.cache.
The directories listed in the value of the environment variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH,
in the current shell.
The ldconfig cache is only updated when ldconfig is run. See man ldconfig.
The loader fails to find libMyLib.so at runtime because you have not
run ldconfig since you placed that library in /usr/local/lib and
neither have you correctly added /usr/local/lib to the LD_LIBRARY_PATH
in the same shell in which you try to run the program.
It is inconvenient and otherwise undesirable to require a special setting of
LD_LIBRARY_PATH to enable a program to run.
To enable the loader to find your library, run ldconfig as root. This
will succeed provided that /usr/local/lib is listed in /etc/ld.so.conf,
or in one of the files included by /etc/ld.so.conf. If it's not, then
you can explicitly cache the shared libraries from /usr/local/lib by running
ldconfig /usr/local/lib, as root.
First check LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable is having the path to your library directory
$ echo $LD_LIBRARY_PATH
If not there then update the library path.
$ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/path/to/library
Use strace to debug.
strace -f ./run

g++ not find .so files

I am trying to generate a c++ library using the g++ compiler. My library has another C library as dependency and I have compiled it in order to obtain the .so files.
I have the following structure:
src:
include/linux:
libcustom.a
libcustom.la
libcustom.so
libcustom.so.0
libcustom.so.0.0.0
Now, when I have all the .o files of my cpp classes, and I want to link the library, I execute the following command:
g++ -shared -L/usr/lib/R/lib -Wl,-Bsymbolic-functions -Wl,-z,relro -o mylibrary.so File1.o File2.o File3.o -L./include/linux -lc++ -lutil -lm -lcustom -Wl,-rpath='$ORIGIN/include/linux' -L/usr/lib/R/lib -lR
But it throws me the error:
libcustom.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
I am executing the command from the src directory.
I know it could be fixed editing the LD_LIBRARY_PATH, but the idea it is someone can use my library without the need of configuring anything, so I am trying to do that with the c++'s -rpath flag.
Any idea how can I fix it, or the reason for the error?
The error message you got seems to come from the run-time loader ld.so instead of the linker ld (I know the names are confusing). You have to distinguish between finding so's at link-time and at run-time. The -L flag you give at link-time has nothing to do with localizing the library at run-time.
Your rpath=./include/linux value is not correct, because dot is not recognized by the ld as relative path. Relative searching path should be given like
-Wl,-rpath='$ORIGIN/include/linux'
where the $ORIGIN represents the folder where your executable (not mylibrary.so) locates. Make sure to use single quote and not double quote because the string $ORIGIN should be passed to the linker literally and hard coded into the executable file.
More details goes
how to link to shared lib from shared lib with relative path
ld: Using -rpath,$ORIGIN inside a shared library (recursive)