[linux] Multiple glibc libraries on a single host

This question is old, the other answers are old. "Employed Russian"s answer is very good and informative, but it only works if you have the source code. If you don't, the alternatives back then were very tricky. Fortunately nowadays we have a simple solution to this problem (as commented in one of his replies), using patchelf. All you have to do is:

$ ./patchelf --set-interpreter /path/to/newglibc/ld-linux.so.2 --set-rpath /path/to/newglibc/ myapp

And after that, you can just execute your file:

$ ./myapp

No need to chroot or manually edit binaries, thankfully. But remember to backup your binary before patching it, if you're not sure what you're doing, because it modifies your binary file. After you patch it, you can't restore the old path to interpreter/rpath. If it doesn't work, you'll have to keep patching it until you find the path that will actually work... Well, it doesn't have to be a trial-and-error process. For example, in OP's example, he needed GLIBC_2.3, so you can easily find which lib provides that version using strings:

$ strings /lib/i686/libc.so.6 | grep GLIBC_2.3
$ strings /path/to/newglib/libc.so.6 | grep GLIBC_2.3

In theory, the first grep would come empty because the system libc doesn't have the version he wants, and the 2nd one should output GLIBC_2.3 because it has the version myapp is using, so we know we can patchelf our binary using that path. If you get a segmentation fault, read the note at the end.

When you try to run a binary in linux, the binary tries to load the linker, then the libraries, and they should all be in the path and/or in the right place. If your problem is with the linker and you want to find out which path your binary is looking for, you can find out with this command:

$ readelf -l myapp | grep interpreter
  [Requesting program interpreter: /lib/ld-linux.so.2]                                                                                                                                                                                   

If your problem is with the libs, commands that will give you the libs being used are:

$ readelf -d myapp | grep Shared
$ ldd myapp 

This will list the libs that your binary needs, but you probably already know the problematic ones, since they are already yielding errors as in OP's case.

"patchelf" works for many different problems that you may encounter while trying to run a program, related to these 2 problems. For example, if you get: ELF file OS ABI invalid, it may be fixed by setting a new loader (the --set-interpreter part of the command) as I explain here. Another example is for the problem of getting No such file or directory when you run a file that is there and executable, as exemplified here. In that particular case, OP was missing a link to the loader, but maybe in your case you don't have root access and can't create the link. Setting a new interpreter would solve your problem.

Thanks Employed Russian and Michael Pankov for the insight and solution!


Note for segmentation fault: you might be in the case where myapp uses several libs, and most of them are ok but some are not; then you patchelf it to a new dir, and you get segmentation fault. When you patchelf your binary, you change the path of several libs, even if some were originally in a different path. Take a look at my example below:

$ ldd myapp
./myapp: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.20' not found (required by ./myapp)
./myapp: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.21' not found (required by ./myapp)
        linux-vdso.so.1 =>  (0x00007fffb167c000)
        libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007f9a9aad2000)
        libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007f9a9a8ce000)
        libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007f9a9a6af000)
        libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 (0x00007f9a9a3ab000)
        libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007f9a99fe6000)
        /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f9a9adeb000)
        libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00007f9a99dcf000)

Note that most libs are in /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/ but the problematic one (libstdc++.so.6) is on /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu. After I patchelf'ed myapp to point to /path/to/mylibs, I got segmentation fault. For some reason, the libs are not totally compatible with the binary. Since myapp didn't complain about the original libs, I copied them from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/ to /path/to/mylibs2, and I also copied libstdc++.so.6 from /path/to/mylibs there. Then I patchelf'ed it to /path/to/mylibs2, and myapp works now. If your binary uses different libs, and you have different versions, it might happen that you can't fix your situation. :( But if it's possible, mixing libs might be the way. It's not ideal, but maybe it will work. Good luck!

Examples related to linux

grep's at sign caught as whitespace How to prevent Google Colab from disconnecting? "E: Unable to locate package python-pip" on Ubuntu 18.04 How to upgrade Python version to 3.7? Install Qt on Ubuntu Get first line of a shell command's output Cannot connect to the Docker daemon at unix:/var/run/docker.sock. Is the docker daemon running? Run bash command on jenkins pipeline How to uninstall an older PHP version from centOS7 How to update-alternatives to Python 3 without breaking apt?

Examples related to gcc

Can't compile C program on a Mac after upgrade to Mojave Compiling an application for use in highly radioactive environments Make Error 127 when running trying to compile code How to Install gcc 5.3 with yum on CentOS 7.2? How does one set up the Visual Studio Code compiler/debugger to GCC? How do I set up CLion to compile and run? CMake error at CMakeLists.txt:30 (project): No CMAKE_C_COMPILER could be found How to printf a 64-bit integer as hex? Differences between arm64 and aarch64 Fatal error: iostream: No such file or directory in compiling C program using GCC

Examples related to glibc

RHEL 6 - how to install 'GLIBC_2.14' or 'GLIBC_2.15'? What does 'corrupted double-linked list' mean /lib/ld-linux.so.2: bad ELF interpreter: No such file or directory How to upgrade glibc from version 2.13 to 2.15 on Debian? How can I link to a specific glibc version? Multiple glibc libraries on a single host