Linking against older symbol version in a .so file

Question

Using gcc and ld on x86_64 linux I need to link against a newer version of a library (glibc 2.14) but the executable needs to run on a system with an older version (2.5). Si

Answer 1

I'm clearly a little late responding to this but I recently upgraded (more reasons to never upgrade) my Linux OS to XUbuntu 14.04 which came with the new libc. I compile a shared library on my machine which is used by clients who, for whatever legitimate reasons, have not upgraded their environment from 10.04. The shared library I compiled no longer loaded in their environment because gcc put a dependency on memcpy glibc v. 2.14 (or higher). Let's leave aside the insanity of this. The workaround across my whole project was three fold:

1. added to my gcc cflags: -include glibc_version_nightmare.h
2. created the glibc_version_nightmare.h
3. created a perl script to verify the symbols in the .so

glibc_version_nightmare.h:

#if defined(__GNUC__) && defined(__LP64__)  /* only under 64 bit gcc */
#include <features.h>       /* for glibc version */
#if defined(__GLIBC__) && (__GLIBC__ == 2) && (__GLIBC_MINOR__ >= 14)
/* force mempcy to be from earlier compatible system */
__asm__(".symver memcpy,memcpy@GLIBC_2.2.5");
#endif
#undef _FEATURES_H      /* so gets reloaded if necessary */
#endif

perl script fragment:

...
open SYMS, "nm $flags $libname |";

my $status = 0;

sub complain {
my ($symbol, $verstr) = @_;
print STDERR "ERROR: $libname $symbol requires $verstr\n";
$status = 1;
}

while (<SYMS>) {
next unless /\@\@GLIBC/;
chomp;
my ($symbol, $verstr) = (m/^\s+.\s(.*)\@\@GLIBC_(.*)/);
die "unable to parse version from $libname in $_\n"
    unless $verstr;
my @ver = split(/\./, $verstr);
complain $symbol, $verstr
    if ($ver[0] > 2 || $ver[1] > 10);
}
close SYMS;

exit $status;

Answer 2

Minimal runnable self contained example

GitHub upstream.

main.c

#include <assert.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

#include "a.h"

#if defined(V1)
__asm__(".symver a,a@LIBA_1");
#elif defined(V2)
__asm__(".symver a,a@LIBA_2");
#endif

int main(void) {
#if defined(V1)
    assert(a() == 1);
#else
    assert(a() == 2);
#endif
    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

a.c

#include "a.h"

__asm__(".symver a1,a@LIBA_1");
int a1(void) {
    return 1;
}

/* @@ means "default version". */
__asm__(".symver a2,a@@LIBA_2");
int a2(void) {
    return 2;
}

a.h

#ifndef A_H
#define A_H

int a(void);

#endif

a.map

LIBA_1{
    global:
    a;
    local:
    *;
};

LIBA_2{
    global:
    a;
    local:
    *;
};

Makefile

CC := gcc -pedantic-errors -std=c89 -Wall -Wextra

.PHONY: all clean run

all: main.out main1.out main2.out

run: all
    LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. ./main.out
    LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. ./main1.out
    LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. ./main2.out

main.out: main.c libcirosantilli_a.so
    $(CC) -L'.' main.c -o '$@' -lcirosantilli_a

main1.out: main.c libcirosantilli_a.so
    $(CC) -DV1 -L'.' main.c -o '$@' -lcirosantilli_a

main2.out: main.c libcirosantilli_a.so
    $(CC) -DV2 -L'.' main.c -o '$@' -lcirosantilli_a

a.o: a.c
    $(CC) -fPIC -c '$<' -o '$@'

libcirosantilli_a.so: a.o
    $(CC) -Wl,--version-script,a.map -L'.' -shared a.o -o '$@'

libcirosantilli_a.o: a.c
    $(CC) -fPIC -c '$<' -o '$@'

clean:
    rm -rf *.o *.a *.so *.out

Tested on Ubuntu 16.04.

Answer 3

I suggest you either link memcpy() statically; or find the source of memcpy( ) and compile it as your own library.

Answer 4

This workaround seem not compatible with -flto compile option.

My solution is calling memmove. memove does exactly the same jobs than memcpy. The only difference is when src and dest zone overlap, memmove is safe and memcpy is unpredictable. So we can safely always call memmove instead memcpy

#include <string.h>

#ifdef __cplusplus
extern "C" {
#endif

    void *__wrap_memcpy(void *dest, const void *src, size_t n)
    {
        return memmove(dest, src, n);
    }

#ifdef __cplusplus
}
#endif

Answer 5

Just link memcpy statically - pull memcpy.o out of libc.a ar x /path/to/libc.a memcpy.o (whatever version - memcpy is pretty much a standalone function) and include it in your final link. Note that static linking may complicate licensing issues if your project is distributed to the public and not open-source.

Alternatively, you could simply implement memcpy yourself, though the hand-tuned assembly version in glibc is likely to be more efficient

Note that memcpy@GLIBC_2.2.5 is mapped to memmove (old versions of memcpy consistently copied in a predictable direction, which led to it sometimes being misused when memmove should have been used), and this is the only reason for the version bump - you could simply replace memcpy with memmove in your code for this specific case.

Or you could go to static linking, or you could ensure that all systems on your network have the same or better version than your build machine.