MySQL Improperly Configured Reason: unsafe use of relative path

Question

I\'m using Django, and when I run python manage.py runserver I receive the following error:

ImproperlyConfigured: Error loading MySQLdb module:         


        

Answer 1

In OS X El Capitan (10.11), Apple added System Integrity Protection.

This prevents programs in protected locations like /usr from calling a shared library that uses a relative reference to another shared library. In the case of _mysql.so, it contains a relative reference to the shared library libmysqlclient.18.dylib.

In the future, the shared library _mysql.so may be updated. Until then, you can force it to use an absolute reference via the install_name_tool utility.

Assuming that libmysqlclient.18.dylib is in /usr/local/mysql/lib/, then run the command:

sudo install_name_tool -change libmysqlclient.18.dylib \
  /usr/local/mysql/lib/libmysqlclient.18.dylib \
  /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/_mysql.so

Answer 2

If there are lots of relative paths to be fixed for something (as happened with me for opencv library). You can use the following snippet:

Change the ABSPATH and LIBPATHS accordingly. It will create rPathChangeCmd.txt which you can paste in the terminal. It will also create rPathChangeErr.txt in case of any errors. I would suggest check error file (if created) before pasting the commands.

import glob
import subprocess
import os.path

ABSPATH = "/usr/local/lib/"  # absolute path to relative libraries
# libraries to correct
LIBPATHS = ['/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/cv2.so', '/usr/local/lib/libopencv*'] 

PREFIX = 'sudo install_name_tool -change '

assert(ABSPATH.startswith('/') and ABSPATH.endswith('/'), 
    'please provide absolute library path ending with /')

libs = []
for path in LIBPATHS:
  libs += glob.glob(path)

cmd =  []
err = []
for lib in libs:
  if not os.path.isfile(lib):
    err.append(lib+" library not found") # glob should take care
  datastr = subprocess.check_output(['otool','-l','-v', lib])
  data = datastr.split('\n') 
  for line in data:
    ll = line.split()
    if not ll: continue
    if (ll[0] == 'name' and ll[1].endswith('.dylib') and not ll[1].startswith('/')):
      libname = ll[1].split('/')[-1]
      if os.path.isfile(ABSPATH+libname):  
        cmd.append(PREFIX+ll[1]+" "+ABSPATH+libname+' '+lib)
      else:
        err.append(ABSPATH+libname+" does not exist, hence can't correct: "+ll[1]+" in: "+lib)

ohandle = open("rpathChangeCmd.txt", 'w')
for lib in cmd:
  ohandle.write(lib+'\n')
ohandle.close()

if err:
  ehandle = open("rpathChangeErr.txt", 'w')
  for e in err:
    ehandle.write(e+'\n')
  ehandle.close()