libtree VS patchelf

Depends on your libc.

Search order:

glibc: rpath > LD_LIBRARY_PATH > runpath > ld.so.cache > default paths.

musl: LD_LIBRARY_PATH > rpath=runpath > default paths.

Search path inheritance:

glibc: rpaths are inherited: When exe depends on libx depends on liby, then liby first considers its own rpaths, then libx's rpaths, then exe's rpaths. HOWEVER if liby specifies runpath, it will not consider rpaths from parents.

musl: rpaths and runpaths are the same and always inherited.

I verified the glibc/musl sources when writing https://github.com/haampie/libtree

Libtree: Turns ldd into a tree; explains why shared libraries are found or not\ (42 comments)

I mean, we don't have to hack the elf loader if we just rewrite every elf binary using patchelf: https://github.com/NixOS/patchelf

The parent commenter is already suggesting "just run a regex", so it seems like a trivial extension to their simple solution to "just run patchelf on every binary on your system"

Patching paths in text files typically used substituteInPlace (including in cowsay). For dynamic libraries, patchelf is typically used.

Install patchelf.

Thank you! I followed the instruction here, but it looks like I didn't actually install it, because my pacman -Q patchelf did not find anything. Maybe I was missing a dependency. Also, it was late so I didn't pay attention to warnings at the time.

How does an article on NixOS talk about the `rpath` issue without also mentioning the `patchelf` utility that NixOS developers created to solve this issue? It's a small tool that lets you modify ELF executables and binaries. It's also the recommended way for NixOS users to modify binaries to work properly.

https://github.com/NixOS/patchelf

So install it? https://github.com/NixOS/patchelf

NixOS doesn't have stable paths to shared libraries like macOS or other linux distributions (and this is the core feature) and always need to patch elf for current paths ( https://github.com/NixOS/patchelf ).