Re: Forcing static link of libstdc++

[Mike Melanson]

Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> So grab an old distro and build there, so that you link against
> libstdc++.so.5.  You're not only going to have trouble with libstdc++,
> but also with newer libc's when trying to run a program on an older
> system.  Going the other way should be less painful: even current
> systems typically have a libstdc++.so.5 for legacy code (like yours ;-)
> (Although, come to think of it, I vaguely remember some issues with the
> tls switch, concerning ctype; I don't know whether that applies any
> more.)

A coworker suggested this same route this morning and we are planning to 
try it (we already have the older machines available; that's how we 
found the problem in the first place). We'll see if v6 is backwards 
compatible with v5.

> A completely static link is another option, given that you don't use any
> of those modern features like loadable modules (dlopen), networking/NSS
> (gethost* and others) and some other stuff (dunno about threads), as
> those features need the dynamic libc at runtime (typically that should
> be the same version, I think, for reproducible results).

We recently experimented with this idea (but building the compiler 
without shared components). So we have a shared library plugin comprised 
mostly of PIC code but with a few non-PIC components. It works unless 
you have certain configuration options enabled, such as the secure 
SELinux stuff.

--
        -Mike Melanson