CODEWITHSUNDEEP
linuxelf
Mr. Smith
Mr. Smith

Reputation: 4506

Can I avoid exporting LD_LIBRARY_PATH by hardcoding library paths in the executable?

I'm zipping a pre-built (no source/object files) binary application for distribution. The binary application requires a couple of libraries not included by default. The only way I seem to be able to get the application to start on the end-user is by including a run.sh that sets the library path to the current directory:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=./:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
./MyApp.out

However, I'd really like to allow the user to just unzip the zip and doubleclick MyApp.out (without the shell script). Can I edit MyApp.out to search the current directory for the library? I've done something similar on OSX using install_name_tool, but that tool isn't available here.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1250

Answers (1)

Basile Starynkevitch
Basile Starynkevitch

Reputation: 1

You want to set the rpath. See this answer. So link using

   gcc yourobjects*.o -L/some/lib/dir/ -lsome -Wl,-rpath,.

But you might want even to use -Wl,-rpath,$PWD or perhaps -Wl,-rpath,'$ORIGIN'. See this.

You could also (and this should work for a pre-built executable) configure your /etc/ld.so.conf by adding a line there with an absolute path (of the directory containing the lib), then running ldconfig -v ... See ldconfig(8)

I would suggest adding /usr/local/lib into /etc/ld.so.conf and making a symlink from /usr/local/lib/libfoo.so to e.g. $HOME/libfoo.so etc... (then run ldconfig ...). I don't think adding a user specific directory to /etc/ld.so.conf is reasonable ...

PS. What you really want is to package your application (e.g. as a *.deb package for Debian or Ubuntu, or an *.rpm for Fedora or Redhat). Package management systems handle dependencies!

Upvotes: 4

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