URL: <https://savannah.gnu.org/support/?111217>
Summary: "link_all_deplibs": issue with overlinking
dependencies
Group: GNU Libtool
Submitter: None
Submitted: Thu 03 Apr 2025 07:48:53 PM UTC
Category: None
Priority: 5 - Normal
Severity: 4 - Important
Status: None
Privacy: Public
Assigned to: None
Originator Email: anthony.mal...@laas.fr
Open/Closed: Open
Discussion Lock: Any
Operating System: *BSD
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Follow-up Comments:
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Date: Thu 03 Apr 2025 07:48:53 PM UTC By: Anonymous
Hi,
I am facing an issue with dependency "overlinking" (related to the
"link_all_deplibs" variable). This is on NetBSD, but it concerns all ELF
systems. As far as I can tell, on NetBSD at least, a libtool library is linked
with all the dependencies of any dependent libtool libray. Let's summarize it
with an example.
In the following scenario, imagine 3 libtool libraries X, Y and Z:
libX-1.la -> libY-1.la -> libZ-1.la
where libX (major version 1) depends on libY (major version 1) which depends
on libZ (major version 1).
Linking libX-1.la with libtool to libY-1.la (and just this one) will add the
libZ-1.la dependency to libX-1.la in the DSO file. This is useless on any ELF
system, as libY already holds that dependency information thanks to the
DT_NEEDED tag. libX should only depend on libY, if that's what is given on the
command line.
This can even be wrong in the case where libZ is a private dependency of libY
(so that libZ is not part or libY ABI). If at some point libY is upgraded to
libY-1.1.la, now internally using libZ-2.la, then libX-1.la with be dependent
on both libZ.so.1 and libZ.so.2, which may not work at all.
I noticed that this behaviour does not happen on a Debian system. So while
analyzing the differences between a Debian system and NetBSD, I found this
patch from Debian:
https://sources.debian.org/src/libtool/2.5.4-4/debian/patches/link_all_deplibs.patch/
This is from the list of current patches to Debian libtool package:
https://udd.debian.org/patches.cgi?src=libtool&version=2.5.4-4
This patch addresses exactly my issue (enven though it should be extended to
any ELF system, in particular NetBSD, and not only Linux).
So I was wondering if you where somehow aware of this patch (the Debian entry
says "not submitted upstream"), and if you think it makes sense. The comment
says "will be fixed in a better way in a future upstream version", hence my
questions.
In any case, I can work on a fix for NetBSD, if you think that's relevant, but
I think the above patch should be considered.
Cheers,
Anthony
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