Linux ELF OS ABI

[Kevin P. Fleming]

Doug Semler wrote:
> I have a shared object that I compile on one machine (Fedora 12) and
> run on another (CentOS5 or Ubuntu 8.04) machine.  Things were fine
> (ensuring that we only used older APIs) running this way until
> recently.  Recent compiles on the Fedora 12 machine started tagging
> the shared libraries being built with the GNU/Linux ABI rather than
> the Unknown (SYSV) ABI.  The problem seems to be that on the older
> machines, the shared object loader can't parse this (i get an ELF file
> OS ABI invalid shared object when trying to load the .so file from an
> executable).  An executable tagged with the GNU/Linux ABI type runs
> perfectly fine.  I *think* the problems started when I updated the
> glibc to 2.11.2 on the Fedora system.

In general, this is why using Fedora for building binaries to be used on
other distros is not usually a good idea; it changes in significant ways
within the lifetime of a particular 'release'.

> What is weird is that if I link the shared object with --strip-all it
> will not work.  If I then strip the shared object with strip, it is
> loadable.  The only difference between the two shared object files is
> the ELF OS ABI (byte 8), otherwise they are the same.

--strip-all literally strips all symbols, and thus the symbols exposed
by the shared object are no longer present.

-- 
Kevin P. Fleming
Digium, Inc. | Director of Software Technologies
445 Jan Davis Drive NW - Huntsville, AL 35806 - USA
skype: kpfleming | jabber: kpfleming@digium.com
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