Portable glibc binary package

[Carlos O'Donell]

On 03/18/2015 05:17 PM, Shaun Jackman wrote:
> On 18 March 2015 at 08:40, Carlos O'Donell <carlos@redhat.com> wrote:
>> On 03/18/2015 12:24 AM, Shaun Jackman wrote:
>>> My original question remains: is it possible to compile a portable
>>> glibc binary package that can be installed in a user's home directory?
>>
>> A runtime that can be rooted in a directory other than /?
>>
>> It is possible, you do so by compiling glibc with an alternate prefix.
>>
>> At present the prefix is not runtime configurable, but I would not
>> object to patches that make it so given a configure flag. This would
>> then allow you to install a completely isolated runtime in an
>> untrusted location.
>>
>> However, why not just use chroot or pivot_root?
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Carlos.
> 
>> At present the prefix is not runtime configurable,
> 
> Do you think that would be a lot of work? It would be a useful
> feature, at least for me.

It's not that much work. Everything is already conditioned to use
--prefix correctly, you just need to find all those places the macro
is used and see about replacing the expansion to be something that
happens at runtime. Then test it out. Anything fancier, like the
configure switch to enable disable it can come later.

>> However, why not just use chroot or pivot_root?
> 
> Those both require root privilege, I believe. The goal is to upgrade
> glibc on a system such as a high-performance computing cluster where
> the user does not have root access.

Good reason.

Cheers,
Carlos.