libbind vs. libc & libresolv problems

Adam Tkac atkac at redhat.com
Mon Apr 21 10:25:54 UTC 2008


Hi all,

with https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=441429 this problem
became serious. We have two DNS resolver related libraries - libbind
from ISC on the one side and on the other side libc + libresolv from
GNU libc. Both libraries contains same symbols, does same work but
GNU libc implementation hides some symbols whose are sometimes needed
and this is reason why people linking against libbind (GNU libc is
stripped libbind source). Bug written above is one example that this
situation has to be solved. When program is linked against NSS and
also against libbind for example (because glibc doesn't provide such
interfaces) all gets broken because both libraries have same symbols
but uses different structures. Best fix is agreement between ISC and
GNU libc upstreams who will use that symbols and who will rename them.
I know this is only dream and it will take very long time (I'm sure
ISC will never change libbind and change in glibc is also nearly
impossible). So there are two ways how solve this problem - make
needed symbols from glibc public and don't link anything against
libbind or drop resolving support from libc and link all against
libbind. I vote for libbind as default resolver library because
maintenance cost of unsupported code in glibc downstream is bigger
than cost of stripped version of glibc. Any hints and ideas around
this problem are welcomed. What's your opinion?

Regards, Adam

-- 
Adam Tkac, Red Hat, Inc.




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