libbind vs. libc & libresolv problems

Andrew Haley aph at redhat.com
Mon Apr 21 10:42:10 UTC 2008


Adam Tkac wrote:

> 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?

What does libbind do that libresolv doesn't?  In other words, why would
an application writer prefer to link against libbind?

Andrew.




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