Installing Glibc-2.3.2

Estimated build time:           14.0 SBU
Estimated required disk space:  369 MB

Contents of Glibc

(Last checked against version 2.2.5.)

Glibc is the C library that provides the system calls and basic functions such as open, malloc, printf, etc. The C library is used by all dynamically linked programs.

Glibc installs the following files:

Program Files

catchsegv, gencat, getconf, getent, glibcbug, iconv, iconvconfig, ldconfig, ldd, lddlibc4, locale, localedef, mtrace, nscd, nscd_nischeck, pcprofiledump, pt_chown, rpcgen, rpcinfo, sln, sprof, tzselect, xtrace, zdump and zic

Library Files

ld.so, libBrokenLocale.[a,so], libSegFault.so, libanl.[a,so], libbsd-compat.a, libc.[a,so], libc_nonshared.a, libcrypt.[a,so], libdl.[a,so], libg.a, libieee.a, libm.[a,so], libmcheck.a, libmemusage.so, libnsl.a, libnss_compat.so, libnss_dns.so, libnss_files.so, libnss_hesiod.so, libnss_nis.so, libnss_nisplus.so, libpcprofile.so, libpthread.[a,so], libresolv.[a,so], librpcsvc.a, librt.[a,so], libthread_db.so and libutil.[a,so]

Glibc Installation Dependencies

(Last checked against version 2.2.5.)

Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib, readelf
Coreutils: cat, chmod, cp, cut, date, expr, hostname, install, ln,
             mknod, mv, mkdir, rm, pwd, sort, touch, tr, uname
Diffutils: cmp
Gawk: gawk
GCC: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp, gcc
Grep: egrep, grep
Gzip: gzip
Make: make
Sed: sed
Texinfo: install-info, makeinfo

Glibc installation

The Glibc build system is very well self-contained and will install perfectly, even though our compiler specs file and linker are still pointing at /tools. We cannot adjust the specs and linker before the Glibc install, because the Glibc autoconf tests would then give bogus results and thus defeat our goal of achieving a clean build.

Note: The test suite for Glibc in this section is considered critical. Our advice is to not skip it under any circumstances.

Before starting to build Glibc, remember to unpack the Glibc-linuxthreads again inside the glibc-2.3.2 directory, and to unset any environment variables that override the default optimization flags.

Then apply the same patch we used previously:

patch -Np1 -i ../glibc-2.3.2-sscanf-1.patch

The Glibc documentation recommends building Glibc outside of the source directory in a dedicated build directory:

mkdir ../glibc-build
cd ../glibc-build

Now prepare Glibc for compilation:

../glibc-2.3.2/configure --prefix=/usr \
    --disable-profile --enable-add-ons \
    --libexecdir=/usr/bin --with-headers=/usr/include

The meaning of the new configure options:

Compile the package:

make

Test the results:

make check

And install the package:

make install

The locales that can make your system respond in a different language weren't installed by the above command. Do it with this:

make localedata/install-locales

An alternative to running the previous command is to install only those locales which you need or want. This can be achieved using the localedef command. Information on this can be found in the INSTALL file in the glibc-2.3.2 tree. However, there are a number of locales that are essential for the tests of future packages to pass correctly. The following instructions, in place of the install-locales command above, will install the minimum set of locales necessary for the tests to run successfully:

mkdir -p /usr/lib/locale
localedef -i de_DE -f ISO-8859-1 de_DE
localedef -i de_DE@euro -f ISO-8859-15 de_DE@euro
localedef -i en_HK -f ISO-8859-1 en_HK
localedef -i en_PH -f ISO-8859-1 en_PH
localedef -i en_US -f ISO-8859-1 en_US
localedef -i es_MX -f ISO-8859-1 es_MX
localedef -i fr_FR -f ISO-8859-1 fr_FR
localedef -i fr_FR@euro -f ISO-8859-15 fr_FR@euro
localedef -i it_IT -f ISO-8859-1 it_IT
localedef -i ja_JP -f EUC-JP ja_JP

Finally, build the linuxthreads man pages:

make -C ../glibc-2.3.2/linuxthreads/man

And install these pages:

make -C ../glibc-2.3.2/linuxthreads/man install

Configuring Glibc

We need to create the /etc/nsswitch.conf file, because, although Glibc provides defaults when this file is missing or corrupt, the Glibc defaults don't work well with networking. Also, our time zone needs to be set up.

Create a new file /etc/nsswitch.conf by running the following:

cat > /etc/nsswitch.conf << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/nsswitch.conf

passwd: files
group: files
shadow: files

publickey: files

hosts: files dns
networks: files

protocols: db files
services: db files
ethers: db files
rpc: db files

netgroup: db files

# End /etc/nsswitch.conf
EOF

To find out what time zone you're in, run the following script:

tzselect

When you've answered a few questions about your location, the script will output the name of your time zone, something like EST5EDT or Canada/Eastern. Then create the /etc/localtime file by running:

cp --remove-destination /usr/share/zoneinfo/Canada/Eastern /etc/localtime 

The meaning of the option:

Of course, instead of Canada/Eastern, fill in the name of the time zone that the tzselect script gave you.

Configuring Dynamic Loader

By default, the dynamic loader (/lib/ld-linux.so.2) searches through /lib and /usr/lib for dynamic libraries that are needed by programs when you run them. However, if there are libraries in directories other than /lib and /usr/lib, you need to add them to the /etc/ld.so.conf file for the dynamic loader to find them. Two directories that are commonly known to contain additional libraries are /usr/local/lib and /opt/lib, so we add those directories to the dynamic loader's search path.

Create a new file /etc/ld.so.conf by running the following:

cat > /etc/ld.so.conf << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/ld.so.conf

/usr/local/lib
/opt/lib

# End /etc/ld.so.conf
EOF