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1 Installing the GNU C Library
2 ****************************
3
4 Before you do anything else, you should read the FAQ at
5 <https://sourceware.org/glibc/wiki/FAQ>. It answers common questions
6 and describes problems you may experience with compilation and
7 installation.
8
9 You will need recent versions of several GNU tools: definitely GCC
10 and GNU Make, and possibly others. *Note Tools for Compilation::,
11 below.
12
13 Configuring and compiling the GNU C Library
14 ===========================================
15
16 The GNU C Library cannot be compiled in the source directory. You must
17 build it in a separate build directory. For example, if you have
18 unpacked the GNU C Library sources in '/src/gnu/glibc-VERSION', create a
19 directory '/src/gnu/glibc-build' to put the object files in. This
20 allows removing the whole build directory in case an error occurs, which
21 is the safest way to get a fresh start and should always be done.
22
23 From your object directory, run the shell script 'configure' located
24 at the top level of the source tree. In the scenario above, you'd type
25
26 $ ../glibc-VERSION/configure ARGS...
27
28 Please note that even though you're building in a separate build
29 directory, the compilation may need to create or modify files and
30 directories in the source directory.
31
32 'configure' takes many options, but the only one that is usually
33 mandatory is '--prefix'. This option tells 'configure' where you want
34 the GNU C Library installed. This defaults to '/usr/local', but the
35 normal setting to install as the standard system library is
36 '--prefix=/usr' for GNU/Linux systems and '--prefix=' (an empty prefix)
37 for GNU/Hurd systems.
38
39 It may also be useful to pass 'CC=COMPILER' and 'CFLAGS=FLAGS'
40 arguments to 'configure'. 'CC' selects the C compiler that will be
41 used, and 'CFLAGS' sets optimization options for the compiler. Any
42 compiler options required for all compilations, such as options
43 selecting an ABI or a processor for which to generate code, should be
44 included in 'CC'. Options that may be overridden by the GNU C Library
45 build system for particular files, such as for optimization and
46 debugging, should go in 'CFLAGS'. The default value of 'CFLAGS' is '-g
47 -O2', and the GNU C Library cannot be compiled without optimization, so
48 if 'CFLAGS' is specified it must enable optimization. For example:
49
50 $ ../glibc-VERSION/configure CC="gcc -m32" CFLAGS="-O3"
51
52 The following list describes all of the available options for
53 'configure':
54
55 '--prefix=DIRECTORY'
56 Install machine-independent data files in subdirectories of
57 'DIRECTORY'. The default is to install in '/usr/local'.
58
59 '--exec-prefix=DIRECTORY'
60 Install the library and other machine-dependent files in
61 subdirectories of 'DIRECTORY'. The default is to the '--prefix'
62 directory if that option is specified, or '/usr/local' otherwise.
63
64 '--with-headers=DIRECTORY'
65 Look for kernel header files in DIRECTORY, not '/usr/include'. The
66 GNU C Library needs information from the kernel's header files
67 describing the interface to the kernel. The GNU C Library will
68 normally look in '/usr/include' for them, but if you specify this
69 option, it will look in DIRECTORY instead.
70
71 This option is primarily of use on a system where the headers in
72 '/usr/include' come from an older version of the GNU C Library.
73 Conflicts can occasionally happen in this case. You can also use
74 this option if you want to compile the GNU C Library with a newer
75 set of kernel headers than the ones found in '/usr/include'.
76
77 '--enable-kernel=VERSION'
78 This option is currently only useful on GNU/Linux systems. The
79 VERSION parameter should have the form X.Y.Z and describes the
80 smallest version of the Linux kernel the generated library is
81 expected to support. The higher the VERSION number is, the less
82 compatibility code is added, and the faster the code gets.
83
84 '--with-binutils=DIRECTORY'
85 Use the binutils (assembler and linker) in 'DIRECTORY', not the
86 ones the C compiler would default to. You can use this option if
87 the default binutils on your system cannot deal with all the
88 constructs in the GNU C Library. In that case, 'configure' will
89 detect the problem and suppress these constructs, so that the
90 library will still be usable, but functionality may be lost--for
91 example, you can't build a shared libc with old binutils.
92
93 '--with-nonshared-cflags=CFLAGS'
94 Use additional compiler flags CFLAGS to build the parts of the
95 library which are always statically linked into applications and
96 libraries even with shared linking (that is, the object files
97 contained in 'lib*_nonshared.a' libraries). The build process will
98 automatically use the appropriate flags, but this option can be
99 used to set additional flags required for building applications and
100 libraries, to match local policy. For example, if such a policy
101 requires that all code linked into applications must be built with
102 source fortification,
103 '--with-nonshared-cflags=-Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2' will make sure
104 that the objects in 'libc_nonshared.a' are compiled with this flag
105 (although this will not affect the generated code in this
106 particular case and potentially change debugging information and
107 metadata only).
108
109 '--disable-shared'
110 Don't build shared libraries even if it is possible. Not all
111 systems support shared libraries; you need ELF support and
112 (currently) the GNU linker.
113
114 '--enable-static-pie'
115 Enable static position independent executable (static PIE) support.
116 Static PIE is similar to static executable, but can be loaded at
117 any address without help from a dynamic linker. All static
118 programs as well as static tests are built as static PIE, except
119 for those marked with no-pie. The resulting glibc can be used with
120 the GCC option, -static-pie, which is available with GCC 8 or
121 above, to create static PIE. This option also implies that glibc
122 programs and tests are created as dynamic position independent
123 executables (PIE) by default.
124
125 '--enable-cet'
126 '--enable-cet=permissive'
127 Enable Intel Control-flow Enforcement Technology (CET) support.
128 When the GNU C Library is built with '--enable-cet' or
129 '--enable-cet=permissive', the resulting library is protected with
130 indirect branch tracking (IBT) and shadow stack (SHSTK). When CET
131 is enabled, the GNU C Library is compatible with all existing
132 executables and shared libraries. This feature is currently
133 supported on i386, x86_64 and x32 with GCC 8 and binutils 2.29 or
134 later. Note that when CET is enabled, the GNU C Library requires
135 CPUs capable of multi-byte NOPs, like x86-64 processors as well as
136 Intel Pentium Pro or newer. With '--enable-cet', it is an error to
137 dlopen a non CET enabled shared library in CET enabled application.
138 With '--enable-cet=permissive', CET is disabled when dlopening a
139 non CET enabled shared library in CET enabled application.
140
141 NOTE: '--enable-cet' has been tested for i686, x86_64 and x32 on
142 non-CET processors. '--enable-cet' has been tested for i686,
143 x86_64 and x32 on CET processors.
144
145 '--enable-memory-tagging'
146 Enable memory tagging support if the architecture supports it.
147 When the GNU C Library is built with this option then the resulting
148 library will be able to control the use of tagged memory when
149 hardware support is present by use of the tunable
150 'glibc.mem.tagging'. This includes the generation of tagged memory
151 when using the 'malloc' APIs.
152
153 At present only AArch64 platforms with MTE provide this
154 functionality, although the library will still operate (without
155 memory tagging) on older versions of the architecture.
156
157 The default is to disable support for memory tagging.
158
159 '--disable-profile'
160 Don't build libraries with profiling information. You may want to
161 use this option if you don't plan to do profiling.
162
163 '--enable-static-nss'
164 Compile static versions of the NSS (Name Service Switch) libraries.
165 This is not recommended because it defeats the purpose of NSS; a
166 program linked statically with the NSS libraries cannot be
167 dynamically reconfigured to use a different name database.
168
169 '--enable-hardcoded-path-in-tests'
170 By default, dynamic tests are linked to run with the installed C
171 library. This option hardcodes the newly built C library path in
172 dynamic tests so that they can be invoked directly.
173
174 '--disable-timezone-tools'
175 By default, timezone related utilities ('zic', 'zdump', and
176 'tzselect') are installed with the GNU C Library. If you are
177 building these independently (e.g. by using the 'tzcode' package),
178 then this option will allow disabling the install of these.
179
180 Note that you need to make sure the external tools are kept in sync
181 with the versions that the GNU C Library expects as the data
182 formats may change over time. Consult the 'timezone' subdirectory
183 for more details.
184
185 '--enable-stack-protector'
186 '--enable-stack-protector=strong'
187 '--enable-stack-protector=all'
188 Compile the C library and all other parts of the glibc package
189 (including the threading and math libraries, NSS modules, and
190 transliteration modules) using the GCC '-fstack-protector',
191 '-fstack-protector-strong' or '-fstack-protector-all' options to
192 detect stack overruns. Only the dynamic linker and a small number
193 of routines called directly from assembler are excluded from this
194 protection.
195
196 '--enable-bind-now'
197 Disable lazy binding for installed shared objects and programs.
198 This provides additional security hardening because it enables full
199 RELRO and a read-only global offset table (GOT), at the cost of
200 slightly increased program load times.
201
202 '--enable-pt_chown'
203 The file 'pt_chown' is a helper binary for 'grantpt' (*note
204 Pseudo-Terminals: Allocation.) that is installed setuid root to fix
205 up pseudo-terminal ownership on GNU/Hurd. It is not required on
206 GNU/Linux, and the GNU C Library will not use the installed
207 'pt_chown' program when configured with '--enable-pt_chown'.
208
209 '--disable-werror'
210 By default, the GNU C Library is built with '-Werror'. If you wish
211 to build without this option (for example, if building with a newer
212 version of GCC than this version of the GNU C Library was tested
213 with, so new warnings cause the build with '-Werror' to fail), you
214 can configure with '--disable-werror'.
215
216 '--disable-mathvec'
217 By default for x86_64, the GNU C Library is built with the vector
218 math library. Use this option to disable the vector math library.
219
220 '--enable-tunables'
221 Tunables support allows additional library parameters to be
222 customized at runtime. This feature is enabled by default. This
223 option can take the following values:
224
225 'yes'
226 This is the default if no option is passed to configure. This
227 enables tunables and selects the default frontend (currently
228 'valstring').
229
230 'no'
231 This option disables tunables.
232
233 'valstring'
234 This enables tunables and selects the 'valstring' frontend for
235 tunables. This frontend allows users to specify tunables as a
236 colon-separated list in a single environment variable
237 'GLIBC_TUNABLES'.
238
239 '--disable-crypt'
240 Do not install the passphrase-hashing library 'libcrypt' or the
241 header file 'crypt.h'. 'unistd.h' will still declare the function
242 'crypt'. Using this option does not change the set of programs
243 that may need to be linked with '-lcrypt'; it only means that the
244 GNU C Library will not provide that library.
245
246 This option is for hackers and distributions experimenting with
247 independently-maintained implementations of libcrypt. It may
248 become the default in a future release.
249
250 '--disable-experimental-malloc'
251 By default, a per-thread cache is enabled in 'malloc'. While this
252 cache can be disabled on a per-application basis using tunables
253 (set glibc.malloc.tcache_count to zero), this option can be used to
254 remove it from the build completely.
255
256 '--build=BUILD-SYSTEM'
257 '--host=HOST-SYSTEM'
258 These options are for cross-compiling. If you specify both options
259 and BUILD-SYSTEM is different from HOST-SYSTEM, 'configure' will
260 prepare to cross-compile the GNU C Library from BUILD-SYSTEM to be
261 used on HOST-SYSTEM. You'll probably need the '--with-headers'
262 option too, and you may have to override CONFIGURE's selection of
263 the compiler and/or binutils.
264
265 If you only specify '--host', 'configure' will prepare for a native
266 compile but use what you specify instead of guessing what your
267 system is. This is most useful to change the CPU submodel. For
268 example, if 'configure' guesses your machine as 'i686-pc-linux-gnu'
269 but you want to compile a library for 586es, give
270 '--host=i586-pc-linux-gnu' or just '--host=i586-linux' and add the
271 appropriate compiler flags ('-mcpu=i586' will do the trick) to
272 'CC'.
273
274 If you specify just '--build', 'configure' will get confused.
275
276 '--with-pkgversion=VERSION'
277 Specify a description, possibly including a build number or build
278 date, of the binaries being built, to be included in '--version'
279 output from programs installed with the GNU C Library. For
280 example, '--with-pkgversion='FooBar GNU/Linux glibc build 123''.
281 The default value is 'GNU libc'.
282
283 '--with-bugurl=URL'
284 Specify the URL that users should visit if they wish to report a
285 bug, to be included in '--help' output from programs installed with
286 the GNU C Library. The default value refers to the main
287 bug-reporting information for the GNU C Library.
288
289 To build the library and related programs, type 'make'. This will
290 produce a lot of output, some of which may look like errors from 'make'
291 but aren't. Look for error messages from 'make' containing '***'.
292 Those indicate that something is seriously wrong.
293
294 The compilation process can take a long time, depending on the
295 configuration and the speed of your machine. Some complex modules may
296 take a very long time to compile, as much as several minutes on slower
297 machines. Do not panic if the compiler appears to hang.
298
299 If you want to run a parallel make, simply pass the '-j' option with
300 an appropriate numeric parameter to 'make'. You need a recent GNU
301 'make' version, though.
302
303 To build and run test programs which exercise some of the library
304 facilities, type 'make check'. If it does not complete successfully, do
305 not use the built library, and report a bug after verifying that the
306 problem is not already known. *Note Reporting Bugs::, for instructions
307 on reporting bugs. Note that some of the tests assume they are not
308 being run by 'root'. We recommend you compile and test the GNU C
309 Library as an unprivileged user.
310
311 Before reporting bugs make sure there is no problem with your system.
312 The tests (and later installation) use some pre-existing files of the
313 system such as '/etc/passwd', '/etc/nsswitch.conf' and others. These
314 files must all contain correct and sensible content.
315
316 Normally, 'make check' will run all the tests before reporting all
317 problems found and exiting with error status if any problems occurred.
318 You can specify 'stop-on-test-failure=y' when running 'make check' to
319 make the test run stop and exit with an error status immediately when a
320 failure occurs.
321
322 To format the 'GNU C Library Reference Manual' for printing, type
323 'make dvi'. You need a working TeX installation to do this. The
324 distribution builds the on-line formatted version of the manual, as Info
325 files, as part of the build process. You can build them manually with
326 'make info'.
327
328 The library has a number of special-purpose configuration parameters
329 which you can find in 'Makeconfig'. These can be overwritten with the
330 file 'configparms'. To change them, create a 'configparms' in your
331 build directory and add values as appropriate for your system. The file
332 is included and parsed by 'make' and has to follow the conventions for
333 makefiles.
334
335 It is easy to configure the GNU C Library for cross-compilation by
336 setting a few variables in 'configparms'. Set 'CC' to the
337 cross-compiler for the target you configured the library for; it is
338 important to use this same 'CC' value when running 'configure', like
339 this: 'configure TARGET CC=TARGET-gcc'. Set 'BUILD_CC' to the compiler
340 to use for programs run on the build system as part of compiling the
341 library. You may need to set 'AR' to cross-compiling versions of 'ar'
342 if the native tools are not configured to work with object files for the
343 target you configured for. When cross-compiling the GNU C Library, it
344 may be tested using 'make check
345 test-wrapper="SRCDIR/scripts/cross-test-ssh.sh HOSTNAME"', where SRCDIR
346 is the absolute directory name for the main source directory and
347 HOSTNAME is the host name of a system that can run the newly built
348 binaries of the GNU C Library. The source and build directories must be
349 visible at the same locations on both the build system and HOSTNAME.
350
351 In general, when testing the GNU C Library, 'test-wrapper' may be set
352 to the name and arguments of any program to run newly built binaries.
353 This program must preserve the arguments to the binary being run, its
354 working directory and the standard input, output and error file
355 descriptors. If 'TEST-WRAPPER env' will not work to run a program with
356 environment variables set, then 'test-wrapper-env' must be set to a
357 program that runs a newly built program with environment variable
358 assignments in effect, those assignments being specified as 'VAR=VALUE'
359 before the name of the program to be run. If multiple assignments to
360 the same variable are specified, the last assignment specified must take
361 precedence. Similarly, if 'TEST-WRAPPER env -i' will not work to run a
362 program with an environment completely empty of variables except those
363 directly assigned, then 'test-wrapper-env-only' must be set; its use has
364 the same syntax as 'test-wrapper-env', the only difference in its
365 semantics being starting with an empty set of environment variables
366 rather than the ambient set.
367
368 Installing the C Library
369 ========================
370
371 To install the library and its header files, and the Info files of the
372 manual, type 'make install'. This will build things, if necessary,
373 before installing them; however, you should still compile everything
374 first. If you are installing the GNU C Library as your primary C
375 library, we recommend that you shut the system down to single-user mode
376 first, and reboot afterward. This minimizes the risk of breaking things
377 when the library changes out from underneath.
378
379 'make install' will do the entire job of upgrading from a previous
380 installation of the GNU C Library version 2.x. There may sometimes be
381 headers left behind from the previous installation, but those are
382 generally harmless. If you want to avoid leaving headers behind you can
383 do things in the following order.
384
385 You must first build the library ('make'), optionally check it ('make
386 check'), switch the include directories and then install ('make
387 install'). The steps must be done in this order. Not moving the
388 directory before install will result in an unusable mixture of header
389 files from both libraries, but configuring, building, and checking the
390 library requires the ability to compile and run programs against the old
391 library. The new '/usr/include', after switching the include
392 directories and before installing the library should contain the Linux
393 headers, but nothing else. If you do this, you will need to restore any
394 headers from libraries other than the GNU C Library yourself after
395 installing the library.
396
397 You can install the GNU C Library somewhere other than where you
398 configured it to go by setting the 'DESTDIR' GNU standard make variable
399 on the command line for 'make install'. The value of this variable is
400 prepended to all the paths for installation. This is useful when
401 setting up a chroot environment or preparing a binary distribution. The
402 directory should be specified with an absolute file name. Installing
403 with the 'prefix' and 'exec_prefix' GNU standard make variables set is
404 not supported.
405
406 The GNU C Library includes a daemon called 'nscd', which you may or
407 may not want to run. 'nscd' caches name service lookups; it can
408 dramatically improve performance with NIS+, and may help with DNS as
409 well.
410
411 One auxiliary program, '/usr/libexec/pt_chown', is installed setuid
412 'root' if the '--enable-pt_chown' configuration option is used. This
413 program is invoked by the 'grantpt' function; it sets the permissions on
414 a pseudoterminal so it can be used by the calling process. If you are
415 using a Linux kernel with the 'devpts' filesystem enabled and mounted at
416 '/dev/pts', you don't need this program.
417
418 After installation you should configure the timezone and install
419 locales for your system. The time zone configuration ensures that your
420 system time matches the time for your current timezone. The locales
421 ensure that the display of information on your system matches the
422 expectations of your language and geographic region.
423
424 The GNU C Library is able to use two kinds of localization
425 information sources, the first is a locale database named
426 'locale-archive' which is generally installed as
427 '/usr/lib/locale/locale-archive'. The locale archive has the benefit of
428 taking up less space and being very fast to load, but only if you plan
429 to install sixty or more locales. If you plan to install one or two
430 locales you can instead install individual locales into their self-named
431 directories e.g. '/usr/lib/locale/en_US.utf8'. For example to install
432 the German locale using the character set for UTF-8 with name 'de_DE'
433 into the locale archive issue the command 'localedef -i de_DE -f UTF-8
434 de_DE', and to install just the one locale issue the command 'localedef
435 --no-archive -i de_DE -f UTF-8 de_DE'. To configure all locales that
436 are supported by the GNU C Library, you can issue from your build
437 directory the command 'make localedata/install-locales' to install all
438 locales into the locale archive or 'make
439 localedata/install-locale-files' to install all locales as files in the
440 default configured locale installation directory (derived from
441 '--prefix' or '--localedir'). To install into an alternative system
442 root use 'DESTDIR' e.g. 'make localedata/install-locale-files
443 DESTDIR=/opt/glibc', but note that this does not change the configured
444 prefix.
445
446 To configure the locally used timezone, set the 'TZ' environment
447 variable. The script 'tzselect' helps you to select the right value.
448 As an example, for Germany, 'tzselect' would tell you to use
449 'TZ='Europe/Berlin''. For a system wide installation (the given paths
450 are for an installation with '--prefix=/usr'), link the timezone file
451 which is in '/usr/share/zoneinfo' to the file '/etc/localtime'. For
452 Germany, you might execute 'ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Berlin
453 /etc/localtime'.
454
455 Recommended Tools for Compilation
456 =================================
457
458 We recommend installing the following GNU tools before attempting to
459 build the GNU C Library:
460
461 * GNU 'make' 4.0 or newer
462
463 As of relase time, GNU 'make' 4.3 is the newest verified to work to
464 build the GNU C Library.
465
466 * GCC 6.2 or newer
467
468 GCC 6.2 or higher is required. In general it is recommended to use
469 the newest version of the compiler that is known to work for
470 building the GNU C Library, as newer compilers usually produce
471 better code. As of release time, GCC 10.2 is the newest compiler
472 verified to work to build the GNU C Library.
473
474 For PowerPC 64-bits little-endian (powerpc64le), a GCC version with
475 support for '-mno-gnu-attribute', '-mabi=ieeelongdouble', and
476 '-mabi=ibmlondouble' is required. Likewise, the compiler must also
477 support passing '-mlong-double-128' with the preceding options. As
478 of release, this implies GCC 7.4 and newer (excepting GCC 7.5.0,
479 see GCC PR94200). These additional features are required for
480 building the GNU C Library with support for IEEE long double.
481
482 For ARC architecture builds, GCC 8.3 or higher is needed.
483
484 For s390x architecture builds, GCC 7.1 or higher is needed (See gcc
485 Bug 98269).
486
487 For multi-arch support it is recommended to use a GCC which has
488 been built with support for GNU indirect functions. This ensures
489 that correct debugging information is generated for functions
490 selected by IFUNC resolvers. This support can either be enabled by
491 configuring GCC with '--enable-gnu-indirect-function', or by
492 enabling it by default by setting 'default_gnu_indirect_function'
493 variable for a particular architecture in the GCC source file
494 'gcc/config.gcc'.
495
496 You can use whatever compiler you like to compile programs that use
497 the GNU C Library.
498
499 Check the FAQ for any special compiler issues on particular
500 platforms.
501
502 * GNU 'binutils' 2.25 or later
503
504 You must use GNU 'binutils' (as and ld) to build the GNU C Library.
505 No other assembler or linker has the necessary functionality at the
506 moment. As of release time, GNU 'binutils' 2.35.1 is the newest
507 verified to work to build the GNU C Library.
508
509 For PowerPC 64-bits little-endian (powerpc64le), 'objcopy' is
510 required to support '--update-section'. This option requires
511 binutils 2.26 or newer.
512
513 ARC architecture needs 'binutils' 2.32 or higher for TLS related
514 fixes.
515
516 * GNU 'texinfo' 4.7 or later
517
518 To correctly translate and install the Texinfo documentation you
519 need this version of the 'texinfo' package. Earlier versions do
520 not understand all the tags used in the document, and the
521 installation mechanism for the info files is not present or works
522 differently. As of release time, 'texinfo' 6.7 is the newest
523 verified to work to build the GNU C Library.
524
525 * GNU 'awk' 3.1.2, or higher
526
527 'awk' is used in several places to generate files. Some 'gawk'
528 extensions are used, including the 'asorti' function, which was
529 introduced in version 3.1.2 of 'gawk'. As of release time, 'gawk'
530 version 5.1 is the newest verified to work to build the GNU C
531 Library.
532
533 * GNU 'bison' 2.7 or later
534
535 'bison' is used to generate the 'yacc' parser code in the 'intl'
536 subdirectory. As of release time, 'bison' version 3.7.4 is the
537 newest verified to work to build the GNU C Library.
538
539 * Perl 5
540
541 Perl is not required, but if present it is used in some tests and
542 the 'mtrace' program, to build the GNU C Library manual. As of
543 release time 'perl' version 5.32.0 is the newest verified to work
544 to build the GNU C Library.
545
546 * GNU 'sed' 3.02 or newer
547
548 'Sed' is used in several places to generate files. Most scripts
549 work with any version of 'sed'. As of release time, 'sed' version
550 4.8 is the newest verified to work to build the GNU C Library.
551
552 * Python 3.4 or later
553
554 Python is required to build the GNU C Library. As of release time,
555 Python 3.8.6 is the newest verified to work for building and
556 testing the GNU C Library.
557
558 * PExpect 4.0
559
560 The pretty printer tests drive GDB through test programs and
561 compare its output to the printers'. PExpect is used to capture
562 the output of GDB, and should be compatible with the Python version
563 in your system. As of release time PExpect 4.8 is the newest
564 verified to work to test the pretty printers.
565
566 * GDB 7.8 or later with support for Python 2.7/3.4 or later
567
568 GDB itself needs to be configured with Python support in order to
569 use the pretty printers. Notice that your system having Python
570 available doesn't imply that GDB supports it, nor that your
571 system's Python and GDB's have the same version. As of release
572 time GNU 'debugger' 10.1 is the newest verified to work to test the
573 pretty printers.
574
575 Unless Python, PExpect and GDB with Python support are present, the
576 printer tests will report themselves as 'UNSUPPORTED'. Notice that
577 some of the printer tests require the GNU C Library to be compiled
578 with debugging symbols.
579
580 If you change any of the 'configure.ac' files you will also need
581
582 * GNU 'autoconf' 2.69 (exactly)
583
584 and if you change any of the message translation files you will need
585
586 * GNU 'gettext' 0.10.36 or later
587
588 As of release time, GNU 'gettext' version 0.21 is the newest
589 version verified to work to build the GNU C Library.
590
591 You may also need these packages if you upgrade your source tree using
592 patches, although we try to avoid this.
593
594 Specific advice for GNU/Linux systems
595 =====================================
596
597 If you are installing the GNU C Library on GNU/Linux systems, you need
598 to have the header files from a 3.2 or newer kernel around for
599 reference. (For the ia64 architecture, you need version 3.2.18 or newer
600 because this is the first version with support for the 'accept4' system
601 call.) These headers must be installed using 'make headers_install';
602 the headers present in the kernel source directory are not suitable for
603 direct use by the GNU C Library. You do not need to use that kernel,
604 just have its headers installed where the GNU C Library can access them,
605 referred to here as INSTALL-DIRECTORY. The easiest way to do this is to
606 unpack it in a directory such as '/usr/src/linux-VERSION'. In that
607 directory, run 'make headers_install
608 INSTALL_HDR_PATH=INSTALL-DIRECTORY'. Finally, configure the GNU C
609 Library with the option '--with-headers=INSTALL-DIRECTORY/include'. Use
610 the most recent kernel you can get your hands on. (If you are
611 cross-compiling the GNU C Library, you need to specify
612 'ARCH=ARCHITECTURE' in the 'make headers_install' command, where
613 ARCHITECTURE is the architecture name used by the Linux kernel, such as
614 'x86' or 'powerpc'.)
615
616 After installing the GNU C Library, you may need to remove or rename
617 directories such as '/usr/include/linux' and '/usr/include/asm', and
618 replace them with copies of directories such as 'linux' and 'asm' from
619 'INSTALL-DIRECTORY/include'. All directories present in
620 'INSTALL-DIRECTORY/include' should be copied, except that the GNU C
621 Library provides its own version of '/usr/include/scsi'; the files
622 provided by the kernel should be copied without replacing those provided
623 by the GNU C Library. The 'linux', 'asm' and 'asm-generic' directories
624 are required to compile programs using the GNU C Library; the other
625 directories describe interfaces to the kernel but are not required if
626 not compiling programs using those interfaces. You do not need to copy
627 kernel headers if you did not specify an alternate kernel header source
628 using '--with-headers'.
629
630 The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard for GNU/Linux systems expects some
631 components of the GNU C Library installation to be in '/lib' and some in
632 '/usr/lib'. This is handled automatically if you configure the GNU C
633 Library with '--prefix=/usr'. If you set some other prefix or allow it
634 to default to '/usr/local', then all the components are installed there.
635
636 Reporting Bugs
637 ==============
638
639 There are probably bugs in the GNU C Library. There are certainly
640 errors and omissions in this manual. If you report them, they will get
641 fixed. If you don't, no one will ever know about them and they will
642 remain unfixed for all eternity, if not longer.
643
644 It is a good idea to verify that the problem has not already been
645 reported. Bugs are documented in two places: The file 'BUGS' describes
646 a number of well known bugs and the central GNU C Library bug tracking
647 system has a WWW interface at <https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/>. The
648 WWW interface gives you access to open and closed reports. A closed
649 report normally includes a patch or a hint on solving the problem.
650
651 To report a bug, first you must find it. With any luck, this will be
652 the hard part. Once you've found a bug, make sure it's really a bug. A
653 good way to do this is to see if the GNU C Library behaves the same way
654 some other C library does. If so, probably you are wrong and the
655 libraries are right (but not necessarily). If not, one of the libraries
656 is probably wrong. It might not be the GNU C Library. Many historical
657 Unix C libraries permit things that we don't, such as closing a file
658 twice.
659
660 If you think you have found some way in which the GNU C Library does
661 not conform to the ISO and POSIX standards (*note Standards and
662 Portability::), that is definitely a bug. Report it!
663
664 Once you're sure you've found a bug, try to narrow it down to the
665 smallest test case that reproduces the problem. In the case of a C
666 library, you really only need to narrow it down to one library function
667 call, if possible. This should not be too difficult.
668
669 The final step when you have a simple test case is to report the bug.
670 Do this at <https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/bugs.html>.
671
672 If you are not sure how a function should behave, and this manual
673 doesn't tell you, that's a bug in the manual. Report that too! If the
674 function's behavior disagrees with the manual, then either the library
675 or the manual has a bug, so report the disagreement. If you find any
676 errors or omissions in this manual, please report them to the bug
677 database. If you refer to specific sections of the manual, please
678 include the section names for easier identification.