DESCRIPTION

ldconfig creates the necessary links and cache to the most recent shared libraries found in the directories specified on the command line, in the file /etc/ld.so.conf, and in the trusted directories, /lib and /usr/lib (on some 64-bit architectures such as x86-64, /lib and /usr/lib are the trusted directories for 32-bit libraries, while /lib64 and /usr/lib64 are used for 64-bit libraries).

The cache is used by the run-time linker, ld.so or ld−linux.so. ldconfig checks the header and filenames of the libraries it encounters when determining which versions should have their links updated.

ldconfig will attempt to deduce the type of ELF libraries (i.e., libc5 or libc6/glibc) based on what C libraries, if any, the library was linked against.

Some existing libraries do not contain enough information to allow the deduction of their type. Therefore, the /etc/ld.so.conf file format allows the specification of an expected type. This is used only for those ELF libraries which we can not work out. The format is "dirname=TYPE", where TYPE can be libc4, libc5, or libc6. (This syntax also works on the command line.) Spaces are not allowed. Also see the −p option. ldconfig should normally be run by the superuser as it may require write permission on some root owned directories and files.

Note that ldconfig will only look at files that are named lib*.so* (for regular shared objects) or ld−*.so* (for the dynamic loader itself). Other files will be ignored. Also, ldconfig expects a certain pattern to how the symlinks are set up, like this example, where the middle file (libfoo.so.1 here) is the SONAME for the library:

Failure to follow this pattern may result in compatibility issues after an upgrade.

OPTIONS

FILES

SEE ALSO

ldd(1), ld.so(8)