From: eric@tantalus.nrl.navy.mil (Eric Youngdale) Subject: Re: /bin files should not be linked with shared libs! Date: 11 Mar 1993 02:00:13 GMT
In article <C3oypC.27z@umassd.edu> benu@cis.umassd.edu (David Hassel) writes:
> I know there has already been a discussion on this issue but /bin
>file should not be linked with shared libs. A good example of this is how
>would you boot if libc.so.xx got corrupted? I made the silly mistake of
>removing the link to libc.so.4 and expected to re-ln it immediately.
>ln, cp, cat, etc all were linked against the [missing] shared library.
How would you boot if [init, getty, bash, login] were corrupted? What
if you put something stupid in your rc, rc.local, or inittab which prevented
you from getting in to your system? Basically you cannot get away from the
fact that there are certain files which must be present and uncorrupt for the
system to come up. The bootable rootdisk is designed to recover from these
types of problems.
> I do have a boot floppy but not one that knows about extended Minix
>file systems. So I can't boot off of floppy and re-install the link
>until a get a better boot disk.
I believe that the bootable rootdisk currently on tsx-11 has all of
these filesystems built into the kernel.
> Therefore I suggest any files in /bin should not be linked with
>shared libs!
I do not think that this is really called for. Those of us in the
shared library building business always keep a staticly linked ln lying around
just for the problem you described, but if you staticly linked every binary
there would be a *very* significant increase in disk usage.
-Eric
--
"When Grigor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he
found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin."
-F. Kafka