*BSD News Article 74472


Return to BSD News archive

Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.ysu.edu!news.cps.udayton.edu!news.engr.udayton.edu!blackbird.afit.af.mil!zombie.ncsc.mil!news.mathworks.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!newsxfer2.itd.umich.edu!portc01.blue.aol.com!newstf01.news.aol.com!newsjunkie.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!prodigy.com!darkstar.prodigy.com!davidsen
From: davidsen@tmr.com (bill davidsen)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.networking,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: dynamic-vs-static linked /bin etc (was: Re: TCP latency)
Date: 22 Jul 1996 18:36:18 GMT
Organization: TMR Associates, Schenectady NY
Lines: 37
Message-ID: <4t0hn2$1lcs@usenetw1.news.prodigy.com>
References: <4paedl$4bm@engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM> <87k9w6g6u4.fsf@localhost.xs4all.nl> <31E9D0CC.41C67EA6@dy <slrn4uthl2.ma1.liam@sweetums.lab.nz.eds.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: darkstar.prodigy.com
Originator: davidsen@darkstar.prodigy.com
Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.networking:46083 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:24236

In article <slrn4uthl2.ma1.liam@sweetums.lab.nz.eds.com>,
Liam Greenwood <Liam.Greenwood@nz.eds.com> wrote:
| On Wed, 17 Jul 1996 20:28:58 GMT, Peter Mutsaers <plm@xs4all.nl> wrote:
| > 
| > Yes, /bin/sh (a link from /bin/bash) is indeed dynamically linked. In
| > fact on any Linux installation I know everything in /sbin and /bin/is
| > dynamically linked. I stil think it is a waste of diskspace that this
| > isn't true for FreeBSD; there is no need to link these statically
| > as long as all shared libraries reside in /lib (on the root filesystem
| > too).
| > 
| 	Well, I'm going to (next time I get some time - say year 2010 :-(
| make sure that _all_ the binaries I need to boot single user are statically
| linked.  Currently with the distributions I've been using if you make 
| a little mistake with shared libraries not only can you make your system
| unuseable but unbootable.  Frankly I can afford the disk space easier than
| I can afford the risk.

Why would anyone put dynamic linked stuff in sbin? To be sure that
if there's a problem you are trying to recover with whatever you
have on a floppy? There are very few things I feel are worth putting
in /sbin or /usr/sbin, and I always have the dynamic copy in /bin to
avoid wasting memory, but if something happens to the library you
are just SOL if /sbin doesn't have the right stuff in it.

I have the feeling that the FSS overlooked this, or that people
making distributions have little experience in system
administration. The stuff in /sbin should be only the stuff you need
to do recovery, and really should be static linked.

As mentioned, there are good reasons to have a dynamic copy in/bin,
speeds loading and takes less memory, but when you have a problem
you really don't want a single point of failure in the library.
--
	-bill davidsen (davidsen@tmr.com)
"As a software development model, Anarchy does not scale well."
		-Dave Welch