Using LD_DEBUG to Diagnose Shared Library Loading Problems on Linux
By
Bojan Nikolic
1d ago· 16 min readen
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Summary
This article explains how to use the LD_DEBUG environment variable on Linux systems to diagnose shared library loading issues. It covers various LD_DEBUG options (help, libs, files, symbols, bindings, versions, reloc, statistics, all) with practical examples and output interpretation. The article also discusses related tools like ldd, ldconfig, strace, and provides troubleshooting guidance for common dynamic linking problems such as wrong library versions being loaded.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledDevelopment of large systems using many shared (dynamically) loaded libraries can sometimes lead to some frustrating bugs that are difficult to diagnose.
These bugs often arise because there a few different versions of libraries on the system and the 'wrong' version gets loaded instead of the one the developer used wanted.
You may also find of use my online tool for diagnosing linker problems
Originally published 23 April 2012, updated 10 September 2019 (add link to troubleshooting tool), updated 18 October 2019 (moved to Jekyll), updated 3 April 2023 with links to other tools
