1 Installing the GNU C Library
2 ****************************
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
9 You will need recent versions of several GNU tools: definitely GCC
10 and GNU Make, and possibly others. *Note Tools for Compilation::,
13 Configuring and compiling the GNU C Library
14 ===========================================
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.
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
26 $ ../glibc-VERSION/configure ARGS...
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.
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)
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:
50 $ ../glibc-VERSION/configure CC="gcc -m32" CFLAGS="-O3"
52 The following list describes all of the available options for
56 Install machine-independent data files in subdirectories of
57 'DIRECTORY'. The default is to install in '/usr/local'.
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.
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.
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'.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
126 Enable Intel Control-flow Enforcement Technology (CET) support.
127 When the GNU C Library is built with '--enable-cet', the resulting
128 library is protected with indirect branch tracking (IBT) and shadow
129 stack (SHSTK). When CET is enabled, the GNU C Library is
130 compatible with all existing executables and shared libraries.
131 This feature is currently supported on i386, x86_64 and x32 with
132 GCC 8 and binutils 2.29 or later. Note that when CET is enabled,
133 the GNU C Library requires CPUs capable of multi-byte NOPs, like
134 x86-64 processors as well as Intel Pentium Pro or newer.
136 NOTE: '--enable-cet' has been tested for i686, x86_64 and x32 on
137 non-CET processors. '--enable-cet' has been tested for x86_64 and
138 x32 on CET SDVs, but Intel CET support hasn't been validated for
142 Don't build libraries with profiling information. You may want to
143 use this option if you don't plan to do profiling.
145 '--enable-static-nss'
146 Compile static versions of the NSS (Name Service Switch) libraries.
147 This is not recommended because it defeats the purpose of NSS; a
148 program linked statically with the NSS libraries cannot be
149 dynamically reconfigured to use a different name database.
151 '--enable-hardcoded-path-in-tests'
152 By default, dynamic tests are linked to run with the installed C
153 library. This option hardcodes the newly built C library path in
154 dynamic tests so that they can be invoked directly.
156 '--disable-timezone-tools'
157 By default, timezone related utilities ('zic', 'zdump', and
158 'tzselect') are installed with the GNU C Library. If you are
159 building these independently (e.g. by using the 'tzcode' package),
160 then this option will allow disabling the install of these.
162 Note that you need to make sure the external tools are kept in sync
163 with the versions that the GNU C Library expects as the data
164 formats may change over time. Consult the 'timezone' subdirectory
167 '--enable-stack-protector'
168 '--enable-stack-protector=strong'
169 '--enable-stack-protector=all'
170 Compile the C library and all other parts of the glibc package
171 (including the threading and math libraries, NSS modules, and
172 transliteration modules) using the GCC '-fstack-protector',
173 '-fstack-protector-strong' or '-fstack-protector-all' options to
174 detect stack overruns. Only the dynamic linker and a small number
175 of routines called directly from assembler are excluded from this
179 Disable lazy binding for installed shared objects and programs.
180 This provides additional security hardening because it enables full
181 RELRO and a read-only global offset table (GOT), at the cost of
182 slightly increased program load times.
185 The file 'pt_chown' is a helper binary for 'grantpt' (*note
186 Pseudo-Terminals: Allocation.) that is installed setuid root to fix
187 up pseudo-terminal ownership. It is not built by default because
188 systems using the Linux kernel are commonly built with the 'devpts'
189 filesystem enabled and mounted at '/dev/pts', which manages
190 pseudo-terminal ownership automatically. By using
191 '--enable-pt_chown', you may build 'pt_chown' and install it setuid
192 and owned by 'root'. The use of 'pt_chown' introduces additional
193 security risks to the system and you should enable it only if you
194 understand and accept those risks.
197 By default, the GNU C Library is built with '-Werror'. If you wish
198 to build without this option (for example, if building with a newer
199 version of GCC than this version of the GNU C Library was tested
200 with, so new warnings cause the build with '-Werror' to fail), you
201 can configure with '--disable-werror'.
204 By default for x86_64, the GNU C Library is built with the vector
205 math library. Use this option to disable the vector math library.
208 Tunables support allows additional library parameters to be
209 customized at runtime. This feature is enabled by default. This
210 option can take the following values:
213 This is the default if no option is passed to configure. This
214 enables tunables and selects the default frontend (currently
218 This option disables tunables.
221 This enables tunables and selects the 'valstring' frontend for
222 tunables. This frontend allows users to specify tunables as a
223 colon-separated list in a single environment variable
226 '--enable-obsolete-nsl'
227 By default, libnsl is only built as shared library for backward
228 compatibility and the NSS modules libnss_compat, libnss_nis and
229 libnss_nisplus are not built at all. Use this option to enable
230 libnsl with all depending NSS modules and header files. For
231 architectures and ABIs that have been added after version 2.28 of
232 the GNU C Library this option is not available, and the libnsl
233 compatibility library is not built.
236 Do not install the passphrase-hashing library 'libcrypt' or the
237 header file 'crypt.h'. 'unistd.h' will still declare the function
238 'crypt'. Using this option does not change the set of programs
239 that may need to be linked with '-lcrypt'; it only means that the
240 GNU C Library will not provide that library.
242 This option is for hackers and distributions experimenting with
243 independently-maintained implementations of libcrypt. It may
244 become the default in a future release.
246 '--disable-experimental-malloc'
247 By default, a per-thread cache is enabled in 'malloc'. While this
248 cache can be disabled on a per-application basis using tunables
249 (set glibc.malloc.tcache_count to zero), this option can be used to
250 remove it from the build completely.
252 '--build=BUILD-SYSTEM'
254 These options are for cross-compiling. If you specify both options
255 and BUILD-SYSTEM is different from HOST-SYSTEM, 'configure' will
256 prepare to cross-compile the GNU C Library from BUILD-SYSTEM to be
257 used on HOST-SYSTEM. You'll probably need the '--with-headers'
258 option too, and you may have to override CONFIGURE's selection of
259 the compiler and/or binutils.
261 If you only specify '--host', 'configure' will prepare for a native
262 compile but use what you specify instead of guessing what your
263 system is. This is most useful to change the CPU submodel. For
264 example, if 'configure' guesses your machine as 'i686-pc-linux-gnu'
265 but you want to compile a library for 586es, give
266 '--host=i586-pc-linux-gnu' or just '--host=i586-linux' and add the
267 appropriate compiler flags ('-mcpu=i586' will do the trick) to
270 If you specify just '--build', 'configure' will get confused.
272 '--with-pkgversion=VERSION'
273 Specify a description, possibly including a build number or build
274 date, of the binaries being built, to be included in '--version'
275 output from programs installed with the GNU C Library. For
276 example, '--with-pkgversion='FooBar GNU/Linux glibc build 123''.
277 The default value is 'GNU libc'.
280 Specify the URL that users should visit if they wish to report a
281 bug, to be included in '--help' output from programs installed with
282 the GNU C Library. The default value refers to the main
283 bug-reporting information for the GNU C Library.
285 To build the library and related programs, type 'make'. This will
286 produce a lot of output, some of which may look like errors from 'make'
287 but aren't. Look for error messages from 'make' containing '***'.
288 Those indicate that something is seriously wrong.
290 The compilation process can take a long time, depending on the
291 configuration and the speed of your machine. Some complex modules may
292 take a very long time to compile, as much as several minutes on slower
293 machines. Do not panic if the compiler appears to hang.
295 If you want to run a parallel make, simply pass the '-j' option with
296 an appropriate numeric parameter to 'make'. You need a recent GNU
297 'make' version, though.
299 To build and run test programs which exercise some of the library
300 facilities, type 'make check'. If it does not complete successfully, do
301 not use the built library, and report a bug after verifying that the
302 problem is not already known. *Note Reporting Bugs::, for instructions
303 on reporting bugs. Note that some of the tests assume they are not
304 being run by 'root'. We recommend you compile and test the GNU C
305 Library as an unprivileged user.
307 Before reporting bugs make sure there is no problem with your system.
308 The tests (and later installation) use some pre-existing files of the
309 system such as '/etc/passwd', '/etc/nsswitch.conf' and others. These
310 files must all contain correct and sensible content.
312 Normally, 'make check' will run all the tests before reporting all
313 problems found and exiting with error status if any problems occurred.
314 You can specify 'stop-on-test-failure=y' when running 'make check' to
315 make the test run stop and exit with an error status immediately when a
318 To format the 'GNU C Library Reference Manual' for printing, type
319 'make dvi'. You need a working TeX installation to do this. The
320 distribution builds the on-line formatted version of the manual, as Info
321 files, as part of the build process. You can build them manually with
324 The library has a number of special-purpose configuration parameters
325 which you can find in 'Makeconfig'. These can be overwritten with the
326 file 'configparms'. To change them, create a 'configparms' in your
327 build directory and add values as appropriate for your system. The file
328 is included and parsed by 'make' and has to follow the conventions for
331 It is easy to configure the GNU C Library for cross-compilation by
332 setting a few variables in 'configparms'. Set 'CC' to the
333 cross-compiler for the target you configured the library for; it is
334 important to use this same 'CC' value when running 'configure', like
335 this: 'configure TARGET CC=TARGET-gcc'. Set 'BUILD_CC' to the compiler
336 to use for programs run on the build system as part of compiling the
337 library. You may need to set 'AR' to cross-compiling versions of 'ar'
338 if the native tools are not configured to work with object files for the
339 target you configured for. When cross-compiling the GNU C Library, it
340 may be tested using 'make check
341 test-wrapper="SRCDIR/scripts/cross-test-ssh.sh HOSTNAME"', where SRCDIR
342 is the absolute directory name for the main source directory and
343 HOSTNAME is the host name of a system that can run the newly built
344 binaries of the GNU C Library. The source and build directories must be
345 visible at the same locations on both the build system and HOSTNAME.
347 In general, when testing the GNU C Library, 'test-wrapper' may be set
348 to the name and arguments of any program to run newly built binaries.
349 This program must preserve the arguments to the binary being run, its
350 working directory and the standard input, output and error file
351 descriptors. If 'TEST-WRAPPER env' will not work to run a program with
352 environment variables set, then 'test-wrapper-env' must be set to a
353 program that runs a newly built program with environment variable
354 assignments in effect, those assignments being specified as 'VAR=VALUE'
355 before the name of the program to be run. If multiple assignments to
356 the same variable are specified, the last assignment specified must take
357 precedence. Similarly, if 'TEST-WRAPPER env -i' will not work to run a
358 program with an environment completely empty of variables except those
359 directly assigned, then 'test-wrapper-env-only' must be set; its use has
360 the same syntax as 'test-wrapper-env', the only difference in its
361 semantics being starting with an empty set of environment variables
362 rather than the ambient set.
364 Installing the C Library
365 ========================
367 To install the library and its header files, and the Info files of the
368 manual, type 'make install'. This will build things, if necessary,
369 before installing them; however, you should still compile everything
370 first. If you are installing the GNU C Library as your primary C
371 library, we recommend that you shut the system down to single-user mode
372 first, and reboot afterward. This minimizes the risk of breaking things
373 when the library changes out from underneath.
375 'make install' will do the entire job of upgrading from a previous
376 installation of the GNU C Library version 2.x. There may sometimes be
377 headers left behind from the previous installation, but those are
378 generally harmless. If you want to avoid leaving headers behind you can
379 do things in the following order.
381 You must first build the library ('make'), optionally check it ('make
382 check'), switch the include directories and then install ('make
383 install'). The steps must be done in this order. Not moving the
384 directory before install will result in an unusable mixture of header
385 files from both libraries, but configuring, building, and checking the
386 library requires the ability to compile and run programs against the old
387 library. The new '/usr/include', after switching the include
388 directories and before installing the library should contain the Linux
389 headers, but nothing else. If you do this, you will need to restore any
390 headers from libraries other than the GNU C Library yourself after
391 installing the library.
393 You can install the GNU C Library somewhere other than where you
394 configured it to go by setting the 'DESTDIR' GNU standard make variable
395 on the command line for 'make install'. The value of this variable is
396 prepended to all the paths for installation. This is useful when
397 setting up a chroot environment or preparing a binary distribution. The
398 directory should be specified with an absolute file name. Installing
399 with the 'prefix' and 'exec_prefix' GNU standard make variables set is
402 The GNU C Library includes a daemon called 'nscd', which you may or
403 may not want to run. 'nscd' caches name service lookups; it can
404 dramatically improve performance with NIS+, and may help with DNS as
407 One auxiliary program, '/usr/libexec/pt_chown', is installed setuid
408 'root' if the '--enable-pt_chown' configuration option is used. This
409 program is invoked by the 'grantpt' function; it sets the permissions on
410 a pseudoterminal so it can be used by the calling process. If you are
411 using a Linux kernel with the 'devpts' filesystem enabled and mounted at
412 '/dev/pts', you don't need this program.
414 After installation you should configure the timezone and install
415 locales for your system. The time zone configuration ensures that your
416 system time matches the time for your current timezone. The locales
417 ensure that the display of information on your system matches the
418 expectations of your language and geographic region.
420 The GNU C Library is able to use two kinds of localization
421 information sources, the first is a locale database named
422 'locale-archive' which is generally installed as
423 '/usr/lib/locale/locale-archive'. The locale archive has the benefit of
424 taking up less space and being very fast to load, but only if you plan
425 to install sixty or more locales. If you plan to install one or two
426 locales you can instead install individual locales into their self-named
427 directories e.g. '/usr/lib/locale/en_US.utf8'. For example to install
428 the German locale using the character set for UTF-8 with name 'de_DE'
429 into the locale archive issue the command 'localedef -i de_DE -f UTF-8
430 de_DE', and to install just the one locale issue the command 'localedef
431 --no-archive -i de_DE -f UTF-8 de_DE'. To configure all locales that
432 are supported by the GNU C Library, you can issue from your build
433 directory the command 'make localedata/install-locales' to install all
434 locales into the locale archive or 'make
435 localedata/install-locale-files' to install all locales as files in the
436 default configured locale installation directory (derived from
437 '--prefix' or '--localedir'). To install into an alternative system
438 root use 'DESTDIR' e.g. 'make localedata/install-locale-files
439 DESTDIR=/opt/glibc', but note that this does not change the configured
442 To configure the locally used timezone, set the 'TZ' environment
443 variable. The script 'tzselect' helps you to select the right value.
444 As an example, for Germany, 'tzselect' would tell you to use
445 'TZ='Europe/Berlin''. For a system wide installation (the given paths
446 are for an installation with '--prefix=/usr'), link the timezone file
447 which is in '/usr/share/zoneinfo' to the file '/etc/localtime'. For
448 Germany, you might execute 'ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Berlin
451 Recommended Tools for Compilation
452 =================================
454 We recommend installing the following GNU tools before attempting to
455 build the GNU C Library:
457 * GNU 'make' 4.0 or newer
459 As of relase time, GNU 'make' 4.2.1 is the newest verified to work
460 to build the GNU C Library.
464 GCC 6.2 or higher is required. In general it is recommended to use
465 the newest version of the compiler that is known to work for
466 building the GNU C Library, as newer compilers usually produce
467 better code. As of release time, GCC 9.1.1 is the newest compiler
468 verified to work to build the GNU C Library.
470 For multi-arch support it is recommended to use a GCC which has
471 been built with support for GNU indirect functions. This ensures
472 that correct debugging information is generated for functions
473 selected by IFUNC resolvers. This support can either be enabled by
474 configuring GCC with '--enable-gnu-indirect-function', or by
475 enabling it by default by setting 'default_gnu_indirect_function'
476 variable for a particular architecture in the GCC source file
479 You can use whatever compiler you like to compile programs that use
482 Check the FAQ for any special compiler issues on particular
485 * GNU 'binutils' 2.25 or later
487 You must use GNU 'binutils' (as and ld) to build the GNU C Library.
488 No other assembler or linker has the necessary functionality at the
489 moment. As of release time, GNU 'binutils' 2.31.1 is the newest
490 verified to work to build the GNU C Library.
492 * GNU 'texinfo' 4.7 or later
494 To correctly translate and install the Texinfo documentation you
495 need this version of the 'texinfo' package. Earlier versions do
496 not understand all the tags used in the document, and the
497 installation mechanism for the info files is not present or works
498 differently. As of release time, 'texinfo' 6.6 is the newest
499 verified to work to build the GNU C Library.
501 * GNU 'awk' 3.1.2, or higher
503 'awk' is used in several places to generate files. Some 'gawk'
504 extensions are used, including the 'asorti' function, which was
505 introduced in version 3.1.2 of 'gawk'. As of release time, 'gawk'
506 version 4.2.1 is the newest verified to work to build the GNU C
509 * GNU 'bison' 2.7 or later
511 'bison' is used to generate the 'yacc' parser code in the 'intl'
512 subdirectory. As of release time, 'bison' version 3.0.5 is the
513 newest verified to work to build the GNU C Library.
517 Perl is not required, but if present it is used in some tests and
518 the 'mtrace' program, to build the GNU C Library manual. As of
519 release time 'perl' version 5.28.2 is the newest verified to work
520 to build the GNU C Library.
522 * GNU 'sed' 3.02 or newer
524 'Sed' is used in several places to generate files. Most scripts
525 work with any version of 'sed'. As of release time, 'sed' version
526 4.5 is the newest verified to work to build the GNU C Library.
528 * Python 3.4 or later
530 Python is required to build the GNU C Library. As of release time,
531 Python 3.7.4 is the newest verified to work for building and
532 testing the GNU C Library.
536 The pretty printer tests drive GDB through test programs and
537 compare its output to the printers'. PExpect is used to capture
538 the output of GDB, and should be compatible with the Python version
539 in your system. As of release time PExpect 4.3 is the newest
540 verified to work to test the pretty printers.
542 * GDB 7.8 or later with support for Python 2.7/3.4 or later
544 GDB itself needs to be configured with Python support in order to
545 use the pretty printers. Notice that your system having Python
546 available doesn't imply that GDB supports it, nor that your
547 system's Python and GDB's have the same version. As of release
548 time GNU 'debugger' 8.3 is the newest verified to work to test the
551 Unless Python, PExpect and GDB with Python support are present, the
552 printer tests will report themselves as 'UNSUPPORTED'. Notice that
553 some of the printer tests require the GNU C Library to be compiled
554 with debugging symbols.
556 If you change any of the 'configure.ac' files you will also need
558 * GNU 'autoconf' 2.69 (exactly)
560 and if you change any of the message translation files you will need
562 * GNU 'gettext' 0.10.36 or later
564 As of release time, GNU 'gettext' version 0.19.8.1 is the newest
565 version verified to work to build the GNU C Library.
567 You may also need these packages if you upgrade your source tree using
568 patches, although we try to avoid this.
570 Specific advice for GNU/Linux systems
571 =====================================
573 If you are installing the GNU C Library on GNU/Linux systems, you need
574 to have the header files from a 3.2 or newer kernel around for
575 reference. (For the ia64 architecture, you need version 3.2.18 or newer
576 because this is the first version with support for the 'accept4' system
577 call.) These headers must be installed using 'make headers_install';
578 the headers present in the kernel source directory are not suitable for
579 direct use by the GNU C Library. You do not need to use that kernel,
580 just have its headers installed where the GNU C Library can access them,
581 referred to here as INSTALL-DIRECTORY. The easiest way to do this is to
582 unpack it in a directory such as '/usr/src/linux-VERSION'. In that
583 directory, run 'make headers_install
584 INSTALL_HDR_PATH=INSTALL-DIRECTORY'. Finally, configure the GNU C
585 Library with the option '--with-headers=INSTALL-DIRECTORY/include'. Use
586 the most recent kernel you can get your hands on. (If you are
587 cross-compiling the GNU C Library, you need to specify
588 'ARCH=ARCHITECTURE' in the 'make headers_install' command, where
589 ARCHITECTURE is the architecture name used by the Linux kernel, such as
592 After installing the GNU C Library, you may need to remove or rename
593 directories such as '/usr/include/linux' and '/usr/include/asm', and
594 replace them with copies of directories such as 'linux' and 'asm' from
595 'INSTALL-DIRECTORY/include'. All directories present in
596 'INSTALL-DIRECTORY/include' should be copied, except that the GNU C
597 Library provides its own version of '/usr/include/scsi'; the files
598 provided by the kernel should be copied without replacing those provided
599 by the GNU C Library. The 'linux', 'asm' and 'asm-generic' directories
600 are required to compile programs using the GNU C Library; the other
601 directories describe interfaces to the kernel but are not required if
602 not compiling programs using those interfaces. You do not need to copy
603 kernel headers if you did not specify an alternate kernel header source
604 using '--with-headers'.
606 The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard for GNU/Linux systems expects some
607 components of the GNU C Library installation to be in '/lib' and some in
608 '/usr/lib'. This is handled automatically if you configure the GNU C
609 Library with '--prefix=/usr'. If you set some other prefix or allow it
610 to default to '/usr/local', then all the components are installed there.
615 There are probably bugs in the GNU C Library. There are certainly
616 errors and omissions in this manual. If you report them, they will get
617 fixed. If you don't, no one will ever know about them and they will
618 remain unfixed for all eternity, if not longer.
620 It is a good idea to verify that the problem has not already been
621 reported. Bugs are documented in two places: The file 'BUGS' describes
622 a number of well known bugs and the central GNU C Library bug tracking
623 system has a WWW interface at <https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/>. The
624 WWW interface gives you access to open and closed reports. A closed
625 report normally includes a patch or a hint on solving the problem.
627 To report a bug, first you must find it. With any luck, this will be
628 the hard part. Once you've found a bug, make sure it's really a bug. A
629 good way to do this is to see if the GNU C Library behaves the same way
630 some other C library does. If so, probably you are wrong and the
631 libraries are right (but not necessarily). If not, one of the libraries
632 is probably wrong. It might not be the GNU C Library. Many historical
633 Unix C libraries permit things that we don't, such as closing a file
636 If you think you have found some way in which the GNU C Library does
637 not conform to the ISO and POSIX standards (*note Standards and
638 Portability::), that is definitely a bug. Report it!
640 Once you're sure you've found a bug, try to narrow it down to the
641 smallest test case that reproduces the problem. In the case of a C
642 library, you really only need to narrow it down to one library function
643 call, if possible. This should not be too difficult.
645 The final step when you have a simple test case is to report the bug.
646 Do this at <https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/bugs.html>.
648 If you are not sure how a function should behave, and this manual
649 doesn't tell you, that's a bug in the manual. Report that too! If the
650 function's behavior disagrees with the manual, then either the library
651 or the manual has a bug, so report the disagreement. If you find any
652 errors or omissions in this manual, please report them to the bug
653 database. If you refer to specific sections of the manual, please
654 include the section names for easier identification.