Message-ID: <6e887475-e0b3-4caf-bd50-3460cdf4bc6e@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2026 22:49:09 +0000
MIME-Version: 1.0
User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird
Subject: Re: Linker not finding library
To: Stefano Cossu <stefano@cossu.cc>, ~alpine/users@lists.alpinelinux.org
References: <6ee42c20-2936-4655-ba61-608902f5e837@cossu.cc>
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From: Naomi Rennie-Waldock <naomi.renniewaldock@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <6ee42c20-2936-4655-ba61-608902f5e837@cossu.cc>
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On 06/02/2026 21:34, Stefano Cossu wrote:
> Hello there,
> I am running into a basic linker problem in Alpine, where the linker 
> cannot find libraries outside of /usr/lib.
>
> Running in a basic docker container:
>
>
> $ docker run -it alpine:latest sh
> / # apk add lua5.4-dev lua5.4-linotify
> (1/8) Installing lua5.4-libs (5.4.8-r0)
> (2/8) Installing ncurses-terminfo-base (6.5_p20251123-r0)
> (3/8) Installing libncursesw (6.5_p20251123-r0)
> (4/8) Installing readline (8.3.1-r0)
> (5/8) Installing lua5.4 (5.4.8-r0)
> (6/8) Installing pkgconf (2.5.1-r0)
> (7/8) Installing lua5.4-dev (5.4.8-r0)
> (8/8) Installing lua5.4-linotify (0.5-r2)
> Executing busybox-1.37.0-r30.trigger
> OK: 10.8 MiB in 24 packages
> / # export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib:/usr/lib
> / # ldd /usr/lib/lua/5.4/inotify.so
>     /lib/ld-musl-x86_64.so.1 (0x7ee2fa7d2000)
>     libc.musl-x86_64.so.1 => /lib/ld-musl-x86_64.so.1 (0x7ee2fa7d2000)
> Error relocating /usr/lib/lua/5.4/inotify.so: lua_touserdata: symbol 
> not found
> Error relocating /usr/lib/lua/5.4/inotify.so: lua_getfield: symbol not 
> found
>
>
> All the above symbols are in /usr/lib/liblua-5.4.so.0, e.g.
>
> / # readelf -s /usr/lib/liblua-5.4.so.0 | grep lua_touserdata
>    238: 0000000000005a70    13 FUNC    GLOBAL DEFAULT    9 lua_touserdata
>
> but even if I add /usr/lib to LD_LIBRARY_PATH, the symbols are not found.
>
> This is not specific to Lua or to the linotify library, I tried with 
> other non-system libraries as well.
>
> Is there something else that I need set up?
>
> Thanks,
> Stefano


Can you give a non-lua example? For lua, this is expected due to musl 
intentionally not supporting lazy binding[1]


A quick test of something non-lua works as expected:

~ # ldd hello
         /lib/ld-musl-x86_64.so.1 (0x7fad2a4f1000)
Error loading shared library libhello.so: No such file or directory 
(needed by hello)
         libc.musl-x86_64.so.1 => /lib/ld-musl-x86_64.so.1 (0x7fad2a4f1000)
Error relocating hello: hello: symbol not found
~ # LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. ldd hello
         /lib/ld-musl-x86_64.so.1 (0x7fa8a7ad3000)
         libhello.so => ./libhello.so (0x7fa8a7ac1000)
         libc.musl-x86_64.so.1 => /lib/ld-musl-x86_64.so.1 (0x7fa8a7ad3000)
~ # LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. ./hello
Hello world


[1] https://wiki.musl-libc.org/functional-differences-from-glibc.html#Lazy-bindings