Shared libraries auto load when app starts up

[uonedang71]

Hi all,
I am using Linux OS ... my application XYZ uses shared libraries libA.so, and libB.so.

When application XYZ is started .... the libA.so and libB.so are loaded automatically (given that the env variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH is properly set) ...

If I want to validate the integrity of these libs before they are loaded, how am I going to do about that?

I understand that if I explicitly call dlopen in my C/C++ app, I can write wrappter to the dlopen to validate the libraries before calling the actual dlopen ...
But in the case of auto loading shared libraries at startup time, do I need to do anything with kernel for this purpose or how can I do this?

Thanks,

Dang

[Rubberman]

Not so easy with C. Not so hard w/ C++ where you can execute code in your initialization blocks before main() is called. Define in a header something like this:

// Inline function.
bool validate_libs()
{
    // Validate libraries here
    if (!valid_libs)
    {
        ::abort();
    }
    return true;
}

bool libs_are_valid = validate_libs();

This should be one of the first headers your application code sees so the validation gets priority in initialization.

[uonedang71]

Thanks,

Will the inline function be called before all dependent shared libraries loaded ?


I will give it a try ....

Thanks,
Dang

========================

I gave it a try .. and it did load the shared libraries before calling the inline functions ...
I need to validate the libraries before they are loaded to memory ... Is that correct
the loading of the shared libraries to memory handled by the Kernel ?

Thanks

Dang

[abarclay]

Why do you need to validate them?
If it's for some sort of security reason, then I would suggest you compile your binary staticly and avoid shared libraries all together.

[Rubberman]

Why do you need to validate them?
If it's for some sort of security reason, then I would suggest you compile your binary staticly and avoid shared libraries all together.

I would agree with this, to statically link your applications. After all, it is likely that the validation code requires something in the system shared libraries at least, so that they still have to be loaded first. I'm not sure, but there may be a way to delay loading of certain shared libraries until they are actually needed. I've not needed to do this myself, so I cannot say for sure it is possible.

[uonedang71]

Thanks folks,

I would probably compile these libraries statically ...

Thanks

Dang