How to produce static executable on NixOS? - gcc

Question

Today I met a really interesting problem with my NixOS distro. I just wanted to create a statically compiled OCaml progam and couldn`t do that. Then I tried to do that with an ANSI C canonical toy "hello world!" application:
$> cat mytest.c
#include <stdio.h>
int
main ()
{
puts ("hello world!") ;
}
My distro:
$> uname -a
Linux cat 4.19.36 #1-NixOS SMP Sat Apr 20 07:16:05 UTC 2019 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Compiler:
$> gcc -v
Using built-in specs.
COLLECT_GCC=/nix/store/myq0x6mjbdzxr9fckqn6kgy89kz19nkp-gfortran-7.4.0/bin/gcc
COLLECT_LTO_WRAPPER=/nix/store/myq0x6mjbdzxr9fckqn6kgy89kz19nkp-gfortran-7.4.0/libexec/gcc/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/7.4.0/lto-wrapper
Target: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
Configured with:
Thread model: posix
gcc version 7.4.0 (GCC)
Cannot produce static exec :
$> gcc -static mytest.c -o hello
/nix/store/0y7jmqnj48ikjh37n3dl9kqw9hnn68nq-binutils-2.31.1/bin/ld: cannot find -lc
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
Any ideas?
Usually a "dynamically linked" program hello is generated by gccwithout a problem.
No such issues on Lubuntu. I was advised to try a different distro and test that exec is running on NixOS. I did it - produced an exec with gcc on Lubuntu and started it on NixOS. Therefore I think that the problem is not with gcc but with NixOS.
How does NixOS treat this problem (i.e., generation of statically compiled exec files)?
And, of course, I'm also interested in the results concerning ocamlopt compiler rather then gcc but I think that the problem is common for all compilers (I tried Haskell ghc too by the way with the same results).
brgs
UPDATE: from a discussion on another thread:
1 #Ston17 You may have the .so but not the .a – norok2
2
3 yes - i have .so what the difference? can the presence of .a improve the situation? – Ston17
4
5 Yes. You typically need .a library to have the static linking work correctly – norok2
$> find /nix/store/ -name *libc.a.*
$>
can this be the reason?
UPDATE2: as concerning ocamlopt:
source file
$> cat mytest.ml
print_string "hello world!" ;;
print_newline () ;;
as you can see no special calls to anything. let try to make static exec:
$> ocamlopt -ccopt -static mytest.ml -o ocaml_test
/nix/store/0y7jmqnj48ikjh37n3dl9kqw9hnn68nq-binutils-2.31.1/bin/ld: cannot find -lm
/nix/store/0y7jmqnj48ikjh37n3dl9kqw9hnn68nq-binutils-2.31.1/bin/ld: cannot find -ldl
/nix/store/0y7jmqnj48ikjh37n3dl9kqw9hnn68nq-binutils-2.31.1/bin/ld: cannot find -lc
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
so ld just cannot link to static version of libc. and i cannot find libc.a in the hole system
any suggetions?

Answer 1

here https://vaibhavsagar.com/blog/2018/01/03/static-haskell-nix/ is explained how you could obtain in NixOS statical versions of sys libraries
nix-shell config file:
let
pkgs = import <nixpkgs> {} ;
in pkgs.buildFHSUserEnv {
name = "fhs" ;
targetPkgs = pkgs: with pkgs; [
pkgs.glibc.static
pkgs.zlib.static
pkgs.libffi
pkgs.libtool
pkgs.musl
pkgs.ghc
pkgs.gcc
pkgs.ocaml
] ;
}
after that in nix-shell you start chroot FHS and copy needed sys libs into your folder and close chroot FHS
and after that compile your file staticaly
good with gcc:
$> gcc -static -L/home/.local/lib/ mytest.c -o ansiC_test
$> ldd ansiC_test
not a dynamic executable
not so good but maybe working with ocaml:
ocamlopt -ccopt -static -cclib -L/home/.local/lib mytest.ml -o ocaml_test
ocamlopt -ccopt -static -cclib -L/home/nomad/.local/lib mytest.ml -o ocaml_test
/nix/store/0y7jmqnj48ikjh37n3dl9kqw9hnn68nq-binutils-2.31.1/bin/ld: /nix/store/j1v6kkxq081q4m4fw7gazaf6rb3vy87p-ocaml-4.06.1/lib/ocaml/libasmrun.a(unix.o): in function `caml_dlopen':
/build/ocaml-4.06.1/asmrun/unix.c:273: warning: Using 'dlopen' in statically linked applications requires at runtime the shared libraries from the glibc version used for linking
$> ldd ocaml_test
not a dynamic executable
dont work with ghc though :
ghc -static -optl-static -L/home/.local/lib/ mytest.hs -o haskell_test
[1 of 1] Compiling Main ( mytest.hs, mytest.o )
Linking haskell_test ...
/nix/store/0y7jmqnj48ikjh37n3dl9kqw9hnn68nq-binutils-2.31.1/bin/ld: /nix/store/wfgrz42bpcl1r635dasfk7r236hm83az-ghc-8.6.4/lib/ghc-8.6.4/rts/libHSrts.a(Linker.o): in function `internal_dlopen':
Linker.c:(.text.internal_dlopen+0x7): warning: Using 'dlopen' in statically linked applications requires at runtime the shared libraries from the glibc version used for linking
/nix/store/0y7jmqnj48ikjh37n3dl9kqw9hnn68nq-binutils-2.31.1/bin/ld: cannot find -lffi
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
`cc' failed in phase `Linker'. (Exit code: 1)
make: *** [makefile:5: haskell] Error 1
ok. ocaml works:
lubuntu#lubuntu:~/Documents$ ./ocaml_hello_nix
hello world!
lubuntu#lubuntu:~/Documents$ readelf -l ocaml_hello_nix
Elf file type is EXEC (Executable file)
Entry point 0x4017a0
There are 9 program headers, starting at offset 64
Program Headers:
Type Offset VirtAddr PhysAddr
FileSiz MemSiz Flags Align
LOAD 0x0000000000000000 0x0000000000400000 0x0000000000400000
0x00000000000005d8 0x00000000000005d8 R 0x1000
LOAD 0x0000000000001000 0x0000000000401000 0x0000000000401000
0x0000000000107275 0x0000000000107275 R E 0x1000
LOAD 0x0000000000109000 0x0000000000509000 0x0000000000509000
0x00000000000db191 0x00000000000db191 R 0x1000
LOAD 0x00000000001e5140 0x00000000005e6140 0x00000000005e6140
0x0000000000008a18 0x000000000001dfe0 RW 0x1000
NOTE 0x0000000000000238 0x0000000000400238 0x0000000000400238
0x0000000000000020 0x0000000000000020 R 0x4
NOTE 0x0000000000000258 0x0000000000400258 0x0000000000400258
0x0000000000000020 0x0000000000000020 R 0x8
TLS 0x00000000001e5140 0x00000000005e6140 0x00000000005e6140
0x0000000000000020 0x0000000000000060 R 0x8
GNU_STACK 0x0000000000000000 0x0000000000000000 0x0000000000000000
0x0000000000000000 0x0000000000000000 RW 0x10
GNU_RELRO 0x00000000001e5140 0x00000000005e6140 0x00000000005e6140
0x0000000000002ec0 0x0000000000002ec0 R 0x1
Section to Segment mapping:
Segment Sections...
00 .note.ABI-tag .note.gnu.property .rela.plt
01 .init .plt .text __libc_freeres_fn __libc_thread_freeres_fn .fini
02 .rodata .eh_frame .gcc_except_table
03 .tdata .init_array .fini_array .data.rel.ro .got .got.plt .data __libc_subfreeres __libc_IO_vtables __libc_atexit __libc_thread_subfreeres .bss __libc_freeres_ptrs
04 .note.ABI-tag
05 .note.gnu.property
06 .tdata .tbss
07
08 .tdata .init_array .fini_array .data.rel.ro .got
haskell works. the reason was that binary NixOS packet was built without FFI support. i installed ghc from sources and all become fine:
lubuntu#lubuntu:~/Documents$ ./haskell_hello_nix
hello world!
lubuntu#lubuntu:~/Documents$ readelf -l haskell_hello_nix
Elf file type is EXEC (Executable file)
Entry point 0x405d40
There are 6 program headers, starting at offset 64
Program Headers:
Type Offset VirtAddr PhysAddr
FileSiz MemSiz Flags Align
LOAD 0x0000000000000000 0x0000000000400000 0x0000000000400000
0x0000000000188ba4 0x0000000000188ba4 R E 0x1000
LOAD 0x0000000000188ec0 0x0000000000589ec0 0x0000000000589ec0
0x00000000000104c0 0x000000000001ac98 RW 0x1000
NOTE 0x0000000000000190 0x0000000000400190 0x0000000000400190
0x0000000000000020 0x0000000000000020 R 0x4
GNU_STACK 0x0000000000000000 0x0000000000000000 0x0000000000000000
0x0000000000000000 0x0000000000000000 RW 0x10
TLS 0x0000000000188ec0 0x0000000000589ec0 0x0000000000589ec0
0x0000000000000070 0x00000000000000b8 R 0x8
GNU_RELRO 0x0000000000188ec0 0x0000000000589ec0 0x0000000000589ec0
0x0000000000003140 0x0000000000003140 RW 0x20
Section to Segment mapping:
Segment Sections...
00 .note.ABI-tag .rela.plt .init .plt .text __libc_thread_freeres_fn .fini .rodata .gcc_except_table .eh_frame
01 .tdata .data.rel.ro.local .fini_array .init_array .data.rel.ro .preinit_array .got .got.plt .data .tm_clone_table __libc_IO_vtables __libc_atexit __libc_thread_subfreeres .bss __libc_freeres_ptrs
02 .note.ABI-tag
03
04 .tdata .tbss
05 .tdata .data.rel.ro.local .fini_array .init_array .data.rel.ro .preinit_array .got
good. tnx to all who was concerned. you save my a$$