LD_LIBRARY_PATH ; to set or not to set....

[Steven W. Orr]

On Wednesday, May 17th 2006 at 10:16 -0400, quoth James Pifer:

=>I'm wrote a small java app that I will run in a jsp. The vendor supplied
=>jars also come with shared libraries that are required. Their
=>documentation says to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH to the directory where you put
=>the libraries. 
=>
=>This works fine when running the app from a terminal environment after
=>setting LD_LIBRARY_PATH. The problem is that when I run the jsp it's run
=>from an application that runs as a service, so LD_LIBRARY_PATH is not
=>set in that environment. 
=>
=>In searching on this issue I found MANY people saying it's bad to set
=>LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
=>
=>I've tried running ldconfig -n and the directory but it hasn't seemed to
=>work. 
=>
=>So what is the proper way to do this? I want to set these libraries and
=>have them set after a system restart, etc. 

I just read all of the responces (so far) and none of them are explaining 
why you should not use LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

Yes it's true that if you set it properly then you will get the desrired 
effect. The point is that the ldconfig method is for setting the box up 
with systemwide settings. The envvar is primarily designed for a 
programs that need to be able to select a different library at invocation 
time. Also, be aware that the variable is not honored by the kernel if you 
are root.

-- 
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steveo at syslang.net