How to list library dependencies of a non-native binary?

77,909

Solution 1

is there any way to get a list of the dynamically linked dependency for of a foreign binary

You can list direct dependencies of a binary easily enough:

readelf -d a.out | grep NEEDED

 0x0000000000000001 (NEEDED)             Shared library: [librt.so.1]
 0x0000000000000001 (NEEDED)             Shared library: [libc.so.6]

I know of no way to recursively continue this to get the full list (as ldd does). You'll have to repeat the process for every NEEDED library by hand.

Solution 2

You can do bash -x ldd /bin/ls to understand what ldd is doing. The ldd script is not that "cryptic". It basically runs

LD_TRACE_LOADED_OBJECTS=1 /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 /bin/ls

so it uses the dynamic loader of the system (because the result of ldd depends upon your actual environment and system!). But you could examine with objdump -x /bin/ls the dynamic section of an executable, e.g.

% objdump -x /bin/ls
  /bin/ls:     file format elf64-x86-64
  /bin/ls
  architecture: i386:x86-64, flags 0x00000112:
  EXEC_P, HAS_SYMS, D_PAGED
  start address 0x00000000004046d4

  Program Header:
      PHDR off    0x0000000000000040 vaddr 0x0000000000400040 paddr 0x0000000000400040 align 2**3
           filesz 0x00000000000001c0 memsz 0x00000000000001c0 flags r-x
    INTERP off    0x0000000000000200 vaddr 0x0000000000400200 paddr 0x0000000000400200 align 2**0
           filesz 0x000000000000001c memsz 0x000000000000001c flags r--
      LOAD off    0x0000000000000000 vaddr 0x0000000000400000 paddr 0x0000000000400000 align 2**21
           filesz 0x0000000000019ef4 memsz 0x0000000000019ef4 flags r-x
      LOAD off    0x000000000001a000 vaddr 0x000000000061a000 paddr 0x000000000061a000 align 2**21
           filesz 0x000000000000077c memsz 0x0000000000001500 flags rw-
   DYNAMIC off    0x000000000001a028 vaddr 0x000000000061a028 paddr 0x000000000061a028 align 2**3
           filesz 0x00000000000001d0 memsz 0x00000000000001d0 flags rw-
      NOTE off    0x000000000000021c vaddr 0x000000000040021c paddr 0x000000000040021c align 2**2
           filesz 0x0000000000000044 memsz 0x0000000000000044 flags r--
  EH_FRAME off    0x0000000000017768 vaddr 0x0000000000417768 paddr 0x0000000000417768 align 2**2
           filesz 0x00000000000006fc memsz 0x00000000000006fc flags r--
     STACK off    0x0000000000000000 vaddr 0x0000000000000000 paddr 0x0000000000000000 align 2**3
           filesz 0x0000000000000000 memsz 0x0000000000000000 flags rw-

  Dynamic Section:
    NEEDED               libselinux.so.1
    NEEDED               librt.so.1
    NEEDED               libacl.so.1
    NEEDED               libc.so.6
    INIT                 0x0000000000402148
    FINI                 0x00000000004125f8
    HASH                 0x0000000000400260
    GNU_HASH             0x00000000004005c0
    STRTAB               0x0000000000401100
    SYMTAB               0x0000000000400620
    STRSZ                0x00000000000004d7
    SYMENT               0x0000000000000018
    DEBUG                0x0000000000000000
    PLTGOT               0x000000000061a208
    PLTRELSZ             0x0000000000000990
    PLTREL               0x0000000000000007
    JMPREL               0x00000000004017b8
    RELA                 0x0000000000401740
    RELASZ               0x0000000000000078
    RELAENT              0x0000000000000018
    VERNEED              0x00000000004016c0
    VERNEEDNUM           0x0000000000000003
    VERSYM               0x00000000004015d8

  Version References:
    required from librt.so.1:
      0x09691a75 0x00 05 GLIBC_2.2.5
    required from libacl.so.1:
      0x05822452 0x00 06 ACL_1.2
      0x05822450 0x00 04 ACL_1.0
    required from libc.so.6:
      0x09691a75 0x00 03 GLIBC_2.2.5
      0x0d696913 0x00 02 GLIBC_2.3

Again, the actual dependency depends upon the system where your binary is run (e.g. because I could have an LD_LIBRARY_PATH with my own libc.so.6 somewhere, which would be a bad idea).

So you need a cross variant of objdump

Solution 3

while in gdb, info shared is similar to ldd. It gives complete human readable runtime information of the executable.
readelf would miss path and other libraries information.
readelf is a very good tool for on the host study. Developer may choose that works.

Solution 4

this helped me

objdump -p /path/to/program | grep NEEDED 

Solution 5

Sorry to make a zombie thread, but I am working on some things for my OpenWRT router and wanted this to check some dependencies to see if I had enough space on my jffs2 partition to copy over just e2fsck. Short answer: nope.avi.

Anyhoo, I made a little script that uses the accepted answer plus some (probably overly verbose) grep calls and with a little hand waving and some unicorn tears (no worries, they were happy tears!) I managed to put together the following script that gives you all the dependencies. I'm sure there's lots of room for improvement especially RE: the loops and recursion, as well as the fact that it's all bashisms all the time (i.e. indexed arrays) but this is at least nominally working for me:

#!/bin/bash

declare -a search_path
declare -a found_deps

find_dependencies() {
    local file="$1"
    local -a deps
    local -a deps_to_process

    deps=( $( readelf -d "$file" | grep "NEEDED" | \
        grep -o -E "\[[^]]*\]" | grep -o -E "[^][]*" ) )

    local add_this_dep=true

    # always assume we've found $file and add it to the $found_deps list
    # if it's not there
    for found_dep in "${found_deps[@]}"
    do
        if [ "$found_dep" = "$(basename $file)" ]
        then
            add_this_dep=false
            break
        fi
    done

    # if $add_this_dep is true, go ahead and add to the found_deps list
    if $add_this_dep
    then
        found_deps+=("$(basename $file)")
    fi

    # for every dependency found by readelf (no path)
    for dep in "${deps[@]}"
    do
        local process_dep=true

        # if the basename of the file passed into the function is
        # this dep, skip processing altogether
        if [ "$dep" = "$(basename $file)" ]
        then
            break
        else
            # otherwise, if it's one of the 'found deps' don't process it
            for found_dep in "${found_deps[@]}"
            do
                if [ "$dep" = "$found_dep" ]
                then
                    process_dep=false
                    break
                fi
            done

            # it wasn't one of the 'found deps' so add 
            # it to the found_deps list
            if $process_dep
            then
                found_deps+=($dep)
            fi
        fi

        # if we are supposed to process this dep
        if $process_dep
        then
            local file_path=

            # check each search path for a file named $dep underneath it
            for dir in $search_path
            do
                file_path=$( find "$dir" -name "$dep" | head -n 1 )

                # if the $file_path is not empty, then we found
                # a copy of it, so break out of the loop
                if [ -n "$file_path" ]; then break; fi;
            done

            # if the $file_path is not empty, then we found a copy
            # of the file, place it the list of deps to be processed
            if [ -n "$file_path" ]
            then
                deps_to_process+=($file_path)
            fi
        fi
    done

    # now, go through all of our $deps_to_process (with path)
    # and run "find_dependencies" on them
    for dep_to_process in "${deps_to_process[@]}"
    do
        find_dependencies "$dep_to_process"
    done
}

argc=$#

if [ $argc -eq 0 ]
then
    printf '%s: prints dependencies of a (potentially) non-native elf executable, recursively\n'
    printf '\n'
    printf 'usage:\n'
    printf '\t%s <non-native elf executable> [ --supress-header ] [ <path> ... ]\n' "$(basename $0)"
    printf '\twhere\n'
    printf '\t\t<non-native elf executable> is the name of a file to find the dependencies of.\n'
    printf '\t\t[ <path> ... ] is an optional list of directories under which to search for libraries.\n'
    printf '\t\t[ --supress-header ] is an optional flag that prints nothing other than the list of files to stdout.\n'
    printf '\t\t\t(without the parameter a banner is sent to stderr)'
    printf '\n'
else
    file="$1"
    shift 1

    show_header=true

    if [ "$1" = "--supress-header" ]; then show_header=false; shift 1; fi;

    if $show_header
    then
        printf ' -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n' 1>&2
        printf '  ldd-nonnative: find all dependencies of a (potentially) non-native binary %s\n' "$file" 1>&2
        printf ' -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n' 1>&2
    fi

    search_path="$@"
    find_dependencies $file

    printf '\t%s\n' "${found_deps[@]}"
fi

# ❤ copyheart, shelleybutterfly, 2014
# love is never subject to the low; please copy and share with love :)

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# found at URL http://opensource.org. Should such a license be unavailable in
# your jurisdiection, you may use any copyleft open source license, again as
# defined by OSI; and if that too is unavailable, then you are licensed this
# software under the least restrictive possible terms allowed in your
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# I request but do not require that you give credit to me, shelleybutterfly,
# which I will accept in cases of licensing other than the public domain as
# valuable consideration for your use of my software. (I love to know that 
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# Should you not be willing to take this risk, it is highly recommended
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# the understanding that it will be used primarily as an educational tool
# rather than any sort of production code. I disclaim any responsibility for
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# [deep breath] 

# my love to you all; I hope this software was useful to you in some way; if
# you end up using it despite the dire warnings against doing so, feel free
# to drop me a note at [email protected], as I imagine it
# will be rare enough to make my day, every time. ♥

So, there ya go. Hope it helps someone. Egads it's taken me a long time to even get good enough with shell scripting to be able to pull something like this off, nevermind the fact that it took me much longer than it probably should have, so please forgive what has likely shaken some of you script gurus out there to the very core of your being. :)

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lvella
Author by

lvella

Programmer and free-software idealist.

Updated on July 08, 2022

Comments

  • lvella
    lvella almost 2 years

    When developing for native platform, I can use ldd to list all the shared libraries (.so files) a binary executable I build will try to load upon start-up. But when cross-compiling, I don't know how to get the same information. The ldd is not a normal binutils utility, like strip or ar, that can be built alongside gcc for cross compiling, but instead, it is a cryptic shell script that apparently can only run on native platform.

    So, using the cross-target binutils tools, is there any way to get a list of the dynamically linked dependency for of a foreign binary?

  • Employed Russian
    Employed Russian about 12 years
    Your explanation didn't explain which part of objdump OP needs to look at. Also, native readelf -d can read non-native ELF binary, so no need to build cross-readelf or cross-objdump (although they usually are built as part of crosstool anyway).
  • Exectron
    Exectron about 11 years
    That's a dead URL at the moment.
  • Shuman
    Shuman over 8 years
    readelf -d /home/oglop/Downloads/shadowsocks-libev_2.3.1_mipsel_OpenSSL‌​_dynamic/ss-local There is no dynamic section in this file. I knew it's dynamic though, why is that?
  • Employed Russian
    Employed Russian over 8 years
    @Shuman You are probably looking at a shell script. If not, you should ask a separate question.