How to upgrade glibc from version 2.12 to 2.14 on CentOS?

Question

I do not know how to upgrade glibc from version 2.12 to 2.14 on CentOS 6.3. I need your help.

Solution 1

You cannot update glibc on Centos 6 safely. However you can install 2.14 alongside 2.12 easily, then use it to compile projects etc. Here is how:

mkdir ~/glibc_install; cd ~/glibc_install
wget http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/glibc/glibc-2.14.tar.gz
tar zxvf glibc-2.14.tar.gz
cd glibc-2.14
mkdir build
cd build
../configure --prefix=/opt/glibc-2.14
make -j4
sudo make install
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/glibc-2.14/lib

Solution 2

I found this source very useful and doesn't has much SEO. It lists the most common errors you might encounter while using @UnitasBrooks great answer and I'm afraid it gets lost in the future.

This is the link to the original post

I will copy, paste it here (I faced the last problem and it fixed it, however I didn't try all the problems/solutions listed and you try it on your own risk)

---

Glibc installation

The GNU C Library, commonly known as glibc, is the GNU Project's implementation of the C standard library. My environment required glibc (version 2.14) and it took a bit of fiddling to get it to work, so hopefully this will save you some time.

0.Glibc Installation Dependencies

Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib, readelf
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, cp, install, ln, mknod, mv, mkdir, rm, touch
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp, gcc
Grep: egrep, grep
Gzip: gzip
Make: make
Gawk: gawk
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: date, expr, hostname, pwd, uname
Texinfo: install-info, makeinfo
Textutils: cat, cut, sort, tr

1.Download installation package

http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/ for all versions.
http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/glibc/glibc-2.14.tar.gz for version 2.14.

2.Compile and install

To avoid disturb current environment, compile and install this version separately by configuring prefix.

[root@localhost ~]# tar xvf glibc-2.14.tar.gz
[root@localhost ~]# cd glibc-2.14
[root@localhost glibc-2.14]# mkdir build
[root@localhost glibc-2.14]# cd ./build
[root@localhost build]# ../configure --prefix=/opt/glibc-2.14
[root@localhost build]# make -j4
[root@localhost build]# make install
[root@localhost build]# export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/glibc-2.14/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

3.To check glibc versions installed

root@localhost:~/intel64/runtime/glibc$ strings libc.so.6 | grep GLIBC
GLIBC_2.2.5
GLIBC_2.2.6
GLIBC_2.3
GLIBC_2.3.2
GLIBC_2.3.3
GLIBC_2.3.4
GLIBC_PRIVATE

4.Compiling errors

Error:

make[1]: *** No rule to make target /mnt/lfs/sourcenew/glibc-build/Versions.all', needed by/mnt/lfs/sourcenew/glibc-build/abi-versions.h'. Stop.

Solution:

sudo apt-get install gawk
sudo apt-get install texinfo

Error:

make[2]: *** [/mnt/lfs/sources/glibc-build/misc/syslog.o] Error 1

Solution:

make clean
make -j2 CFLAGS="-U_FORTIFY_SOURCE -O2 -fno-stack-protector"

Error:

/Downloads/glibc-2.14/build/elf/ldconfig: Can't open configuration file /opt/glibc-2.14/etc/ld.so.conf: No such file or directory

Solution:

:/opt/glibc-2.14/etc$ sudo sh -c "echo '/usr/local/lib' >> ld.so.conf" 
:/opt/glibc-2.14/etc$ sudo sh -c "echo '/opt/lib' >> ld.so.conf"