Library component | Content | Inclusion guidelines |
---|---|---|
ld | Dynamic linker.[2] | Compulsory. |
libBrokenLocale | Fixup routines to get applications with broken locale features to run. Overrides application defaults through preloading. (Need to use LD_PRELOAD). | Rarely used. |
libSegFault | Routines for catching segmentation faults and doing backtraces. | Rarely used. |
libanl | Asynchronous name lookup routines. | Rarely used. |
libc | Main C library routines. | Compulsory. |
libcrypt | Cryptography routines. | Required for most applications involved in authentication. |
libdl | Routines for loading shared objects dynamically. | Required for applications that use functions such as dlopen( ). |
libm | Math routines. | Required for math functions. |
libmemusage | Routines for heap and stack memory profiling. | Rarely used. |
libnsl | NIS network services library routines. | Rarely used. |
libnss_compat | Name Switch Service (NSS) compatibility routines for NIS. | Loaded automatically by the glibc NSS.[3] |
libnss_dns | NSS routines for DNS. | Loaded automatically by the glibc NSS. |
libnss_files | NSS routines for file lookups. | Loaded automatically by the glibc NSS. |
libnss_hesiod | NSS routines for Hesiod name service. | Loaded automatically by the glibc NSS. |
libnss_nis | NSS routines for NIS. | Loaded automatically by the glibc NSS. |
libnss_nisplus | NSS routines for NIS plus. | Loaded automatically by the glibc NSS. |
libpcprofile | Program counter profiling routines. | Rarely used. |
libpthread | Posix 1003.1c threads routines for Linux. | Required for threads programming. |
libresolv | Name resolver routines. | Required for name resolution. |
librt | Asynchronous I/O routines. | Rarely used. |
libthread_db | Thread debugging routines. | Loaded automatically by gdb when debugging threaded applications. Never actually linked to by any application. |
libutil | Login routines, part of user accounting database. | Required for terminal connection management. |
[2] This library component is actually not a library itself. Instead, ld.so is an executable invoked by the ELF binary format loader to load the dynamically linked libraries into an application's memory space