Installing ghc-7.10.2 linux binary distro on SuSE

[Levent Erkok]

Hi Aycan.. Indeed I was able to use patchelf, so I don't need the
LD_PRELOAD trick anymore either. Thanks for the pointer..

As a side note: While I'm impressed with the level of trickery available to
inject/remove/change arbitrary functionality to binaries, I'm also
surprised to see how easy it would be to insert Trojan-horses on the fly
using these mechanisms as well. With "Trusted Haskell" brand, it almost
begs the question if GHC should do a "self-check" to make sure it's binary
hasn't been mocked up in this way. That would make my life harder of
course, but food for thought.

-Levent.

On Mon, Aug 31, 2015 at 2:44 AM, Aycan iRiCAN <iricanaycan at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm happy to see it worked. If you want to get rid of LD_PRELOAD, you may
> use patchelf to modify your binary to inject your fakelib. See 'add-needed'
> parameter here:
>
> https://github.com/NixOS/patchelf/blob/master/README
>
> On Mon, 31 Aug 2015 01:50 Levent Erkok <erkokl at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Thanks Aycan. The LD_PRELOAD solution did indeed work. I didn't know
>> about that facility before, so I'm pleasantly surprised.
>>
>> One gotcha though: I had to add the "fake-library" into the runtime as
>> well; with a command that looked like this:
>>
>>     ar q libHsrts_thr.a ghcFakeLib.o
>>
>> where the libHsrts_thr.a comes from the binary distro, and the
>> ghcFakeLib.o is the object file I got by defining those pthread_setname_np
>> and pthread_getname_np. (They do nothing but return 0.)
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> -Levent.
>>
>> On Sun, Aug 30, 2015 at 12:37 AM, Aycan İrican <iricanaycan at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Levent,
>>>
>>> For a quick fix, you may want to create a wrapper script which uses
>>> LD_PRELOAD to inject `set_threadname_np` to your runtime. An example is
>>> given in this blog page:
>>>
>>> http://hackerboss.com/overriding-system-functions-for-fun-and-profit/
>>>
>>> -aycan
>>>
>>>
>>> On 30 Aug 2015, at 03:02, Levent Erkok <erkokl at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I really like the idea of nix. Alas, generating native binaries that can
>>> run on SuSE without being in the nix environment is a requirement that's
>>> hard to let go. (Everyone in my group would have to start using nix, a tall
>>> order.)
>>>
>>> Thanks for the advice however, it can indeed come handy for one-off
>>> trials if needed. In the meantime, I'm still looking for a
>>> binary-linux-distro that doesn't require the set_threadname_np
>>> functionality, if anyone can point me in that direction.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> -Levent.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Aug 29, 2015 at 3:23 PM, Kosyrev Serge <
>>> _deepfire at feelingofgreen.ru> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Levent Erkok <erkokl at gmail.com> writes:
>>>> > Hello all,
>>>> >
>>>> > I've been having a lot of trouble installing the binary-distro's on a
>>>> > SuSE machine. Unfortunately, I don't have root privileges and thus my
>>>> > options are rather limited.
>>>> >
>>>> > The problem seem to boil down to the use of the function
>>>> > pthread_setname_np. It appears the problem was noted before, and Simon
>>>> > Marlow added a corresponding configure check for platforms that do not
>>>> > have this function. See here:
>>>> > https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/ghc-devs/2014-October/006707.html
>>>> >
>>>> > Alas, none of the binary distributions listed on
>>>> > https://www.haskell.org/ghc/download_ghc_7_10_2#binaries seem to be
>>>> > built against a system that does not have this function. So, I was
>>>> > unable to install 7.10.2 successfully.
>>>> >
>>>> > Essentially, I'm looking for a binary distro on SuSE, or with a libc
>>>> > that doesn't have the GNU extensions such as pthread_setname_np; if
>>>> > anyone would be kind enough to put out such a binary distro, that'd
>>>> > really be appreciated.
>>>> >
>>>> > (Yes, I tried building from the source; but in the corporate
>>>> > environment with so many things controlled, that did not go very far.)
>>>>
>>>> You could try the Nix route, which, conceptually, would boil down to:
>>>>
>>>> 1. Installing the Nix package manager into your $HOME on the SuSE system
>>>> 2. Use Nix to install GHC
>>>>
>>>> Which expands to:
>>>>
>>>> 1. Following the instructions at:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> https://nixos.org/wiki/How_to_install_nix_in_home_%28on_another_distribution%29#PRoot_Installation
>>>>
>>>> 2. Invoking:
>>>>
>>>>   nix-env -iA haskellPackages.ghc
>>>>
>>>> This would require only HTTP access, which, I presume, should be
>>>> available within the corporate environment.
>>>>
>>>> All the packages from Hackage can be had precompiled from Nixpkgs,
>>>> but that's slightly more involved and requires some reading:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> http://nixos.org/nixpkgs/manual/#users-guide-to-the-haskell-infrastructure
>>>>
>>>> Should you meet trouble, you can always seek help either at
>>>> nix-dev at lists.science.uu.nl, or on the #nixos/irc.freenode.net IRC
>>>> channel -- both have a vibrant nightlife^W Haskell community.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> с уважениeм / respectfully,
>>>> Косырев Серёга
>>>> --
>>>> “And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane
>>>>  by those who could not hear the music.”
>>>>  – Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> ghc-devs mailing list
>>> ghc-devs at haskell.org
>>> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
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