# What is /var/run/ld-elf.so.hints



## k.jacker (Apr 12, 2019)

While reworking my backup strategy, I wanted to run net/rsync (through ssh) in a stripped down chroot and had some trouble getting rsync to work.

I used the ldd(1) method, to equip the chroot with the required binaries and everything was in place. I also tried to step-by-step, strip the chroot down after extracting base.txz into it.
In the end, I figured out that rsync needs /var/run/ld-elf.so.hints to run, while it only complained about [FILE/usr/local/lib/libiconv.so.2][/FILE] was missing (ld-elf.so.hints wasn't listed by ldd).
The host, where rsync runs in chroot is FreeBSD 11.2-RELEASE-p9.

It works now, but if anyone could explain what that ld-elf.so.hints is, I'd be thankful. (even more if explained in a way, that a person with limited knowledge of C could understand )


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## T-Daemon (Apr 12, 2019)

```
The ld-elf.so.1 utility is    a self-contained shared    object providing run-
     time support for loading and link-editing shared objects into a process'address space. 
     It    is also  commonly known as the dynamic linker.
...
  5.    Hints file produced by the ldconfig(8) utility
```
More in ld-elf.so(1)

```
The ldconfig utility is used to prepare a set of ``hints''    for use    by the
     dynamic linker to facilitate quick    lookup of shared libraries available
     in    multiple directories.
```
More in ldconfig(8)


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## k.jacker (Apr 12, 2019)

That cleared it up a bit. Didn't really know what I should search for in the manpages. You picked the right pieces for me.


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