SuSE Linux 15 SP2 update to SP3 && symbol XCRYPT_2.0 in libcrypt.so.1.1.0

Question

Background: We produce a big Library Management System, the server parts written in C, compiled on Linux SLES 15 and deployed to ~100 customers. The version in question was compiled on SLES 15 SP2 a year ago, and our Internal IT Department updated meanwhile the Dev and QA hosts to SP3.

It turned out, that the libcrypt.so moved with this update from SP2 to SP3 to a new location, from /lib64 to /usr/lib64 and contains a new symbol:

strings /usr/lib64/libcrypt.so.1.1.0  | grep XCRYPT_2.0
XCRYPT_2.0

# rpm -q -f /usr/lib64/libcrypt.so.1
libcrypt1-4.4.15-150300.4.2.41.x86_64
# zypper info libcrypt1
Information for package libcrypt1:
----------------------------------
Repository     : SLE-Module-Basesystem15-SP3-Updates
Name           : libcrypt1
Version        : 4.4.15-150300.4.2.41
Arch           : x86_64

If you now compile a server application on SP3 and ship this to customers (as a fix for an urgent bug) who is still using SP2, these application are missing this symbol and do not start anymore:

/opt/lib/sisis/avserver/batch/bin/prg/BASTVL: /lib64/libcrypt.so.1: version `XCRYPT_2.0' not found (required by /opt/lib/sisis/avserver/batch/bin/prg/BASTVL)

# strings /lib64/libcrypt.so.1 | grep XCR
# strings /usr/lib64/libcrypt.so.1 | grep XCR
strings: '/usr/lib64/libcrypt.so.1': No such file
# rpm -q -f /lib64/libcrypt.so.1
glibc-2.26-13.48.1.x86_64
# rpm -q -f /usr/lib64/libcrypt.so.1
error: file /usr/lib64/libcrypt.so.1: No such file or directory

i.e. our internal update from SP2 to SP3, make it impossible to deliver fixes to customers running SP2, or they need update as well to SP3 before installing fixes, at least if libcrypt.so is involved.

Any comments or hints for a workaround?

Answer 1

At the end I compiled from source with

git clone https://github.com/besser82/libxcrypt.git
cd libxcrypt
./autogen.sh
./configure --prefix /usr/local/sisis-pap/libxcrypt
make
sudo make install
ls -l /usr/local/sisis-pap/libxcrypt/lib64
insgesamt 1300
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 635620 26. Jul 14:09 libcrypt.a
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    945 26. Jul 14:09 libcrypt.la
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     17 26. Jul 14:09 libcrypt.so -> libcrypt.so.1.1.0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     17 26. Jul 14:09 libcrypt.so.1 -> libcrypt.so.1.1.0
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 681656 26. Jul 14:09 libcrypt.so.1.1.0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     10 26. Jul 14:09 libowcrypt.a -> libcrypt.a
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     11 26. Jul 14:09 libowcrypt.so -> libcrypt.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     13 26. Jul 14:09 libowcrypt.so.1 -> libcrypt.so.1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     10 26. Jul 14:09 libxcrypt.a -> libcrypt.a
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     11 26. Jul 14:09 libxcrypt.so -> libcrypt.so

and pointed our application via LD_LIBRARY_PATH to use this version of libcrypt.so.1.