PERLSOLARIS(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLSOLARIS(1)NAME
README.solaris - Perl version 5 on Solaris systems
DESCRIPTION
This document describes various features of Sun's Solaris
operating system that will affect how Perl version 5
(hereafter just perl) is compiled and/or runs. Some
issues relating to the older SunOS 4.x are also discussed,
though they may be out of date.
For the most part, everything should just work.
Starting with Solaris 8, perl5.00503 (or higher) is sup
plied with the operating system, so you might not even
need to build a newer version of perl at all. The Sun-
supplied version is installed in /usr/perl5 with
/usr/bin/perl pointing to /usr/perl5/bin/perl. Do not
disturb that installation unless you really know what you
are doing. If you remove the perl supplied with the OS,
there is a good chance you will render some bits of your
system inoperable. If you wish to install a newer version
of perl, install it under a different prefix from
/usr/perl5. Common prefixes to use are /usr/local and
/opt/perl.
You may wish to put your version of perl in the PATH of
all users by changing the link /usr/bin/perl. This is OK,
as all Perl scripts shipped with Solaris use
/usr/perl5/bin/perl.
Solaris Version Numbers.
For consistency with common usage, perl's Configure script
performs some minor manipulations on the operating system
name and version number as reported by uname. Here's a
partial translation table:
Sun: perl's Configure:
uname uname -r Name osname osvers
SunOS 4.1.3 Solaris 1.1 sunos 4.1.3
SunOS 5.6 Solaris 2.6 solaris 2.6
SunOS 5.8 Solaris 8 solaris 2.8
The complete table can be found in the Sun Managers' FAQ
ftp://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/jdd/sun-managers/faq under
"9.1) Which Sun models run which versions of SunOS?".
RESOURCES
There are many, many source for Solaris information. A
few of the important ones for perl:
Solaris FAQ
The Solaris FAQ is available at http://www.sci
ence.uva.nl/pub/solaris/solaris2.html.
The Sun Managers' FAQ is available at
ftp://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/jdd/sun-managers/faq
Precompiled Binaries
Precompiled binaries, links to many sites, and much,
much more is available at http://www.sunfreeware.com.
Solaris Documentation
All Solaris documentation is available on-line at
http://docs.sun.com.
SETTING UP
File Extraction Problems.
Be sure to use a tar program compiled under Solaris (not
SunOS 4.x) to extract the perl-5.x.x.tar.gz file. Do not
use GNU tar compiled for SunOS4 on Solaris. (GNU tar com
piled for Solaris should be fine.) When you run SunOS4
binaries on Solaris, the run-time system magically alters
pathnames matching m#lib/locale# so that when tar tries to
create lib/locale.pm, a file named lib/oldlocale.pm gets
created instead. If you found this advice it too late and
used a SunOS4-compiled tar anyway, you must find the
incorrectly renamed file and move it back to
lib/locale.pm.
Compiler and Related Tools.
You must use an ANSI C compiler to build perl. Perl can
be compiled with either Sun's add-on C compiler or with
gcc. The C compiler that shipped with SunOS4 will not do.
Include /usr/ccs/bin/ in your PATH.
Several tools needed to build perl are located in
/usr/ccs/bin/: ar, as, ld, and make. Make sure that
/usr/ccs/bin/ is in your PATH.
You need to make sure the following packages are installed
(this info is extracted from the Solaris FAQ):
for tools (sccs, lex, yacc, make, nm, truss, ld, as): SUN
Wbtool, SUNWsprot, SUNWtoo
for libraries & headers: SUNWhea, SUNWarc, SUNWlibm, SUN
Wlibms, SUNWdfbh, SUNWcg6h, SUNWxwinc, SUNWolinc
for 64 bit development: SUNWarcx, SUNWbtoox, SUNWdplx,
SUNWscpux, SUNWsprox, SUNWtoox, SUNWlmsx, SUNWlmx, SUN
WlibCx
If you are in doubt which package contains a file you are
missing, try to find an installation that has that file.
Then do a
grep /my/missing/file /var/sadm/install/contents
This will display a line like this:
/usr/include/sys/errno.h f none 0644 root bin 7471 37605
956241356 SUNWhea
The last item listed (SUNWhea in this example) is the
package you need.
Avoid /usr/ucb/cc.
You don't need to have /usr/ucb/ in your PATH to build
perl. If you want /usr/ucb/ in your PATH anyway, make
sure that /usr/ucb/ is NOT in your PATH before the direc
tory containing the right C compiler.
Sun's C Compiler
If you use Sun's C compiler, make sure the correct direc
tory (usually /opt/SUNWspro/bin/) is in your PATH (before
/usr/ucb/).
GCC
If you use gcc, make sure your installation is recent and
complete. As a point of reference, perl-5.6.0 built fine
with gcc-2.8.1 on both Solaris 2.6 and Solaris 8. You'll
be able to Configure perl with
sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
If you have updated your Solaris version, you may also
have to update your GCC. For example, if you are running
Solaris 2.6 and your gcc is installed under /usr/local,
check in /usr/local/lib/gcc-lib and make sure you have the
appropriate directory, sparc-sun-solaris2.6/ or i386-pc-
solaris2.6/. If gcc's directory is for a different ver
sion of Solaris than you are running, then you will need
to rebuild gcc for your new version of Solaris.
You can get a precompiled version of gcc from
http://www.sunfreeware.com/. Make sure you pick up the
package for your Solaris release.
GNU as and GNU ld
The versions of as and ld supplied with Solaris work fine
for building perl. There is normally no need to install
the GNU versions.
If you decide to ignore this advice and use the GNU ver
sions anyway, then be sure that they are relatively
recent. Versions newer than 2.7 are apparently new
enough. Older versions may have trouble with dynamic
loading.
If your gcc is configured to use GNU as and ld but you
want to use the Solaris ones instead to build perl, then
you'll need to add -B/usr/ccs/bin/ to the gcc command
line. One convenient way to do that is with
sh Configure -Dcc='gcc -B/usr/ccs/bin/'
Note that the trailing slash is required. This will
result in some harmless warnings as Configure is run:
gcc: file path prefix `/usr/ccs/bin/' never used
These messages may safely be ignored. (Note that for a
SunOS4 system, you must use -B/bin/ instead.)
Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX environment
variable to ensure that Sun's as and ld are used. Consult
your gcc documentation for further information on the -B
option and the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
GNU make
Sun's make works fine for building perl. If you wish to
use GNU make anyway, be sure that the set-group-id bit is
not set. If it is, then arrange your PATH so that
/usr/ccs/bin/make is before GNU make or else have the
system administrator disable the set-group-id bit on GNU
make.
Avoid libucb.
Solaris provides some BSD-compatibility functions in
/usr/ucblib/libucb.a. Perl will not build and run cor
rectly if linked against -lucb since it contains routines
that are incompatible with the standard Solaris libc.
Normally this is not a problem since the solaris hints
file prevents Configure from even looking in /usr/ucblib
for libraries, and also explicitly omits -lucb.
Environment
PATH
Make sure your PATH includes the compiler (/opt/SUN
Wspro/bin/ if you're using Sun's compiler) as well as
/usr/ccs/bin/ to pick up the other development tools (such
as make, ar, as, and ld). Make sure your path either
doesn't include /usr/ucb or that it includes it after the
compiler and compiler tools and other standard Solaris
directories. You definitely don't want /usr/ucb/cc.
LD_LIBRARY_PATH
If you have the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable set,
be sure that it does NOT include /lib or /usr/lib. If you
will be building extensions that call third-party shared
libraries (e.g. Berkeley DB) then make sure that your
LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes the direc
tory with that library (e.g. /usr/local/lib).
If you get an error message
dlopen: stub interception failed
it is probably because your LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment
variable includes a directory which is a symlink to
/usr/lib (such as /lib). The reason this causes a problem
is quite subtle. The file libdl.so.1.0 actually *only*
contains functions which generate 'stub interception
failed' errors! The runtime linker intercepts links to
"/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementa
tions of those functions instead. [Thanks to Tim Bunce
for this explanation.]
RUN CONFIGURE.
See the INSTALL file for general information regarding
Configure. Only Solaris-specific issues are discussed
here. Usually, the defaults should be fine.
64-bit Issues.
See the INSTALL file for general information regarding
64-bit compiles. In general, the defaults should be fine
for most people.
By default, perl-5.6.0 (or later) is compiled as a 32-bit
application with largefile and long-long support.
General 32-bit vs. 64-bit issues.
Solaris 7 and above will run in either 32 bit or 64 bit
mode on SPARC CPUs, via a reboot. You can build 64 bit
apps whilst running 32 bit mode and vice-versa. 32 bit
apps will run under Solaris running in either 32 or 64 bit
mode. 64 bit apps require Solaris to be running 64 bit
mode.
Existing 32 bit apps are properly known as LP32, i.e.
Longs and Pointers are 32 bit. 64-bit apps are more prop
erly known as LP64. The discriminating feature of a LP64
bit app is its ability to utilise a 64-bit address space.
It is perfectly possible to have a LP32 bit app that sup
ports both 64-bit integers (long long) and largefiles (>
2GB), and this is the default for perl-5.6.0.
For a more complete explanation of 64-bit issues, see the
Solaris 64-bit Developer's Guide at
http://docs.sun.com:80/ab2/coll.45.13/SOL64TRANS/
You can detect the OS mode using "isainfo -v", e.g.
fubar$ isainfo -v # Ultra 30 in 64 bit mode
64-bit sparcv9 applications
32-bit sparc applications
By default, perl will be compiled as a 32-bit application.
Unless you want to allocate more than ~ 4GB of memory
inside Perl, you probably don't need Perl to be a 64-bit
app.
Large File Suppprt
For Solaris 2.6 and onwards, there are two different ways
for 32-bit applications to manipulate large files (files
whose size is > 2GByte). (A 64-bit application automati
cally has largefile support built in by default.)
First is the "transitional compilation environment",
described in lfcompile64(5). According to the man page,
The transitional compilation environment exports all the
explicit 64-bit functions (xxx64()) and types in addition to
all the regular functions (xxx()) and types. Both xxx() and
xxx64() functions are available to the program source. A
32-bit application must use the xxx64() functions in order
to access large files. See the lf64(5) manual page for a
complete listing of the 64-bit transitional interfaces.
The transitional compilation environment is obtained with
the following compiler and linker flags:
getconf LFS64_CFLAGS -D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE
getconf LFS64_LDFLAG # nothing special needed
getconf LFS64_LIBS # nothing special needed
Second is the "large file compilation environment",
described in lfcompile(5). According to the man page,
Each interface named xxx() that needs to access 64-bit entities
to access large files maps to a xxx64() call in the
resulting binary. All relevant data types are defined to be
of correct size (for example, off_t has a typedef definition
for a 64-bit entity).
An application compiled in this environment is able to use
the xxx() source interfaces to access both large and small
files, rather than having to explicitly utilize the transitional
xxx64() interface calls to access large files.
Two exceptions are fseek() and ftell(). 32-bit applica
tions should use fseeko(3C) and ftello(3C). These will
get automatically mapped to fseeko64() and ftello64().
The large file compilation environment is obtained with
getconf LFS_CFLAGS -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64
getconf LFS_LDFLAGS # nothing special needed
getconf LFS_LIBS # nothing special needed
By default, perl uses the large file compilation environ
ment and relies on Solaris to do the underlying mapping of
interfaces.
Building an LP64 Perl
To compile a 64-bit application on an UltraSparc with a
recent Sun Compiler, you need to use the flag "-xarch=v9".
getconf(1) will tell you this, e.g.
fubar$ getconf -a | grep v9
XBS5_LP64_OFF64_CFLAGS: -xarch=v9
XBS5_LP64_OFF64_LDFLAGS: -xarch=v9
XBS5_LP64_OFF64_LINTFLAGS: -xarch=v9
XBS5_LPBIG_OFFBIG_CFLAGS: -xarch=v9
XBS5_LPBIG_OFFBIG_LDFLAGS: -xarch=v9
XBS5_LPBIG_OFFBIG_LINTFLAGS: -xarch=v9
_XBS5_LP64_OFF64_CFLAGS: -xarch=v9
_XBS5_LP64_OFF64_LDFLAGS: -xarch=v9
_XBS5_LP64_OFF64_LINTFLAGS: -xarch=v9
_XBS5_LPBIG_OFFBIG_CFLAGS: -xarch=v9
_XBS5_LPBIG_OFFBIG_LDFLAGS: -xarch=v9
_XBS5_LPBIG_OFFBIG_LINTFLAGS: -xarch=v9
This flag is supported in Sun WorkShop Compilers 5.0 and
onwards (now marketed under the name Forte) when used on
Solaris 7 or later on UltraSparc systems.
If you are using gcc, you would need to use -mcpu=v9 -m64
instead. This option is not yet supported as of gcc
2.95.2; from install/SPECIFIC in that release:
GCC version 2.95 is not able to compile code correctly for
sparc64 targets. Users of the Linux kernel, at least, can
use the sparc32 program to start up a new shell invocation
with an environment that causes configure to recognize
(via uname -a) the system as sparc-*-* instead.
All this should be handled automatically by the hints
file, if requested.
If you do want to be able to allocate more than 4GB memory
inside perl, then you should use the Solaris malloc, since
the perl malloc breaks when dealing with more than 2GB of
memory. You can do this with
sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
Note that this will break binary compatibility with any
version that was not compiled with -Uusemymalloc.
Long Doubles.
As of 5.6.0, long doubles are not working.
Threads.
It is possible to build a threaded version of perl on
Solaris. The entire perl thread implementation is still
experimental, however, so beware. Perl uses the
sched_yield(3RT) function. In versions of Solaris up to
2.6, that function is in -lposix4. Starting with Solaris
7, it is in -lrt. The hints file should handle adding
this automatically.
Malloc Issues.
You should not use perl's malloc if you are building with
gcc. There are reports of core dumps, especially in the
PDL module. The problem appears to go away under -DDEBUG
GING, so it has been difficult to track down. Sun's com
piler appears to be ok with or without perl's malloc. [XXX
further investigation is needed here.]
You should also not use perl's malloc if you are building
perl as an LP64 application, since perl's malloc has trou
ble allocating more than 2GB of memory.
You can avoid perl's malloc by Configuring with
sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
See the note about binary compatibility above. This
option will be enabled by default beginning with 5.7.1.
MAKE PROBLEMS.
Dynamic Loading Problems With GNU as and GNU ld
If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on
SunOS or Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld,
see the section the section on "GNU as and GNU ld"
above.
ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and
you're using gcc, it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld
problem in the previous item the section on "GNU as
and GNU ld".
dlopen: stub interception failed
The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception
failed' message is that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environ
ment variable includes a directory which is a symlink
to /usr/lib (such as /lib). See the section on
"LD_LIBRARY_PATH" above.
#error ""No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified""
This is a common error when trying to build perl on
Solaris 2.6 with a gcc installation from Solaris 2.5
or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files changed, so you
need to update your gcc installation. You can either
rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the
opportunity to update your gcc installation.
sh: ar: not found
This is a message from your shell telling you that the
command 'ar' was not found. You need to check your
PATH environment variable to make sure that it
includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This is
a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the
/usr/ccs/bin/ directory.
MAKE TEST
op/stat.t test 4
op/stat.t test 4 may fail if you are on a tmpfs of some
sort. Building in /tmp sometimes shows this behavior.
The test suite detects if you are building in /tmp, but it
may not be able to catch all tmpfs situations.
PREBUILT BINARIES.
You can pick up prebuilt binaries for Solaris from
http://www.sunfreeware.com/, ActiveState
http://www.activestate.com/, and http://www.perl.com/
under the Binaries list at the top of the page. There are
probably other sources as well. Please note that these
sites are under the control of their respective owners,
not the perl developers.
RUNTIME ISSUES.
Limits on Numbers of Open Files.
The stdio(3C) manpage notes that only 255 files may be
opened using fopen(), and only file descriptors 0 through
255 can be used in a stream. Since perl calls open() and
then fdopen(3C) with the resulting file descriptor, perl
is limited to 255 simultaneous open files.
SOLARIS-SPECIFIC MODULES.
See the modules under the Solaris:: namespace on CPAN,
http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Solaris/.
SOLARIS-SPECIFIC PROBLEMS WITH MODULES.
Proc::ProcessTable
Proc::ProcessTable does not compile on Solaris with
perl5.6.0 and higher if you have LARGEFILES defined.
Since largefile support is the default in 5.6.0 and later,
you have to take special steps to use this module.
The problem is that various structures visible via procfs
use off_t, and if you compile with largefile support these
change from 32 bits to 64 bits. Thus what you get back
from procfs doesn't match up with the structures in perl,
resulting in garbage. See proc(4) for further discussion.
A fix for Proc::ProcessTable is to edit Makefile to
explicitly remove the largefile flags from the ones Make
Maker picks up from Config.pm. This will result in
Proc::ProcessTable being built under the correct environ
ment. Everything should then be OK as long as Proc::Pro
cessTable doesn't try to share off_t's with the rest of
perl, or if it does they should be explicitly specified as
off64_t.
BSD::Resource
BSD::Resource versions earlier than 1.09 do not compile on
Solaris with perl 5.6.0 and higher, for the same reasons
as Proc::ProcessTable. BSD::Resource versions starting
from 1.09 have a workaround for the problem.
Net::SSLeay
Net::SSLeay requires a /dev/urandom to be present. This
device is not part of Solaris. You can either get the
package SUNWski (packaged with several Sun software
products, for example the Sun WebServer, which is part of
the Solaris Server Intranet Extension, or the Sun Direc
tory Services, part of Solaris for ISPs) or download the
ANDIrand package from http://www.cosy.sbg.ac.at/~andi/. If
you use SUNWski, make a symbolic link /dev/urandom point
ing to /dev/random.
It may be possible to use the Entropy Gathering Daemon
(written in Perl!), available from
http://www.lothar.com/tech/crypto/.
AUTHOR
The original was written by Andy Dougherty
doughera@lafayette.edu drawing heavily on advice from Alan
Burlison, Nick Ing-Simmons, Tim Bunce, and many other
Solaris users over the years.
Please report any errors, updates, or suggestions to perl_
bug@perl.org.
LAST MODIFIED
$Id: README.solaris,v 1.4 2000/11/11 20:29:58 doughera Exp
$
2001-03-03 perl v5.6.1 PERLSOLARIS(1)
