[arch-general] upgrading postfix - newaliases: error while loading libdb-5.1.so -- ignore?

[C Anthony Risinger]

On Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 4:34 AM, Baho Utot <baho-utot at columbus.rr.com> wrote:
> On Thursday, July 07, 2011 02:36:10 AM Allan McRae wrote:
>> On 07/07/11 10:02, Baho Utot wrote:
>>>
>>> Still the best way is to build/repackage but the link works as weel.
>>
>> The worst you can do while symlinking libraries is entirely screw your
>> system...  just ask the people who could not use pacman to extract .xz
>> packages anymore after symlinking liblzma...
>>
>> Library sonames change for a reason.
>
> In this case it would only screwup postfix.  I am not talking of whole sale
> symlinking libs only to temporay fix issues like this while the package is
> being fixed.

... but ... why?  when it takes a whole 5-10 minutes to rebuild?  you
have *no idea* why they bumped the soname -- the fact that it works is
pure chance/luck -- whatever changed just hasn't been given the
opportunity to crash 'n burn you yet, because (IIRC) said function(s)
havn't been called, or said data structure(s) haven't been
used/manipulated/read ... *yet*.  if it does work, you could be
clobbering random areas of heap/stack depending on how everything
lines up in the end.

... this is bad idea, bad recommendation, pre-now, now, always,
post-always ... don't do it.  ever ... ever.

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Program-Library-HOWTO/shared-libraries.html#AEN135

... if you care *at all* about you mail or <insert important data> that is ;-)

C Anthony