Problem launch Java on Debian: "error while loading shared libraries: libjli.so"

Question

I'm trying to launch Java:

$ java -version
java: error while loading shared libraries: libjli.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

$ ldd /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk/jre/bin/java
        linux-gate.so.1 =>  (0xb779f000)
        libz.so.1 => /usr/lib/libz.so.1 (0xb7780000)
        libpthread.so.0 => /lib/i686/cmov/libpthread.so.0 (0xb7767000)
        libjli.so => /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk/jre/bin/../lib/i386/jli/libjli.so (0xb7762000)
        libdl.so.2 => /lib/i686/cmov/libdl.so.2 (0xb775e000)
        libc.so.6 => /lib/i686/cmov/libc.so.6 (0xb7603000)
        /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xb77a0000
$ ls /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk/jre/bin/../lib/i386/jli/
libjli.so

However Java does work under root:

$ sudo java -version
java version "1.6.0_18"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (IcedTea6 1.8.7) (6b18-1.8.7-2~lenny1)
OpenJDK Client VM (build 14.0-b16, mixed mode, sharing)

How can I launch Java as a regular user without errors?

Answer 1

Pay attention how the links are configured. I found a server where a mistake had happen and /etc/bin/java was replaced with a binary. That made the library not found error to appear. I relinked /usr/bin/java to /etc/alternatives/java, and all works again.

# namei -mx /usr/bin/java
f: /usr/bin/java
 drwxr-xr-x /
 drwxr-xr-x usr
 drwxr-xr-x bin
 lrwxrwxrwx java -> /etc/alternatives/java
   drwxr-xr-x /
   drwxr-xr-x etc
   drwxr-xr-x alternatives
   lrwxrwxrwx java -> /usr/lib/jvm/jre-1.6.0-openjdk.x86_64/bin/java
     drwxr-xr-x /
     drwxr-xr-x usr
     drwxr-xr-x lib
     drwxr-xr-x jvm
     lrwxrwxrwx jre-1.6.0-openjdk.x86_64 -> java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.6.0.0.x86_64/jre
       drwxr-xr-x java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.6.0.0.x86_64
       drwxr-xr-x jre
     drwxr-xr-x bin
     -rwxr-xr-x java

My hunch is that OpenJDK does some sort of path canonisation when it looks for libs.

Answer 2

Perhaps you've got a single instance from Ubuntu with no elevated privs, but it still can't find the lib as in this report.

Try

ln -s /usr/lib/jvm /lib

Answer 3

That problem happened to me when you run java in a chroot-jail.

If you check with chrpath out from the chroot you will see something like this:

chrpath /opt/test/demo/opt/test/jdk/bin/java
/opt/test/demo/opt/test/jdk/bin/java: RPATH=$ORIGIN/../lib/amd64/jli:$ORIGIN/../jre/lib/amd64/jli

ELF for security not evaluate $ORIGIN witch isn't an environment var so you have to set some environment variable before run the java:

export JAVA_HOME=/opt/test/jdk
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$JAVA_HOME/lib/amd64/jli:$JAVA_HOME/jre/lib/amd64/jli

or

LD_ORIGIN_PATH=/opt/test/jdk/bin /opt/test/jdk/bin/java

Answer 4

I know this is a very old question, but I just ran in to the same problem and think the following link may help:

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/87978/how-to-get-oracle-java-7-to-work-with-setcap-cap-net-bind-serviceep

The problem may occur if you grant posix capabilities to the java executable. In that case, ld.so will refuse to link libjli.so if run java as a non-root user. The detailed causes and solution can be found in the link above, but to be short, executing the following lines of command as root should solve the problem:

echo /opt/java/jdk1.7.0_71/lib/amd64/jli >> /etc/ld.so.conf.d/java.conf
rm /etc/ld.so.cache
ldconfig -v|grep jli

Remember to replace /opt/java/jdk1.7.0_71 with your actual java home path, and use /lib/i386/jli if you're on 32-bit machine. If the last command returns something like

libjli.so -> libjli.so

, you should be good to go. If the ld.so cache is not refreshed correctly, you may need to restart your machine in some cases.