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First note: There seem to be several existing threads on this general subject. However, I looked them over and they all seem to be of the "unmet dependencies"/can't install variety. My problem is different; it installs; but fails to run.

I did the usual apt-get update; apt-get install lighttpd and during the install, the following error was displayed onscreen:

/usr/sbin/lighttpd: Symbol `FamErrlist' has different size in shared object, consider re-linking
/usr/sbin/lighttpd: symbol lookup error: /usr/sbin/lighttpd: undefined symbol: FAMNoExists

Along with a message to the effect that lighttpd could not be started.

I've done a fair amount of other research trying to get this working, all to no avail. Note: I even downloaded a .deb on a different Ubuntu system, where the binary does work, but when I take the .deb and unpack it on the 18.04 system, it fails. I've tried to compile the source, but the source package is weird; it does not have a ./configure script (just configure.ac, which I tried, unsuccessfully, to convert to "configure" using "autoconf")

Anyway, I ended up installing something called "h2static", which seems to be a pretty good replacement, but I'm still curious why "lighttpd" doesn't work.

Update: Somebody requested further information. Note that I have long since uninstalled the package, so anything related to its running as an installed package is gone, but here is the "ldd" output:

linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffcc8f43000)
        libpcre.so.3 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpcre.so.3 (0x00007fbd9246a000)
        libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007fbd92266000)
        libattr.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libattr.so.1 (0x00007fbd92061000)
        libssl.so.1.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libssl.so.1.1 (0x00007fbd91dd4000)
        libcrypto.so.1.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcrypto.so.1.1 (0x00007fbd91909000)
        libfam.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfam.so.0 (0x00007fbd91700000)
        libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007fbd9130f000)
        libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007fbd910f0000)
        /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007fbd9291b000)
        libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 (0x00007fbd90d67000)
        libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00007fbd90b4f000)
        libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007fbd907b1000)

And here is the error message that any attempt to run the binary generates (This is the same as posted above, but here it is again for clarity):

/usr/sbin/lighttpd: Symbol `FamErrlist' has different size in shared object, consider re-linking
/usr/sbin/lighttpd: symbol lookup error: usr/sbin/lighttpd: undefined symbol: FAMNoExists
Joe Schmoe
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  • I can't see a bug report being mentioned here but it clearly is a bug to me, and that's the problem: maintainers of the package should be made aware that their software is broken under certain conditions (or in general). If all (remaining?) users of the software ignore these best practices, then that's what you get and nobody will step up to solve the underlying issues. – LiveWireBT Jan 10 '20 at 07:17
  • I'm not sure what you mean by "I can't see a bug report being mentioned here". Do you mean that my post doesn't contain a bug report - or are you saying that you don't see any bug reports on this topic in other sources? If the former, then there is a bug report: The bug is that the program does not run; it generates the error message shown and then exits. This happens either if you do a normal "apt install", where launching the program is part of the "install" or if you run it (lighttpd) directly from the command line. – Joe Schmoe Jan 10 '20 at 10:04
  • This site is not the place to create bug reports. Maintainers don't read it. – Pilot6 Jan 10 '20 at 10:28
  • Can you suggest a better site? This is the only one I know about (in the general category of "Help me with Ubuntu problems"). – Joe Schmoe Jan 10 '20 at 12:45
  • Please add output of dpkg -S /usr/sbin/lighttpd , /usr/sbin/lighttpd -v , ldd /usr/sbin/lighttpd and systemctl status lighttpd.service to the question body. – N0rbert Jan 10 '20 at 15:11
  • I would recommend to reinstall fam library with sudo apt-get install --reinstall libfam0 and retry running /usr/sbin/lighttpd -v. – N0rbert Jan 11 '20 at 21:06
  • I re-installed libfam, but the error remains. I.e., no change. – Joe Schmoe Jan 12 '20 at 06:37

1 Answers1

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This appears to be a known bug which has been reported eg. at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/lighttpd/+bug/1067315 and https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=478291.

For me this was solved by installing the libgamin0 package. Due to package conflicts this also meant that I had to uninstall the libfam0 package, but libgamin0 replaces that package, so no functionality was lost.

oliver
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  • Bingo! I did "apt install libgamin0" and it said it was going to remove libfam0 along the way to installing that lib.
    After that, I was able to "apt install lighttpd" and it now all works as expected. Thanks!!     – Joe Schmoe Apr 16 '20 at 15:28
  • OT: I could not figure out how to format the above comment into multiple lines (basically, I want each sentence to be a paragraph). How do I do that? (Also, it won't let me edit it anymore) – Joe Schmoe Apr 16 '20 at 15:34