Creating and Using Shared Libraries on Linux course outline

1. Course Introduction
2. Fundamentals of Shared Libraries
   • Background
   • Basics of shared library creation and use
   • The shared library soname
   • Summary: shared library creation, linking, and loading
3. Versioning and installation
   • Shared library versioning
   • Shared library real names, sonames, and linker names
   • Installing shared libraries
   • ldconfig
   • Further details
4. The Dynamic Linker
   • Rpath: specifying library search paths in an object
   • Finding shared libraries at run time
   • Symbol resolution, library load order, and link maps
   • Debugging the operation of the dynamic linker
5. Shared Libraries and the Static Linker
   • How the static linker finds shared libraries
   • Correctly handling secondary dependencies at link time
6. ELF and Program Execution
   • Introduction
   • ELF file layout
   • ELF sections
   • Useful commands: readelf and objdump
   • How programs get run
7. Dynamically Loaded Libraries (dlopen)
   • Overview
   • Opening a shared library: dlopen()
   • Obtaining the address of a symbol: dlsym()
   • The dlopen API: example
   • The dlopen API: further details
8. Symbol Visibility
   • Controlling symbol visibility
   • Using version scripts to control symbol visibility
   • Preloading shared libraries
   • Weak symbols (*)
9. Symbol Versioning
   • Introduction
   • Creating a symbol-versioned library
   • Transitioning an existing library to symbol versioning
   • Advantages of symbol versioning
   • Symbol versioning: further details
10. GOT, PLT, and Lazy Binding (*)
    • The GOT and PLT
    • Lazy binding
    • Lazy binding and the PLT: in pictures
    • Lazy binding and the PLT: code
    • Performance considerations

Return to the course overview