System reports libelf.so.1 finds libedit.so.8 not proper layout?

[Kevin Oberman]

My month-old server has died with a baffling error. It boots to the prompt to enter the shell (default: /bin/sh). Entering anything returns:

libelf.so.1:  /usr/lib32/libedit.20.8: unsupported file layout

As there is no way to enter any command without a shell, I can't proceed. This baffles me.

1. Why is libelf.so.1 being used? I thought that libelf.so.2 was used these days. The only copy of libelf.s0.1 is in /usr/local/lib.

2. /usr/lib32/.so.8? Why is it loading the 32-bin library?

Can anyone give me a  clue as to what might be going on? Can it be fixed. I'll be booting the live OS from the install thumb drive tomorrow in hopes I can recover the system, but an explanation of what is going on might help getting this working.

--

Kevin Oberman, Part time kid herder and retired Network Engineer
E-mail: rkob...@gmail.com

PGP Fingerprint: D03FB98AFA78E3B78C1694B318AB39EF1B055683

[Arthur Chance]

On 22/05/2023 06:18, Kevin Oberman wrote:
> My month-old server has died with a baffling error. It boots to the
> prompt to enter the shell (default: /bin/sh). Entering anything returns:
> libelf.so.1:  /usr/lib32/libedit.20.8: unsupported file layout
>
> As there is no way to enter any command without a shell, I can't
> proceed. This baffles me.

Have you tried using /rescue/sh (or /rescue/{csh,tcsh) depending on
taste)? The /rescue programs are statically linked so should work.

--
We build our computer systems the way we build our cities; over time,
without a plan, on top of ruins.
— Ellen Ullman

[Kevin Oberman]

Thanks so much! I'm back up and online. I should have thought of it as I remember how I thought it was a great idea and it was.

For the record, something happened to the ld-elf.so.hints file. It contained only lib32 entries. Restored from backup and the system booted up normally.