Subject: Linker Error on Fresh ns-3.43 Install: cannot find -lns3-wifi

[Naveen Vaidyanathan]

Hello everyone,

I'm having a persistent linker error on a fresh installation of ns-allinone-3.43 and I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

The Problem: When I try to build a simple program in the scratch directory, the build fails at the final linking stage with the error /usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lns3-wifi: No such file or directory. This happens for all the core ns-3 libraries. It seems the main libraries (.so files) are not being created in the build/lib directory, even though the compilation of their source files seems to succeed.

My System:

• ns-3 Version: ns-3.43 (from the ns-allinone-3.43.tar.bz2 package)

• Operating System: 
  navvu@RaghunathDas:~$ lsb_release -a
  No LSB modules are available.
  Distributor ID: Ubuntu
  Description:    Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS
  Release:        24.04
  Codename:       noble

Troubleshooting Steps I've Already Taken: I've spent a long time trying to debug this and have already tried:

1. A complete, clean re-installation of ns-allinone-3.43 after removing the old directory.

2. Installing all prerequisite and optional system dependencies for Ubuntu/Debian using a comprehensive sudo apt-get install ... command (including g++, cmake, python3-dev, ninja-build, etc.).

3. Running ./ns3 clean and then ./ns3 build multiple times.

4. Verifying my simple program code and scratch/CMakeLists.txt are correct. The build fails even with the most basic setup.

Even on a completely fresh install with all dependencies met, the linker cannot find the core ns-3 libraries.

Here is the final error log:

  [826/1004] Linking CXX executable /home/navvu/ns-allinone-3.43/ns-3.43/build/ns3-glowworm

 FAILED: /home/navvu/ns-allinone-3.43/ns-3.43/build/ns3-glowworm

 : && /usr/bin/c++ -Os -g -DNDEBUG scratch/CMakeFiles/ns3-glowworm.dir/ns3-glowworm.cc.o -o /home/navvu/ns-allinone-3.43/ns-3.43/build/ns3-glowworm -L/home/navvu/ns-allinone-3.43/ns-3.43/build/lib -Wl,-rpath,/home/navvu/ns-allinone-3.43/ns-3.43/build/lib -lns3-wifi -lns3-internet -lns3-mobility -lns3-applications && : /usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lns3-wifi: No such file or directory 

/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lns3-internet: No such file or directory 

/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lns3-mobility: No such file or directory 

/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lns3-applications: No such file or directory

 collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status 

ninja: build stopped: subcommand failed.  

Here are my simple test files:

scratch/ns3-glowworm.cc:

C++

#include "ns3/core-module.h"
#include "ns3/network-module.h"
#include "ns3/internet-module.h"
#include "ns3/mobility-module.h"
#include "ns3/applications-module.h"
#include "ns3/wifi-module.h"

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
    ns3::NodeContainer nodes;
    nodes.Create(2);
    // ... rest of the simple program ...
    ns3::Simulator::Run();
    ns3::Simulator::Destroy();
    return 0;
}

scratch/CMakeLists.txt:

add_executable(ns3-glowworm
    ns3-glowworm.cc
)

target_link_libraries(ns3-glowworm
    PRIVATE
    ns3-wifi
    ns3-internet
    ns3-mobility
    ns3-applications
)

Does anyone have an idea why a fresh ns-3 installation on my system would fail to create its own libraries, leading to this linker error? Any suggestions for further diagnostics would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your time.