Environment Operations Fail With "bash: error while loading shared libraries: libncurses.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory" (KBA5622)

Issue

During various operations, such as "Refresh" or "Add Dataset", for a new or existing environment the operation may fail with a message similar to:

/home/<Delphix OS User>/toolkit/Delphix_COMMON_<Engine UUID>_<Delphix OS user>_host/scripts/bash/linux_x86/bin64/bash: error while loading shared libraries: libncurses.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Applicable Delphix Versions

Click here to view the versions of the Delphix engine to which this article applies

Major Release	All Sub Releases
6.0	6.0.0.0, 6.0.1.0
5.3	5.3.0.0, 5.3.0.1, 5.3.0.2, 5.3.0.3, 5.3.1.0, 5.3.1.1, 5.3.1.2, 5.3.2.0, 5.3.3.0, 5.3.3.1, 5.3.4.0, 5.3.5.0 5.3.6.0, 5.3.7.0, 5.3.7.1, 5.3.8.0, 5.3.8.1

Troubleshooting

Check the current installation for presence of libncurses:

Example 1: ncurses 6.1 library is installed:

[root@examplehost ~]# rpm -qi ncurses
Name    : ncurses
Version   : 6.1
Release   : 7.20180224.el8
Architecture: x86_64
Install Date: Tue 18 Jun 2019 05:04:41 PM UTC
Group    : System Environment/Base
Size    : 600396
License   : MIT
<output truncated>

Example 2: No ncurses library is installed:

root@examplehost:/-> rpm -qi ncurses
package ncurses is not installed

Example 3: ncurses 6.1 library is installed, but no libncurses.so.5 is present:

[root@examplehost ~]# ls -l /usr/lib64/libncurses*
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root   17 Jan 16 2019 /usr/lib64/libncurses.so.6 -> libncurses.so.6.1
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 216912 Jan 16 2019 /usr/lib64/libncurses.so.6.1
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root   18 Jan 16 2019 /usr/lib64/libncursesw.so.6 -> libncursesw.so.6.1
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 300104 Jan 16 2019 /usr/lib64/libncursesw.so.6.1

Example 4: libncurses.so.5 is present but cannot be read by other users:

[root@examplehost ~]# ls -la /usr/lib64/libncurses*
lrwx------. 1 root root     17 Oct 18  2017 /usr/lib64/libncurses.so.5 -> libncurses.so.5.9
lrwx------. 1 root root     19 Oct 18  2017 /usr/lib64/libncurses++.so.5 -> libncurses++.so.5.9
-rwx------. 1 root root 163680 Jan 26  2014 /usr/lib64/libncurses.so.5.9
-rwx------. 1 root root  78512 Jan 26  2014 /usr/lib64/libncurses++.so.5.9
lrwx------. 1 root root     20 Oct 18  2017 /usr/lib64/libncurses++w.so.5 -> libncurses++w.so.5.9
lrwx------. 1 root root     18 Oct 18  2017 /usr/lib64/libncursesw.so.5 -> libncursesw.so.5.9
-rwx------. 1 root root  78512 Jan 26  2014 /usr/lib64/libncurses++w.so.5.9
-rwx------. 1 root root 234680 Jan 26  2014 /usr/lib64/libncursesw.so.5.9

The dependencies of the Delphix provided bash can always be manually verified by using ldd. This will indicate the required libraries, as well as confirmation if any cannot be resolved.

Example 1: All required libraries are resolved:

[root@examplehost toolkit]$ ldd ./Delphix_COMMON_<Engine UUID>_<Delphix OS user>_host/scripts/bash/linux_x86/bin64/bash
linux-vdso.so.1 =>  (0x00007ffe2d1ae000)
libncurses.so.5 => /lib64/libncurses.so.5 (0x00007f794fe10000)
libdl.so.2 => /lib64/libdl.so.2 (0x00007f794fc0c000)
libc.so.6 => /lib64/libc.so.6 (0x00007f794f83f000)
libtinfo.so.5 => /lib64/libtinfo.so.5 (0x00007f794f615000)
/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f7950037000)

Example 2: libncurses.so.5 cannot be resolved:

[root@examplehost toolkit]$ ldd ./Delphix_COMMON_<Engine UUID>_<Delphix OS user>_host/scripts/bash/linux_x86/bin64/bash
linux-vdso.so.1 =>  (0x00007ffe2d1ae000)
libncurses.so.5 => not found
libdl.so.2 => /lib64/libdl.so.2 (0x00007f794fc0c000)
libc.so.6 => /lib64/libc.so.6 (0x00007f794f83f000)
libtinfo.so.5 => /lib64/libtinfo.so.5 (0x00007f794f615000)
/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f7950037000)

Resolution

The Delphix bash shell deployed with the Toolkit, which is installed on each environment Delphix manages, has a dependency on libncurses v5 for some operations. As such, if the environment user permissions are incorrect for shared libraries, or if libncurses is not installed, the error will be encountered.

As they are backward compatible, if libncurses6 is present, a symlink can be created for libncurses.so.5 to libncurses.so.6 (the specific version may vary depending on installation. 

Example:

root@examplehost ~]# ln -s /usr/lib64/libncurses.so.6.1 /usr/lib64/libncurses.so.5

root@examplehost ~]# ls -l /usr/lib64/libncurses*
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root     17 Apr  3  2020 /usr/lib64/libncurses.so.5 -> libncurses.so.6.1
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root     17 Jan 16  2019 /usr/lib64/libncurses.so.6 -> libncurses.so.6.1
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 216912 Jan 16  2019 /usr/lib64/libncurses.so.6.1
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root     18 Jan 16  2019 /usr/lib64/libncursesw.so.6 -> libncursesw.so.6.1
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 300104 Jan 16  2019 /usr/lib64/libncursesw.so.6.1

If no libncurses package is installed, the system administrator should be consulted to install as needed, and any requisite symlink also added as referenced above.

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