Bug 1713832

Summary: file reports some executables as shared objects
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Eugene Kanter <ekanter>
Component: fileAssignee: Kamil Dudka <kdudka>
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
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Version: 30CC: jkaluza, kdudka, macermak, odubaj, svashisht
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Last Closed: 2019-07-23 13:15:51 UTC Type: Bug
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Description Eugene Kanter 2019-05-25 04:05:45 UTC
Description of problem:
file command is unable to recognize some /usr/bin/ binaries as executables - reports "shared object".

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
file-5.36-2.fc30.x86_64

How reproducible:
always

Steps to Reproduce:
$ find /usr/bin -xdev  -type f -print0 | xargs -0 file | grep 'LSB shared object' | awk -F: '{print $1}'

Actual results:
/usr/bin/smbcontrol
/usr/bin/smbtree
/usr/bin/rpcclient
/usr/bin/sharesec
/usr/bin/smbclient
/usr/bin/testparm
/usr/bin/smbcacls
/usr/bin/samba-regedit
/usr/bin/dbwrap_tool
/usr/bin/profiles
/usr/bin/smbget
/usr/bin/pdbedit
/usr/bin/regdiff
/usr/bin/nmblookup
/usr/bin/regpatch
/usr/bin/regshell
/usr/bin/WebKitWebDriver
/usr/bin/cifsdd
/usr/bin/smbcquotas
/usr/bin/smbpasswd
/usr/bin/oLschema2ldif
/usr/bin/smbstatus
/usr/bin/regtree
/usr/bin/smbspool
/usr/bin/dumpmscat
/usr/bin/net
/usr/bin/mvxattr



Expected results:
no output

Additional info:

Same problem observed many releases ago, for example RHEL6, RHEL7, F28, F29 also affected.
For example F28/RHEL8:
$ file /usr/bin/zipsplit
/usr/bin/zipsplit: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, ...
$ file /usr/bin/file
/usr/bin/file: ELF 64-bit LSB shared object, ....

Comment 1 Kamil Dudka 2019-05-27 08:34:16 UTC
This is a known issue: shared libraries and dynamically-linked executables are difficult to distinguish from each other based on ELF header.  See also:

    bug #1570246
    bug #1581343
    bug #1296868

Comment 2 Kamil Dudka 2019-07-23 13:15:51 UTC
According to the output of `readelf -h`, the mentioned files are shared objects.  This is not a bug per se.