Undefined Reference to major, minor and makedev in libpython*.so file during Python-2.7.13 and Python-3.5.7 build

Question

I am cross-compiling python-2.7.13 and python-3.5.7 from scratch using the following configuration command line options to the ./configure binary:

CONFIG_SITE=config.site ./configure \
    --host=arm-linux-gnueabi \
    --build=x86_64-pc-linux-gnu \
    CC=/toolchain/gcc-arm-8.2-2018.08-x86_64-arm-linux-gnueabi/bin/arm-linux-gnueabi-gcc \
    RANLIB=/toolchain/gcc-arm-8.2-2018.08-x86_64-arm-linux-gnueabi/bin/arm-linux-gnueabi-ranlib \
    READELF=/toolchain/gcc-arm-8.2-2018.08-x86_64-arm-linux-gnueabi/bin/arm-linux-gnueabi-readelf \
    --enable-shared --enable-ipv6 --without-cxx-main --without-doc-strings --with-system-ffi --with-pydebug

After the configuration is successful and the required Makefile is generated, when I am executing make to generate the python binary I am getting the following error:

/toolchain/arm/gcc-arm-8.2-2018.08-x86_64-arm-linux-gnueabi/bin/arm-linux-gnueabi-gcc  -Xlinker -export-dynamic -o python \
                Modules/python.o \
                -L. -lpython2.7 -lpthread -ldl  -lpthread -lutil   -lm
./libpython2.7.so: undefined reference to `minor'
./libpython2.7.so: undefined reference to `major'
./libpython2.7.so: undefined reference to `makedev'
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
make: *** [python] Error 1

The toolchain which is being used for the cross-compilation is gcc-arm-8.2-2018.08-x86_64-arm-linux-gnueabi downloaded from here: https://developer.arm.com/tools-and-software/open-source-software/developer-tools/gnu-toolchain/gnu-a/downloads/8-2-2018-08

On further inspection of the /Modules/posixmodule.o executable using readelf, I found that the functions major, minor and makedev are in the UNDEF category, hence encountering the linking error.

readelf -s posixmodule.o | grep -i "major"
   409: 00004cb8    20 FUNC    LOCAL  DEFAULT    1 os_major_impl
   410: 00004ccc   124 FUNC    LOCAL  DEFAULT    1 os_major
  1288: 0000065c     1 OBJECT  LOCAL  DEFAULT    5 os_major__doc__
  1629: 00000000     0 NOTYPE  GLOBAL DEFAULT  UND major

readelf -s posixmodule.o | grep -i "major"
   409: 00004cb8    20 FUNC    LOCAL  DEFAULT    1 os_major_impl
   410: 00004ccc   124 FUNC    LOCAL  DEFAULT    1 os_major
  1288: 0000065c     1 OBJECT  LOCAL  DEFAULT    5 os_major__doc__
  1629: 00000000     0 NOTYPE  GLOBAL DEFAULT  UND major

readelf -s posixmodule.o | grep -i "minor"
   404: 00004c28    20 FUNC    LOCAL  DEFAULT    1 os_minor_impl
   405: 00004c3c   124 FUNC    LOCAL  DEFAULT    1 os_minor
  1287: 00000658     1 OBJECT  LOCAL  DEFAULT    5 os_minor__doc__
  1628: 00000000     0 NOTYPE  GLOBAL DEFAULT  UND minor

Could anyone help to resolve these errors?

Answer 1

glibc 2.28 no longer defines 'major', 'minor' and 'makedev' in <sys/types.h>, those now require to include <sys/sysmacros.h>.

So if you really need these specific versions of python, you should add this #include to the source files where these functions are called.