tools linux binary dynamically links musl

[woeps]

Running npx --package @rescript/tools@0.6.2 -- rescript-tools -v exits with exit code 0 but gives no output. The same is true for any other tools command.

Runnin npx --package @rescript/tools@0.5.0 -- rescript-tools -v exits with exit coce 0 but outputs the expected string 0.5.0.

I'm running on linux x86_64 and node 20.14.0.
(My colleague ran the commands on mac with success. It seams like a linux issue...)

Any ideas?

[zth]

We recently worked on arm64 support for Linux, maybe we messed something up with the binaries then?

[woeps]

I'm trying to find out what's happening:

AFAIK: npm i @rescript/tools@0.6.2 puts a link into <project>/node_modules/.bin/rescript-tools which links to <project>/node_modules/@rescript/tools/npm/cli.js. cli.js just calls getBinaryPath (which in my case returns <project>/node_modules/@rescript/tools/binaries/linux/rescript-tools.exe and spwans a process with this binary.
Right?

Trying to run the binary directly in the terminal yields the following error message: zsh: no such file or directory: <project>/node_modules/@rescript/tools/binaries/linux/rescript-tools.exe
Running file <project>/node_modules/@rescript/tools/binaries/linux/rescript-tools.exe yields

<project>/node_modules/@rescript/tools/binaries/linux/rescript-tools.exe: ELF 64-bit LSB pie executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib/ld-musl-x86_64.so.1, BuildID[sha1]=b1b311c6abafbede111905ae90396f8d5caede7d, with debug_info, not stripped

[woeps]

Alright, the file call (see above comment) gave me the final clue to solve my issue:
My linux system was missing the musl package.

After installing this package, tools cli binary runs as intended! 🥳

Maybe we should state the dependency on musl in the readme?

[zth]

Alright, the file call (see above comment) gave me the final clue to solve my issue: My linux system was missing the musl package.

After installing this package, tools cli binary runs as intended! 🥳

Maybe we should state the dependency on musl in the readme?

Yes definitely! That's a terrible experience/error 🙈 would you mind sending a PR? Also, I wonder if there's an alternative to that, and why the compiler doesn't require the same thing...

[woeps]

It seems like the alpine docker image uses musl instead of libc (as it is more lightweight) which is dynamically linked and therefore needs to be present on the system.
I don't really know much about dune, but I found https://ocamlpro.com/blog/2021_09_02_generating_static_and_portable_executables_with_ocaml, which suggests to use (flags (:standard -cclib -static -cclib -no-pie)).

Current flags used in tools dune file:

rescript-vscode/tools/bin/dune

Lines 3 to 4 in 7c9f1bd

	(flags
	(:standard -ccopt -static))))

@cknitt do you have an idea on how to get rid of the dynamic link to musl?

[cknitt]

This is basically the same setup as in the compiler repo where it works fine, only that in the compiler repo CI, dune is invoked with --profile static.

In the rescript-vscode repo, the idea was that this

rescript-vscode/.github/workflows/ci.yml

Line 42 in 7c9f1bd

DUNE_PROFILE: static

would do the same and I thought I also tested that.

Will have to investigate.

[cknitt]

Running file <project>/node_modules/@rescript/tools/binaries/linux/rescript-tools.exe yields

<project>/node_modules/@rescript/tools/binaries/linux/rescript-tools.exe: ELF 64-bit LSB pie executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib/ld-musl-x86_64.so.1, BuildID[sha1]=b1b311c6abafbede111905ae90396f8d5caede7d, with debug_info, not stripped

Compare with the binaries created in the compiler repo:

rescript.exe: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, ARM aarch64, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, BuildID[sha1]=90f2bd1b69ed51f0318b4df20060b03b85481cd9, stripped

This is what it should look like.

[zth]

@cknitt so potentially we need some tweaking here?

[cknitt]

Yes, will have a look at it, probably the static profile is not passed to dune correctly or something like that.

[cknitt]

This is very weird. No matter what I do, the rescript-editor-analysis.exe is statically linked, but rescript-tools.exe is dynamically linked. 🤯

ef132b5090b5:/data# make
dune build --profile static
cp -f _build/install/default/bin/rescript-editor-analysis analysis/rescript-editor-analysis.exe
cp -f _build/install/default/bin/rescript-editor-analysis rescript-editor-analysis.exe
cp -f _build/install/default/bin/rescript-tools rescript-tools.exe
ef132b5090b5:/data# file rescript-editor-analysis.exe
rescript-editor-analysis.exe: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, ARM aarch64, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, BuildID[sha1]=348b8d5ae9ecd9b51539c9c2b2df5446eae7ae0b, with debug_info, not stripped
ef132b5090b5:/data# file rescript-tools.exe
rescript-tools.exe: ELF 64-bit LSB pie executable, ARM aarch64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib/ld-musl-aarch64.so.1, BuildID[sha1]=9642e8ce1c6d0230a982e19c887107466f61dd3c, with debug_info, not stripped

Will investigate more on the weekend.

[cknitt]

Fixed in #1013. 🎉

@woeps Can you please revert #1007?

[woeps]

@cknitt sure, I'll revert it.