How can I change the filename of a shared library after building a program that depends on it?

Question

I have a program that depends on a shared library it expects to find deep inside a directory structure. I'd like to move that shared library out and into a better place. On OS X, this can be done with install_name_tool. I'm unable to find an equivalent for Linux.

For reference, readelf -d myprogram spits out the following paraphrased output:

Dynamic section at offset 0x1e9ed4 contains 30 entries:
  Tag        Type                         Name/Value
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [this/is/terrible/library.so]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libGL.so.1]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libGLU.so.1]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libstdc++.so.6]
(continues in an uninteresting fashion)

(and by request, ldd myprogram:)

    linux-gate.so.1 =>  (0x0056a000)
    this/is/terrible/library.so => not found
    libGL.so.1 => /usr/lib/mesa/libGL.so.1 (0x0017d000)
    libGLU.so.1 => /usr/lib/libGLU.so.1 (0x00a9c000)
    libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6 (0x00710000)
   (etc, etc)

and I would like to errata "this/is/terrible/library.so" to be "shared/library.so". Note that, if the program is left in its "built" location, where the relative path this/is/terrible/library.so actually exists, then ldd is able to find it, as you'd expect.

I know about RPATH and it isn't what I'm looking for, I don't need to change search paths globally.

Answer 1

We can use patchelf:

patchelf --replace-needed liboriginal.so.1 libreplacement.so.1 my-program

We can also remove a dependency:

patchelf --remove-needed libfoo.so.1 my-program

Add a dependency:

patchelf --add-needed libfoo.so.1 my-program

Or change the path where to search for the libraries (rpath):

patchelf --set-rpath /path/to/lib:/other/path my-program