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nabbisen
nabbisen

Posted on • Originally published at scqr.net

Fix rustup failed with "error: linker `cc` not found" on Alpine Linux 3.17 (Rust 1.66)

#gratitude

Summary

Alpine Linux offers Rustup package as well as Rust.

I built the development environment of Rust on Alpine Linux with Docker.

Well, on the way, I met the error below when testing a cargo project:

$ cargo run
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The output was:

 Compiling alpine-rust-example v0.1.0 (/(...)/alpine-rust-example) error: linker `cc` not found | = note: No such file or directory (os error 2) error: could not compile `alpine-rust-example` due to previous error
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This post shows how to fix it.

Environment

  • Alpine Linux 3.17
  • Rust 1.66
  • Rustup 1.25

Solution

* Below, doas can be replaced with sudo.

Start Docker container

Dockerfile example:

FROM alpine:3.17 # ports published EXPOSE 80 EXPOSE 443 # packages base RUN apk update --no-cache RUN apk upgrade --no-cache RUN apk add --no-cache openrc # rust RUN apk add --no-cache rustup # [ init system - activate OpenRC ] ENTRYPOINT ["/sbin/init"]
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Docker command line examples:

$ # build in the directory where Dockerfile exists $ docker build . $ # get the image id $ docker image ls  $ # start container $ docker start $IMAGE_ID $ # get the container id $ docker container ls  $ # enter vm $ docker exec -it $CONTAINER_ID sh
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Install Rust via Rustup 

$ doas apk add rustup
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The output was:

fetch https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.17/main/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz fetch https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.17/community/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz (1/6) Installing ca-certificates (20220614-r3) (2/6) Installing brotli-libs (1.0.9-r9) (3/6) Installing nghttp2-libs (1.51.0-r0) (4/6) Installing libcurl (7.87.0-r0) (5/6) Installing libgcc (12.2.1_git20220924-r4) (6/6) Installing rustup (1.25.1-r0) Executing busybox-1.35.0-r29.trigger Executing ca-certificates-20220614-r3.trigger OK: 18 MiB in 24 packages
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Then run:

$ rustup-init
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You will be asked as below. Proceed with the default option:

Welcome to Rust! This will download and install the official compiler for the Rust programming language, and its package manager, Cargo. Rustup metadata and toolchains will be installed into the Rustup home directory, located at: /(...)/.rustup This can be modified with the RUSTUP_HOME environment variable. The Cargo home directory is located at: /(...)/.cargo This can be modified with the CARGO_HOME environment variable. The cargo, rustc, rustup and other commands will be added to Cargo's bin directory, located at: /(...)/.cargo/bin This path will then be added to your PATH environment variable by modifying the profile file located at: /(...)/.profile You can uninstall at any time with rustup self uninstall and these changes will be reverted. Current installation options: default host triple: x86_64-unknown-linux-musl default toolchain: stable (default) profile: default modify PATH variable: yes 1) Proceed with installation (default) 2) Customize installation 3) Cancel installation >
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The output was:

info: profile set to 'default' info: default host triple is x86_64-unknown-linux-musl info: syncing channel updates for 'stable-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl' info: latest update on 2022-12-15, rust version 1.66.0 (69f9c33d7 2022-12-12) info: downloading component 'cargo' (...) info: downloading component 'clippy' (...) info: downloading component 'rust-docs' (...) info: downloading component 'rust-std' (...) info: downloading component 'rustc' (...) info: downloading component 'rustfmt' info: installing component 'cargo' info: installing component 'clippy' info: installing component 'rust-docs' (...) info: installing component 'rust-std' (...) info: installing component 'rustc' (...) info: installing component 'rustfmt' info: default toolchain set to 'stable-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl' stable-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl installed - rustc 1.66.0 (69f9c33d7 2022-12-12) Rust is installed now. Great! To get started you may need to restart your current shell. This would reload your PATH environment variable to include Cargo's bin directory ($HOME/.cargo/bin).  To configure your current shell, run: source "$HOME/.cargo/env"
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Lastly, run to update $PATH:

$ source "$HOME/.cargo/env"
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Now Rust is in your hands :)

Create a cargo project (and building it will fail)

Create an example project:

$ cargo new alpine-rust-example
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The output was:

 Created binary (application) `alpine-rust-example` package
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Enter:

$ cd alpine-rust-example
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Then run:

$ cargo run
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It will fail with:

 Compiling alpine-rust-example v0.1.0 (/(...)/alpine-rust-example) error: linker `cc` not found | = note: No such file or directory (os error 2) error: could not compile `alpine-rust-example` due to previous error
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Fix it

You can fix it by installing build-base package:

# apk add build-base # #apk add gcc # alternative (not recomended)
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The output was:

fetch https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.17/main/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz fetch https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.17/community/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz (1/19) Installing libstdc++ (12.2.1_git20220924-r4) (2/19) Installing binutils (2.39-r2) (3/19) Installing libmagic (5.43-r0) (4/19) Installing file (5.43-r0) (5/19) Installing libgomp (12.2.1_git20220924-r4) (6/19) Installing libatomic (12.2.1_git20220924-r4) (7/19) Installing gmp (6.2.1-r2) (8/19) Installing isl25 (0.25-r0) (9/19) Installing mpfr4 (4.1.0-r0) (10/19) Installing mpc1 (1.2.1-r1) (11/19) Installing gcc (12.2.1_git20220924-r4) (12/19) Installing libstdc++-dev (12.2.1_git20220924-r4) (13/19) Installing musl-dev (1.2.3-r4) (14/19) Installing libc-dev (0.7.2-r3) (15/19) Installing g++ (12.2.1_git20220924-r4) (16/19) Installing make (4.3-r1) (17/19) Installing fortify-headers (1.1-r1) (18/19) Installing patch (2.7.6-r8) (19/19) Installing build-base (0.5-r3) Executing busybox-1.35.0-r29.trigger OK: 254 MiB in 43 packages
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Note: Why build-base instead of gcc

The minimal installation required is just gcc. It's a part of build-base.
gcc may be able to fix the problem in this post.

To install only gcc is, however, not recommended, because either musl-dev or libc-dev will be perhaps necessary in addition soon later.

For example, when building an Actix Web server, which is a Rust web framework using actors communication, build-base must be required.

Conclusion

Let's run cargo run (or cargo build) again:

# cargo run
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Will surely get a little happier :)

 Compiling alpine-rust-example v0.1.0 (/(...)/alpine-rust-example) Finished dev [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 0.15s Running `target/debug/alpine-rust-example` Hello, world!
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