2 versions of libssl on one system

Question

I'm running Debian 8 on a VPS with KVM. I wanted to upgrade libssl to a newer version as required by some scripts, so I recompiled libssl from testing. I was hoping the new version would replace the old one, but the package names being different dpkg -i installed libssl1.0.2 alongside the existing libssl1.0.0, whereas openssl and libssl-dev got updated to 1.0.2. Applications I had installed before seem to be linked to libssl1.0.0, like:

$ ldd /usr/bin/mysql
...
libssl.so.1.0.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libssl.so.1.0.0 (0x00007fe34702a000)
libcrypto.so.1.0.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcrypto.so.1.0.0 (0x00007fe346c2f000)

But on the other hand:

$ openssl version
OpenSSL 1.0.2e 3 Dec 2015

While nothing appears to be broken so far I'm just wondering if it is normal to have 2 versions of libssl on one system. Will it not give this system a headache to have e.g. mariadb use libssl1.0.0 and nginx libssl1.0.2?

Jakub Urbanowicz · Answer

I have done some research. Yes, it is possible to have multiple versions of core libraries, but they have to be controlled, linked, etc by hand. A no-go under normal circumstances and to be avoided if you have choice. Some opinions are to be found here (in English) and here (in Polish). Most people tend to agree that it is better to use Debian Testing rather than maintain core libraries by hand.

Answered by Jakub Urbanowicz on February 18, 2021

2 versions of libssl on one system

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