Installer misidentifies glibc Ubuntu as musl when musl tooling is also installed
Nobody has claimed this yet.
Assessment
- Difficulty
- 2/5
- Estimated time
- 1-3 hours
- Newbie friendliness
- 70/100
- Issue type
- Bug
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Activity status
- Active
- Tech stack
- bash
- Domain
- cli
Research direction
Start at the installer’s check_libc function and reproduce the detection on Ubuntu with musl tooling installed. Verify that a positive glibc check takes precedence over musl loader detection, and that running aws update no longer exits with the musl-based Linux error.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Description
Describe the bug
The installer exits "musl-based linux detected" when on a glibc system (Ubuntu LTS)
Expected Behavior
It recognizes that the host uses glibc and updates AWS CLI.
Current Behavior
The installer exits with “musl-based Linux detected.”
Reproduction Steps
- Install Ubuntu's musl package alongside glibc.
- Run
aws update.
Possible Solution
Alter the check_libc function slighty: accept a positive glibc check before looking for musl loader files.
check_libc() {
[ "$PLATFORM" = "linux" ] || return 0
local libc_version
if command -v getconf >/dev/null 2>&1; then
libc_version=$(getconf GNU_LIBC_VERSION 2>/dev/null || true)
case "$libc_version" in
"glibc "*) return 0 ;;
esac
fi
if compgen -G '/lib/ld-musl-*' >/dev/null 2>&1 || \
compgen -G '/lib64/ld-musl-*' >/dev/null 2>&1; then
error 1 "musl-based Linux detected. AWS CLI v2 binaries require glibc; install from source instead."
fi
}
alternatively add a flag to imply "i know what im doing" that short circuits the check to true.
Additional Information/Context
No response
CLI version used
aws-cli/2.36.49 Python/3.14.6 Linux/7.0.0-31-generic exe/x86_64.ubuntu.26
Environment details (OS name and version, etc.)
Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS x86_64
- Dominant language
- Python
- Stars
- 17.3k
- Forks
- 4.7k
- Avg merge
- 1d 7h
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 21
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
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