rust-lang / rust-lang/rust

rust-analyzer settings should unset LD_LIBRARY_PATH

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C-bug T-bootstrap
Dominant language
Rust
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Description

Summary

x check rebuilds rustc_llvm frequently because LD_LIBRARY_PATH is set by rustup when running rust-analyzer.

I noticed that x check was rebuilding rustc_llvm basically every time I modified a source file. I tracked this down to the following env variable change:

cargo::core::compiler::fingerprint:     dirty: EnvVarChanged { name: "REAL_LIBRARY_PATH", old_value: Some("/home/jyn/.local/lib/rustup/toolchains/nightly-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/lib"), new_value: None }

The problem was that I had installed rust-analyzer from rustup, not as a standalone tool. As a result, rustup sets
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$(rustc --print target-libdir) in the environment under the assumption that rust-analyzer needs it to link to rustc_private crates. This can in fact happen; see https://github.com/rust-lang/rustup/issues/4245#issuecomment-2712693006.

To avoid this, we should add rust-analyzer.cargo.extraEnv = { LD_LIBRARY_PATH = null } to the default settings. That unsets it only for commands spawned by rust-analyzer, while keeping direct invocations of x the same.

Command used
x check compiler
Bootstrap configuration (bootstrap.toml)
profile = "compiler"
change-id = 137170

[rust]
deny-warnings = false
Operating system

PopOS 22.04 (Ubuntu derivative)

HEAD

i'm currently on fedf10752b9. i don't remember what commit i was on when i first saw this bug; i assume it is still present.

Additional context

; rustup which rust-analyzer
/home/jyn/.local/lib/rustup/toolchains/nightly-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/bin/rust-analyzer
; rust-analyzer --version
rust-analyzer 1.87.0-nightly (43f0014 2025-03-25)

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the rust-analyzer default settings and the bootstrap.toml configuration, then reproduce the behavior with x check compiler. Confirm that commands spawned by rust-analyzer no longer inherit LD_LIBRARY_PATH and that direct invocations of x remain unchanged.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
tooling
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

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