NixOS/patchelf

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

4246 stars · 536 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded

PatchELF is a small command-line utility for modifying ELF executables and libraries, such as changing the dynamic linker (ELF interpreter), RPATH, SONAME, and DT_NEEDED dependencies. It is widely used in packaging workflows, especially by NixOS, to make binaries work in non-standard environments.

Use cases

• change the dynamic linker of an ELF binary
• set or shrink the RPATH of an executable
• add, remove, or replace DT_NEEDED library dependencies
• change the SONAME of a shared library
• make a prebuilt binary work with relocated libraries
• fix binaries for packaging in Nix or custom prefixes

When to choose

• you need to patch ELF binaries without recompiling them
• you are building packages with relocated or isolated library paths
• you want to repoint a binary at a different libc or loader

When to avoid

• you need to patch Mach-O (macOS) or PE (Windows) binaries
• you want a library API rather than a command-line tool
• you need deep binary analysis or disassembly features

Facets

cli-tool · maturity stable

developer-tools build-tool file-system developer-tools operating-systems cli cpp elf binary-patching rpath dynamic-linker nixos linker command-line linux

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