[Kea-users] kea-dhcp4 service failing to start with 'cannot open shared object file'

[Doug Freed]

On 2/20/26 02:08, duress via Kea-users wrote:
> no problem, thanks for your responses!
> 
> root at diorite:/usr/sbin# kea-dhcp4 -W
>          Kea source configure results:
>       -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> 
>   Package:
>     Name:               kea
>     Version:            3.1.5
>     Extended version:   3.1.5 (tarball)
>     Version type:       development
>     OS Family:          Linux
> 
>     Prefix:             /usr/local
>     Hooks directory:    /usr/local/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/kea/hooks
>     Premium hooks:      no
> 
>   Meson Version:        1.3.2
>   Build Options:
> 
>   C++ Compiler:
>     CXX:                c++
>     CXX_ID:             gcc
>     CXX_VERSION:        c++ (Ubuntu 13.3.0-6ubuntu2~24.04) 13.3.0
>     CXX_STANDARD:       201703
>     CXX_ARGS:           -Wnon-virtual-dtor -Wwrite-strings -Wno-missing- 
> field-initializers -Wshadow
>     LD_ID:              ld.bfd
>     LD_ARGS:
> 
>   Python:
>     PYTHON:             /usr/bin/python3
>     PYTHON_VERSION:     3.12.3
>     PKGPYTHONDIR:       /usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages/kea
> 
>   Boost:                1_83
> 
>   OpenSSL:              OpenSSL 3.0.13 30 Jan 2024
> 
>   Log4cplus:            2.0.8
> 
>   Flex:                 no
>   Bison:                no
> 
>   IO Event Handling:
>     select              yes
>     poll                yes
> 
>   MySQL:                no
> 
>   PostgreSQL:           no
> 
>   Netconf:              no
> 
>   Google Test:          no
> 
>   Kerberos5 GSS-API:    no
> 
>   Developer:
>     Tests:              disabled
>     Fuzzing:            disabled
>     Valgrind:           no
>     AFL:                no

This output, combined with logs you've previously provided, indicates 
you have both Ubuntu's packaged Kea 2.4.1 and a locally compiled Kea 
3.1.5 installed at the same time.  You should pick one and get rid of 
the other to avoid any further confusion.  Your original error message 
was because you were telling Kea 2.4.1 to load hooks from Kea 3.1.5, 
which can never work.

You may want to consider installing from Cloudsmith instead of building 
from source to avoid further issues and ensure you receive updates in a 
timely manner.  See https://kb.isc.org/docs/isc-kea-packages for details.

-Doug