v1.0.46 fails to start MCP server on Ubuntu 20.04

[jochemste]

Describe the bug

When upgrading to v1.0.46 on my ubuntu 20.04 machine, I noticed that the MCP servers don't start anymore. After investigating, this seems to be because the runtime (native/runtime/runtime.linux-x64-gnu.node) is compiled for glibc 2.33 or later, but Ubuntu 20.04 only ships with 2.31.

I used a different copilot on a different machine to solve the problem, which did the following:

_1. ELF-patched 4 .node files to remove the VERNEED version requirements for GLIBC_2.33/GLIBC_2.34 (using a Python script + patchelf --clear-symbol-version), and added libpthread.so.0/libdl.so.2 to their NEEDED entries where required
2. Built /home/user/.local/lib/glibc_compat.so — a small C shim that exposes stat64/fstat64 as public symbols (wrapping glibc
2.31's internal __xstat64/_fxstat64)
3. Replaced /home/user/.local/bin/copilot with a wrapper script that sets LD_PRELOAD=glibc_compat.so before launching copilot.bin

Affected version

Github Copilot CLI 1.0.46

Steps to reproduce the behavior

1. Fire up a Ubuntu 20.04
2. Install copilot 1.0.46 (maybe latest as well?)
3. Start copilot and observe error messages about MCP server failing to start due to some npm issue (a bit misleading).

Expected behavior

No response

Additional context

No response

[MinhThang03]

I’m encountering the exact same issue on Ubuntu 20.04. The glibc version mismatch (requiring 2.33+ while 20.04 only provides 2.31) is breaking the MCP servers after the v1.0.46 update. It would be great if the binaries could be compiled against an older glibc version for better compatibility with LTS releases.

[IrynaKulakova]

Investigation Results

Reproduced on v1.0.63 using docker run --platform linux/amd64 ubuntu:20.04 (glibc 2.31).

Root Cause

The CLI build pipeline (cli-build-executables.yml in copilot-agent-runtime) compiles first-party napi-rs addons (runtime.node, cli-native.node) against a glibc 2.28 sysroot — those are fine. However, third-party npm packages ship pre-compiled .node binaries that bypass this sysroot and are copied as-is into the distribution by esbuild.

The existing verify-glibc-requirements.sh CI gate only checks src/runtime and src/native, missing the third-party binaries entirely.

Affected Binaries

Binary	Package	Required glibc	Offending symbols
computer.node	@github/computer-use-mcp	2.33 / 2.34	stat, pthread_cond_clockwait
pv_recorder.node	@picovoice/pvrecorder-node	2.34	dlopen
foundry_local_napi.node	foundry-local-sdk	2.34	dlopen, dlsym, dlclose

Core binaries (runtime.node, cli-native.node, pty.node, keytar.node) only need GLIBC_2.3.x — the CLI itself starts, but features depending on the above packages fail on systems with glibc < 2.33.

Fix Path

1. CI gate: Extend verify-glibc-requirements.sh to also scan dist-cli/prebuilds/linux-{x64,arm64}/ and externalized package directories (dist-cli/clipboard, dist-cli/foundry-local-sdk, dist-cli/pvrecorder) after the SEA build.
2. Upstream packages: The third-party packages need to be recompiled against an older glibc (≤ 2.28), or the CLI needs graceful degradation when these optional .node files fail to load.