PatchELF is a program that allows the patching of the rpath of a linux binary to be whatever you want, even the printing of it.

Short explanation:

Shared libraries are used in an operating system to allow the easy updating of code and patch fixing to a large group of programs. With static libraries, a patchfix to a library common to many programs would force the recompilation of those programs. A fix to a shared library could go on behind the scenes without these other programs even realising (in the best case!).

To accomodate for this functionality, shared libraries must be located during runtime. There are three ways to do this (in order):

1. System default paths
2. The binaries rpath
3. The LD_LIBRARY_PATH enviroment variable

Libraries found in stage 3 will override libraries found in stage 2 and the same for 2->1. Because of this overriding, the LD_LIBRARY_PATH method is very dangerous, as the user can accidentally change this and cause many programs to break.

As far as the sysadmin is concerned, the best way to install new software is to update the local database which contains the system default paths, but for the developer who wishes to compile their own programs, option 2 is the best.

See my previous post to see how to do this at compile time, but say while developing a piece of software, you want to see what these paths are or change them. This is where PatchELF comes in handy. It allows the printing of the rpath variable or setting it to a completely new location (eg. for testing against a custom version of the system libraries).  It even allows the changing of the system default path interpreter.

For more information see this very informative post.