Found this old bug report on Debian - don't know if it is helpful. Also had an old backup of my VPS from with Mariadb 5.3 and libmysqlclient16 (worked fine then - no errors with exim4) and loaded it up and did an objdump -p on libmysqlclient16. Then retarted system using current debian wheezy installation and did an objdump -p on the libmysqlclient18. Seems VERDEF and VERDEFNUM are missing from libmysqlclient18. I included both objdump outputs below. Also this section is present in libmysqlclient16 and there is no section like this in libmysqlclient18:
Version definitions:
1 0x01 0x0c4ff676 libmysqlclient.so.16
2 0x00 0x0f735336 libmysqlclient_16
Not sure if that's helpful or not.
Terry
libmysqlclient.so.16: file format elf32-i386
Program Header:
LOAD off 0x00000000 vaddr 0x00000000 paddr 0x00000000 align 2**12
filesz 0x00164978 memsz 0x00164978 flags r-x
LOAD off 0x00164d8c vaddr 0x00165d8c paddr 0x00165d8c align 2**12
filesz 0x0000c5b8 memsz 0x0000d3c4 flags rw-
DYNAMIC off 0x001684cc vaddr 0x001694cc paddr 0x001694cc align 2**2
filesz 0x00000130 memsz 0x00000130 flags rw-
NOTE off 0x00000114 vaddr 0x00000114 paddr 0x00000114 align 2**2
filesz 0x00000024 memsz 0x00000024 flags r--
EH_FRAME off 0x001648b0 vaddr 0x001648b0 paddr 0x001648b0 align 2**2
filesz 0x0000002c memsz 0x0000002c flags r--
STACK off 0x00000000 vaddr 0x00000000 paddr 0x00000000 align 2**2
filesz 0x00000000 memsz 0x00000000 flags rw-
RELRO off 0x00164d8c vaddr 0x00165d8c paddr 0x00165d8c align 2**0
filesz 0x00004274 memsz 0x00004274 flags r--
Dynamic Section:
NEEDED libdl.so.2
NEEDED libcrypt.so.1
NEEDED libnsl.so.1
NEEDED libm.so.6
NEEDED libssl.so.0.9.8
NEEDED libcrypto.so.0.9.8
NEEDED libz.so.1
NEEDED librt.so.1
NEEDED libc.so.6
SONAME libmysqlclient.so.16
INIT 0x00011064
FINI 0x00054f48
HASH 0x00000138
GNU_HASH 0x00001884
STRTAB 0x00006de4
SYMTAB 0x00003164
STRSZ 0x00003dc7
SYMENT 0x00000010
PLTGOT 0x001695fc
PLTRELSZ 0x00000e20
PLTREL 0x00000011
JMPREL 0x00010244
REL 0x0000b4a4
RELSZ 0x00004da0
RELENT 0x00000008
VERDEF 0x0000b33c
VERDEFNUM 0x00000002
BIND_NOW 0x00000000
FLAGS_1 0x00000001
VERNEED 0x0000b374
VERNEEDNUM 0x00000006
VERSYM 0x0000abac
RELCOUNT 0x000005cb
Version definitions:
1 0x01 0x0c4ff676 libmysqlclient.so.16
2 0x00 0x0f735336 libmysqlclient_16
Version References:
required from librt.so.1:
0x0d696912 0x00 12 GLIBC_2.2
required from libm.so.6:
0x0d696910 0x00 10 GLIBC_2.0
required from libdl.so.2:
0x0d696911 0x00 11 GLIBC_2.1
0x0d696910 0x00 09 GLIBC_2.0
required from libcrypto.so.0.9.8:
0x06692428 0x00 05 OPENSSL_0.9.8
required from libssl.so.0.9.8:
0x06692428 0x00 04 OPENSSL_0.9.8
required from libc.so.6:
0x09691f73 0x00 15 GLIBC_2.1.3
0x09691f72 0x00 14 GLIBC_2.1.2
0x0d696914 0x00 13 GLIBC_2.4
0x0d696912 0x00 08 GLIBC_2.2
0x09691974 0x00 07 GLIBC_2.3.4
0x0d696911 0x00 06 GLIBC_2.1
0x0d696910 0x00 03 GLIBC_2.0
libmysqlclient.so.18: file format elf32-i386
Program Header:
LOAD off 0x00000000 vaddr 0x00000000 paddr 0x00000000 align 2**12
filesz 0x002cdc58 memsz 0x002cdc58 flags r-x
LOAD off 0x002ce528 vaddr 0x002ce528 paddr 0x002ce528 align 2**12
filesz 0x00012184 memsz 0x00015324 flags rw-
DYNAMIC off 0x002d22cc vaddr 0x002d22cc paddr 0x002d22cc align 2**2
filesz 0x00000140 memsz 0x00000140 flags rw-
NOTE off 0x00000114 vaddr 0x00000114 paddr 0x00000114 align 2**2
filesz 0x00000024 memsz 0x00000024 flags r--
EH_FRAME off 0x002c013c vaddr 0x002c013c paddr 0x002c013c align 2**2
filesz 0x00001eec memsz 0x00001eec flags r--
STACK off 0x00000000 vaddr 0x00000000 paddr 0x00000000 align 2**2
filesz 0x00000000 memsz 0x00000000 flags rw-
RELRO off 0x002ce528 vaddr 0x002ce528 paddr 0x002ce528 align 2**0
filesz 0x00004ad8 memsz 0x00004ad8 flags r--
Dynamic Section:
NEEDED libpthread.so.0
NEEDED libz.so.1
NEEDED libssl.so.1.0.0
NEEDED libcrypto.so.1.0.0
NEEDED libdl.so.2
NEEDED librt.so.1
NEEDED libstdc++.so.6
NEEDED libm.so.6
NEEDED libc.so.6
SONAME libmysqlclient.so.18
INIT 0x00015ad8
FINI 0x0005dd18
INIT_ARRAY 0x002ce528
INIT_ARRAYSZ 0x00000004
FINI_ARRAY 0x002ce52c
FINI_ARRAYSZ 0x00000004
HASH 0x00000138
GNU_HASH 0x0000229c
STRTAB 0x00008230
SYMTAB 0x00003d30
STRSZ 0x00004ed8
SYMENT 0x00000010
PLTGOT 0x002d240c
PLTRELSZ 0x00000f10
PLTREL 0x00000011
JMPREL 0x00014bc8
REL 0x0000daf8
RELSZ 0x000070d0
RELENT 0x00000008
BIND_NOW 0x00000000
FLAGS_1 0x00000001
VERNEED 0x0000d9a8
VERNEEDNUM 0x00000006
VERSYM 0x0000d108
RELCOUNT 0x0000084e
Version References:
required from librt.so.1:
0x0d696912 0x00 12 GLIBC_2.2
required from libcrypto.so.1.0.0:
0x066a2b20 0x00 11 OPENSSL_1.0.0
required from libdl.so.2:
0x0d696910 0x00 14 GLIBC_2.0
0x0d696911 0x00 09 GLIBC_2.1
required from libpthread.so.0:
0x0d696912 0x00 10 GLIBC_2.2
0x0d696911 0x00 08 GLIBC_2.1
0x0d696910 0x00 05 GLIBC_2.0
0x09691972 0x00 04 GLIBC_2.3.2
required from libc.so.6:
0x0d696912 0x00 16 GLIBC_2.2
0x0d696914 0x00 15 GLIBC_2.4
0x0d696911 0x00 13 GLIBC_2.1
0x09691f73 0x00 07 GLIBC_2.1.3
0x0d696910 0x00 06 GLIBC_2.0
0x09691974 0x00 03 GLIBC_2.3.4
required from libssl.so.1.0.0:
0x066a2b20 0x00 02 OPENSSL_1.0.0
just to double-check, you have use our deb packages from our apt repository - correct? Not a binary tarball of mariadb?