#rpmbuild

Build RPMs of CPAN Modules

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you probably already know that I have an interest in building RPMs of CPAN modules. I run a small RPM repository where I make available all of the RPMs that I have build for myself. These will either be modules that aren’t available in other RPM repositories or modules where I wanted a newer version than the currently available one. I’m happy to take…

this one is a little bit complicated, but then after you do it, you'll think it's not that complicated

redhat comes with a utility called rpmbuild, which you can use to build an RPM. but you need to set up a bunch of things first for it all to work

the first thing you need to do is create an environment and specify the build area so that rpmbuild knows where to do its thing its best to do this as a non-root user

$ mkdir -p ~/rpmbuild/{RPMS,SRPMS,BUILD,SOURCES,SPECS} $ echo '%_topdir %(echo $HOME)/rpmbuild' > ~/.rpmmacros

the directory structure should look like

. ├── .rpmmacros ├── rpmbuild ├── BUILD ├── SPECS ├── SOURCES ├── RPMS └── SRPMS

SOURCES is where you put your source files SPECS is where you put your spec file. these are your instructions for how you want rpmbuild to build the rpm BUILD is the temporary space where rpmbuild combines your source files into an RPM RPMS is where rpmbuild spits out the final RPM SRPMS are source RPMs that you can use instead of SOURCES (i think)

the .rpmmacros file contains global macros, which are essentially variables you can pass to your rpmbuild. there are built-in macros like

%_prefix /usr %_sysconfdir /etc %_localstatedir /var %_infodir /usr/share/info %_mandir /usr/share/man %_initrddir %{_sysconfdir}/rc.d/init.d %_defaultdocdir %{_usr}/share/doc

and you can define your own like

#%define macro_name value %define major 2 # Accessing macro %{major}

the second thing to do is to put your source file(s) into SOURCES

the third thing to do is to create a spec file

$ vim ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/package.spec

%define __spec_install_post %{nil} %define debug_package %{nil} %define __os_install_post %{_dbpath}/brp-compress Summary: A very simple rpm package Name: package Version: 1.0 Release: 1 License: MIT Group: Development/Tools SOURCE0 : %{name}-%{version}.zip BuildRoot: %{_tmppath}/%{name}-%{version}-%{release}-root %description %{summary} %prep unzip %{SOURCE0} %build # empty section. %install # should reflect how directories will actually look, but must be done within the buildroot rm -rf %{buildroot} mkdir -p %{buildroot} cp -a * %{buildroot} %clean rm -rf %{buildroot} %files # set permissions on the files/directories created # %defattr(<file mode>, <user>, <group>, <dir mode>) # %attr(<mode>, <user>, <group>) file %defattr(-,root,root,-) # next indicates that the file in the package should be installed with extension .rpmnew if there is already a modified file with the same name on the installed machine %config(noreplace) %{_sysconfdir}/%{name}/%{name}.conf # this is the standard place to put binaries, relative to the build root %{_bindir}/* %changelog * Aug 27 2015 First Build EOF

as you can see, getting the spec file right is the most important step as it is basically the template for where you want files to be put when you install the rpm and what permissions and behaviour should follow

once you are ready, the last step is to actually run rpmbuild

$ rpmbuild -ba ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/package.spec # you can provide arguments too $ rpmbuild -ba --define "macro_name value" ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/package.spec

if all goes well, you'll have a shiny new rpm in the RPMS directory that you can take and install with

Resolved: Can one require "this OR that" package in an RPM spec file? #development #dev #programming

Can one require "this OR that" package in an RPM spec file?

Does anyone know how to (or whether one can) specify an alternate requirement or set of requirements in a spec file, as opposed to a single requirement?

For example, say there are two packages available, conveniently named foo-bar and bar-foo. My package requires one of these but not both, and I don’t care which one is present. At…

Answer: Creating symlink in /usr/bin when creating an RPM #fix #it #programming

Creating symlink in /usr/bin when creating an RPM

I’m creating an RPM for an application that doesn’t already have one. I’ve got it building and installing fine in the /opt directory using $RPM_BUILD_ROOT, but I would also like to create a couple symlinks in /usr/binso that the application is available on the path. All of my attempts to do this have yielded “permission denied” errors because I’m…

Annotated spec file