How to Create an RPM: A practical guide to creating a Linux RPM

91 Pages·2016·1.67 MB·English

by  Parker Steve.

© 2016 Steve Parker, BSc,
RHCE

Copyright © 2016 by Steve Parker. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication or the
information in it may be quoted from or reproduced in any form by means such as
printing, scanning, photocopying or otherwise without prior written permission of the
copyright holder.
Linux® is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries.
Red Hat® is the registered trademark of Red Hat Inc. in the U.S. and other countries.
The RPM Logo on the front cover by Carolingio93 is licensed under the Creative
Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International, 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0
Generic and 1.0 Generic license.
All trademarks are acknowledged as belonging to their respective owners.
Dedicated to my wife, Jackie.

Table of Contents
Formatting Conventions Used in this Book 1
Introduction 3
Why RPM? 4
Metadata 4
YUM 5
Preparation 6
Chapter 1: Preparing to Create RPMs 7
Step 1. Install VirtualBox 7
Step 2. Download Image 7
Step 3. Connect 9
Step 4. Install rpm-build 10
Chapter 2: Creating a Simple (but Useless!) Binary RPM 16
Building the Package (Take 1) 18
Chapter 3: Creating a Useful Binary RPM 21
Licensing 21
Building the Package (Take Two) 23
Adding Some Files 26
Placing the Files 28
Building the Package (Take Three) 29
Don’t Clean Up! 33
Chapter 4: Permissions 36
Chapter 5: Install-time Scripts 38
Preinstall Script 40
Postinstall Script 41
Pre-Uninstall Script 41
Post Uninstall Script 42
Install Count – Upgrading RPMs 43
Chapter 6: ChangeLog 47
Chapter 7: Replacing Configuration Files 51
Chapter 8: There must be an easier way! 54
Appendix A: Importing the OVA Appliance into VirtualBox 57
Appendix B: Configuring a Static IP Address 63
Appendix C: Configuring Repositories for rpm-build 65
Aside: Creating your own Repositories 67
Appendix D: Package Groups 69
Appendix E: Bibliography and Further Reading 71
Thank You! 72
Feedback 73
By The Same Author 74

Formatting Conventions Used in this
Book
The formatting conventions in this book are fairly standard; the main text is in a serif font,
like the text you are currently reading. System files and commands (such as ,
rpmbuild
, and so on) are shown in monospaced font.
/etc/hosts
Output from interactive sessions is show on a light gray background; commands that you
type are in bold text, for example, here you would type “cd” and “mkdir rpmbuild”:
[rpm@packaging ~]$ cd
[rpm@packaging ~]$ mkdir rpmbuild
Callout boxes are shown on a lighter background, with a border, and highlight particular
noteworthy items, including a reminder of where you can download sample files from:
If a line of input is too long to show on the width of the page of a printed book, then a
backslash (\) character is shown to indicate that the command continues onto the next line
(which will be indented). You can either type it in literally as shown, as multiple lines, like
this:
cp my-first-rpm-1.0-1.spec \
~/rpmbuild/SPECS
Or you can remove the backslash ( ) and the line-break, and enter it all one one line, like
\
this:
cp my-first-rpm-1.0-1.spec ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/
You will probably find the second option easier. Any shell you are using will accept either
format.
At times, it can be more clear to display the prompt as a single “ ” symbol, rather than its
$
more usual, but longer format (like “ ”), so instead of this:
[rpm@packaging take3]$