Build a RPM

Previously Linux programs used to come in source code with all files, configuration stuff so that the user has to build them to work. Now days they are coming in the form of packages which ship ready for installation. We just need to download the RPM and install that into the system using the package management tools like RPM and YUM. For more details see here.

In this article we will see how we can build a Sample RPM in Linux.

1. For building RPM we need the following tools rpmdevtools, rpm-build and make. In order to install them use

yum install rpmdevtools rpm-build make

2. Lets create our sample project. We will create a Sample Shell file which will be installed as a part of the RPM. For this

mkdir hello

touch hello/hello.sh

Create a tar for the directory

tar czvf SOURCES/hello.tar.gz hello/

hello/

hello/hello.sh

3. Create the RPM directory Structure using

rpmdev-setuptree

4. Once the command is executed we can see a rpmdbuild directory created in the home location. It looks as

[oracle@localhost ~]# ls -l rpmbuild/

total 20

drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 Oct  8 19:58 BUILD

drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 Oct  8 19:58 RPMS

drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 Oct  8 19:58 SOURCES

drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 Oct  8 19:58 SPECS

drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 Oct  8 19:58 SRPMS

5. Copy the hello.tar.gz to the ~/rpmbuild/SOURCES location

6. Now in order to create a RPM file we need a Spec file which describes the process to build, install the sources. For creating a Spec file use,

rpmdev-newspec  ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/hello.spec

7. Now we can see the hello.spec file in the SPECS directory.

The stages of the Spec File include

Stages:

● Preamble

● Setup

● Build

● Install

● Clean

● Files

● Changelog

Preamble: This is the initial section which defines package characteristics, name, version, group, license, Build, Install, Summery, description and release information

Setup: In the setup stage, the source tree are generated, unpacked and patches are applied. All Pre-build actions are performed here.

Build: the Build stage makes sure all the necessary binaries are created.

Install: In the install stage,  the buildroot is created , the file system is set  ,Puts built files in buildroot and also Cleans up unnecessary installed files

Clean: the buildroot set in the previous stage is removed at this point.

Changelog: the change log allows for auditing and also used to track package changes.

8. After making some necessary changes to the hello.spec file, the final version looks as

Name:           hello

Version:        1

Release:        1%{?dist}

Summary:        Hello Program

Group:      Utilities

License:    GPL   

Source:  %{name}.tar.gz     

BuildRoot:      %{_tmppath}/%{name}-%{version}-%{release}

%description

Test Program For Build

%prep

%setup -n hello

%install

mkdir -p "$RPM_BUILD_ROOT/opt/hello"

cp -R * "$RPM_BUILD_ROOT/opt/hello"

%clean

rm -rf $RPM_BUILD_ROOT

%files

/opt/hello

9. Once the file changes are done, run the rpmbuild command as

[oracle@localhost SPECS]$ rpmbuild -bb -v hello.spec

Executing(%prep): /bin/sh -e /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.7hgZ7L

+ umask 022

+ cd /home/oracle/rpmbuild/BUILD

+ LANG=C

+ export LANG

+ unset DISPLAY

+ cd /home/oracle/rpmbuild/BUILD

+ rm -rf hello

+ /usr/bin/gzip -dc /home/oracle/rpmbuild/SOURCES/hello.tar.gz

+ /bin/tar -xvvf -

drwxr-xr-x oracle/oinstall   0 2014-10-08 21:24 hello/

-rw-r--r-- oracle/oinstall  39 2014-10-08 21:24 hello/hello.sh

+ STATUS=0

+ '[' 0 -ne 0 ']'

+ cd hello

+ /bin/chmod -Rf a+rX,u+w,g-w,o-w .

+ exit 0

Executing(%install): /bin/sh -e /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.AL04Os

+ umask 022

+ cd /home/oracle/rpmbuild/BUILD

+ '[' /home/oracle/rpmbuild/BUILDROOT/hello-1-1.el6.x86_64 '!=' / ']'

+ rm -rf /home/oracle/rpmbuild/BUILDROOT/hello-1-1.el6.x86_64

++ dirname /home/oracle/rpmbuild/BUILDROOT/hello-1-1.el6.x86_64

+ mkdir -p /home/oracle/rpmbuild/BUILDROOT

+ mkdir /home/oracle/rpmbuild/BUILDROOT/hello-1-1.el6.x86_64

+ cd hello

+ LANG=C

+ export LANG

+ unset DISPLAY

+ mkdir -p /home/oracle/rpmbuild/BUILDROOT/hello-1-1.el6.x86_64/opt/hello

+ cp -R hello.sh /home/oracle/rpmbuild/BUILDROOT/hello-1-1.el6.x86_64/opt/hello

+ /usr/lib/rpm/check-rpaths /usr/lib/rpm/check-buildroot

+ /usr/lib/rpm/redhat/brp-compress

+ /usr/lib/rpm/redhat/brp-strip /usr/bin/strip

+ /usr/lib/rpm/redhat/brp-strip-static-archive /usr/bin/strip

+ /usr/lib/rpm/redhat/brp-strip-comment-note /usr/bin/strip /usr/bin/objdump

+ /usr/lib/rpm/brp-python-bytecompile

+ /usr/lib/rpm/redhat/brp-python-hardlink

+ /usr/lib/rpm/redhat/brp-java-repack-jars

Processing files: hello-1-1.el6.x86_64

Requires(rpmlib): rpmlib(CompressedFileNames) <= 3.0.4-1 rpmlib(FileDigests) <= 4.6.0-1 rpmlib(PayloadFilesHavePrefix) <= 4.0-1

Checking for unpackaged file(s): /usr/lib/rpm/check-files /home/oracle/rpmbuild/BUILDROOT/hello-1-1.el6.x86_64

Wrote: /home/oracle/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64/hello-1-1.el6.x86_64.rpm

Executing(%clean): /bin/sh -e /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.5cV57Q

+ umask 022

+ cd /home/oracle/rpmbuild/BUILD

+ cd hello

+ rm -rf /home/oracle/rpmbuild/BUILDROOT/hello-1-1.el6.x86_64

+ exit 0

10. Now the build is executed with no issues. If we check the files in the RPMS location we can see

[oracle@localhost rpmbuild]$ cd RPMS/

[oracle@localhost RPMS]$ ll

drwxr-xr-x. 2 oracle oinstall 4096 Oct  8 21:37 x86_64

[oracle@localhost RPMS]$ cd x86_64/

[oracle@localhost x86_64]$ ll

-rw-r--r--. 1 oracle oinstall 2196 Oct  8 21:37 hello-1-1.el6.x86_64.rpm

11. Now in order to install the RPM created we can use

[root@localhost x86_64]# rpm -ivh hello-1-1.el6.x86_64.rpm

Preparing... ########################################### [100%]

   1:hello    ########################################### [100%]

12. In order to make sure the rpm is installed use,

[root@localhost x86_64]# rpm -q hello

hello-1-1.el6.x86_64

Happy learning, more to come