Build rpm packages with the rpmbuild command
This article is about how to build rpm packages with the rpmbuild command and a SPEC file. The example is based on SuSE 11.3 x86_64. However, other distributions should work same or similar. In this article, we will create a program that outputs "hello world", add a makefile to build it, and create a SPEC file to package the software as an RPM file.
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The Makefile
To build our program, we need a makefile. Here is how we create it:
cat >Makefile <<EOF
all:hello
hello: main.c
gcc main.c -o hello
install: hello
mkdir -p \${prefix}/usr/local/bin
cp hello \${prefix}/usr/local/bin
EOF
sed -i "s/ /\t/g" Makefile
The SPEC file
The SPEC file is needed to create an RPM package out of your software. It will be named hello.spec and reside in the folder /root/hello-1.0. Create it like this:
cat >hello.spec<<EOF Summary: hello greets the world Name: hello Version: 1.0 Release: 1 License: GPL Group: Applications/Tutorials Source: hello.tar.gz URL: http://www.staerk.de/thorsten/ Distribution: SUSE Linux Vendor: - Packager: Thorsten Staerk %description hello greets the world %prep %setup %build make %install make install prefix=\$RPM_BUILD_ROOT %files %defattr(-, root, root) "/usr/local/bin/hello" EOF
License is a free-text field. You can enter what you want. Same goes for Group. Source is the file that will be stored in /usr/src/packages/SOURCES.
Build the rpm
Now we have the SPEC file and the software. First we store the source in the "appropriate" place:
cd tar cvzf hello.tar.gz hello-1.0 cp hello.tar.gz /usr/src/packages/SOURCES
Then, build it with the command
rpmbuild -ba hello-1.0/hello.spec
You will find your ready RPM under /usr/src/packages/RPMS.
Test the rpm
- let's see if the RPM really exists
# ll /usr/src/packages/RPMS/x86_64/ total 8 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4856 Feb 13 17:03 hello-1.0-1.x86_64.rpm
- let's install it
# rpm -ivh /usr/src/packages/RPMS/x86_64/hello-1.0-1.x86_64.rpm Preparing... ########################################### [100%] 1:hello ########################################### [100%]
- list what files it contains
# rpm -ql hello /usr/local/bin/hello
- find out if it remembers the information we gave it
# rpm -qi hello Name : hello Relocations: (not relocatable) Version : 1.0 Vendor: - Release : 1 Build Date: Sun Feb 13 17:03:57 2011 Install Date: Sun Feb 13 17:21:42 2011 Build Host: tweedleburg.site Group : Applications/Tutorials Source RPM: hello-1.0-1.src.rpm Size : 11847 License: GPL Signature : (none) Packager : Thorsten Staerk URL : http://www.staerk.de/thorsten/ Summary : hello greets the world Description : hello greets the world Distribution: SUSE Linux
- let's see if we can remove it
# ll /usr/local/bin/hello -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 11847 Feb 13 17:03 /usr/local/bin/hello # rpm -e hello # ll /usr/local/bin/hello ls: cannot access /usr/local/bin/hello: No such file or directory
- yes we can :)
Clean up
To clean up, run
rm /usr/src/packages/SOURCES/hello.tar.gz rm -rf /usr/src/packages/BUILD/hello-1.0
