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.
Hello! baedfdf interesting baedfdf site! I'm really like it! Very, very baedfdf good!
Very nice site!
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
