5 min read

On Creating RPM Packages

July 6, 2023

The rpmdev-newspec tool will create a base spec file. You’ll have to customize this with your package name and version, license, files included in the package, et al., but it does give you a template you can work with:

$ rpmdev-newspec asbits
asbits.spec created; type minimal, rpm version >= 4.11.

The rpmdev-setuptree utility will create an RPM build tree within a user’s home directory. Its subdirectories such as RPMS and SRPMS will eventually contain the binary and source packages, respectively:

$ rpmdev-setuptree
$ tree rpmbuild/
rpmbuild/
├── BUILD
├── RPMS
├── SOURCES
├── SPECS
└── SRPMS

5 directories, 0 files

What does a complete SPEC file look like? Well, it depends on the project. My wee little project asbits has a very simple SPEC file that looks like this:

$ cat asbits.spec
Name:           asbits
Version:        1.0.0
Release:        1%{?dist}
Summary:        Displays hexadecimal, decimal and octal numbers in binary

License:        GPLv3+
URL:            https://benjamintoll.com/
Source0:        https://github.com/btoll/tools/blob/master/c/%{name}/%{name}-%{version}.tar.gz

BuildRequires:  gcc
BuildRequires:  make

%description
Displays hexadecimal, decimal and octal numbers in binary

%prep
%setup -q

%build
make %{?_smp_mflags}

%install
%make_install

%files
%license LICENSE
%{_bindir}/%{name}
%doc

%changelog
* Tue May 30 2023 Benjamin Toll <ben@benjamintoll.com> - 1.0.0-1
- First asbits package

The tarball that you create that holds the source code must have a LICENSE file or the package devtools will complain and fail to build.

$ mkdir /tmp/asbits-1.0.0
$ find -maxdepth 1 -type f -not -name ".*" -exec cp {} /tmp/asbits-1.0.0/ \;
$ cd /tmp
$ tar -cvzf asbits-1.0.0.tar.gz asbits-1.0.0/
asbits-1.0.0/
asbits-1.0.0/asbits.c
asbits-1.0.0/asbits.h
asbits-1.0.0/Makefile
asbits-1.0.0/LICENSE
$ mv asbits-1.0.0.tar.gz ~/rpmbuild/SOURCES/
$ cd
$ mv asbits.spec rpmbuild/SPECS/
$ tree rpmbuild/
rpmbuild/
├── BUILD
├── RPMS
├── SOURCES
│   └── asbits-1.0.0.tar.gz
├── SPECS
│   └── asbits.spec
└── SRPMS

5 directories, 2 files

Let’s build both the SRPM (source RPM) and the binary RPM:

$ rpmbuild -bs rpmbuild/SPECS/asbits.spec
Wrote: /home/vagrant/rpmbuild/SRPMS/asbits-1.0.0-1.el7.src.rpm
tree rpmbuild/
rpmbuild/
├── BUILD
├── BUILDROOT
├── RPMS
├── SOURCES
│   └── asbits-1.0.0.tar.gz
├── SPECS
│   └── asbits.spec
└── SRPMS
    └── asbits-1.0.0-1.el7.src.rpm

    6 directories, 3 files
$
$ rpmbuild --rebuild rpmbuild/SRPMS/asbits-1.0.0-1.el7.src.rpm
tree rpmbuild/
rpmbuild/
├── BUILD
├── BUILDROOT
├── RPMS
│   └── x86_64
│       ├── asbits-1.0.0-1.el7.x86_64.rpm
│       └── asbits-debuginfo-1.0.0-1.el7.x86_64.rpm
├── SOURCES
├── SPECS
└── SRPMS
    └── asbits-1.0.0-1.el7.src.rpm

    7 directories, 3 files

This removed the SPEC file. Invoking rpmbuild --rebuild involves:

  • Installing the contents of the SRPM - the SPEC file and the source code - into the ~/rpmbuild/ directory.
  • Building using the installed contents.
  • Removing the SPEC file and the source code.

You can retain the SPEC file and the source code after building. For this, you have two options:

  • When building, use the --recompile option instead of --rebuild.
  • Install the SRPM using this command: 
    $ rpm -Uvh ~/rpmbuild/SRPMS/asbits-1.0.0-1.el7.src.rpm

Specifying the --recompile flag created this directory tree:

$ tree rpmbuild
rpmbuild/
├── BUILD│   └── asbits-1.0.0
│       ├── asbits
│       ├── asbits.c
│       ├── asbits.h
│       ├── debugfiles.list
│       ├── debuglinks.list
│       ├── debugsources.list
│       ├── elfbins.list
│       ├── LICENSE
│       └── Makefile
├── BUILDROOT
│   └── asbits-1.0.0-1.el7.x86_64
│       └── usr
│           ├── bin
│           │   └── asbits
│           ├── lib
│           │   └── debug
│           │       └── usr
│           │           └── bin
│           │               └── asbits.debug
│           ├── share
│           │   └── licenses
│           │       └── asbits-1.0.0
│           │           └── LICENSE
│           └── src
│               └── debug
│                   └── asbits-1.0.0
│                       ├── asbits.c
│                       └── asbits.h
├── RPMS
│   └── x86_64
│       ├── asbits-1.0.0-1.el7.x86_64.rpm
│       └── asbits-debuginfo-1.0.0-1.el7.x86_64.rpm
├── SOURCES
│   └── asbits-1.0.0.tar.gz
├── SPECS
│   └── asbits.spec
└── SRPMS
    └── asbits-1.0.0-1.el7.src.rpm

21 directories, 19 files

You can also build the binary RPM using the -bb flag (build binary), which doesn’t do the steps above that are initiated by doing --rebuild, that is, it won’t remove the SPEC file and the tarball in rpmbuild/SOURCES:

$ rpmbuild -bb rpmbuild/SPECS/asbits.spec
$ tree rpmbuild/
rpmbuild/
├── BUILD
│   └── asbits-1.0.0
│       ├── asbits
│       ├── asbits.c
│       ├── asbits.h
│       ├── debugfiles.list
│       ├── debuglinks.list
│       ├── debugsources.list
│       ├── elfbins.list
│       ├── LICENSE
│       └── Makefile
├── BUILDROOT
├── RPMS
│   └── x86_64
│       ├── asbits-1.0.0-1.el7.x86_64.rpm
│       └── asbits-debuginfo-1.0.0-1.el7.x86_64.rpm
├── SOURCES
│   └── asbits-1.0.0.tar.gz
├── SPECS
│   └── asbits.spec
└── SRPMS
    └── asbits-1.0.0-1.el7.src.rpm

8 directories, 14 files

Here is the new package:

asbits-1.0.0-1.el7.x86_64.rpm

$ rpm -qlp rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64/asbits-1.0.0-1.el7.x86_64.rpm
/usr/bin/asbits
/usr/share/licenses/asbits-1.0.0
/usr/share/licenses/asbits-1.0.0/LICENSE

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Let’s verify it!

$ rpmlint rpmbuild/SPECS/asbits.spec
0 packages and 1 specfiles checked; 0 errors, 0 warnings.
$ rpmlint rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64/asbits-1.0.0-1.el7.x86_64.rpm
asbits.x86_64: W: no-documentation
asbits.x86_64: W: no-manual-page-for-binary asbits
1 packages and 0 specfiles checked; 0 errors, 2 warnings.

When binary RPMs are checked rpmlint will check for:

  • documentation
  • manual pages
  • consistent use of the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard

Let’s install it!

$ asbits
-bash: asbits: command not found
$ sudo rpm -i rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64/asbits-1.0.0-1.el7.x86_64.rpm
[vagrant@localhost ~]$ asbits 255
0000 0000 1111 1111
$

How to expand the macros?

$ rpmspec -P rpmbuild/SPECS/asbits.spec
Name:           asbits
Version:        1.0.0
Release:        1.el7
Summary:        Displays hexadecimal, decimal and octal numbers in binary

License:        GPLv3+
URL:            https://benjamintoll.com/
Source0:        https://github.com/btoll/tools/blob/master/c/asbits/asbits-1.0.0.tar.gz

BuildRequires:  gcc
BuildRequires:  make

%description
Displays hexadecimal, decimal and octal numbers in binary

%prep
%setup -q

%build
make -j3


%package debuginfo
Summary: Debug information for package asbits
Group: Development/Debug
AutoReqProv: 0
%description debuginfo
This package provides debug information for package asbits.
Debug information is useful when developing applications that use this
package or when debugging this package.
%files debuginfo -f debugfiles.list
%defattr(-,root,root)

%install

rm -rf $RPM_BUILD_ROOT
/usr/bin/make install DESTDIR=/home/vagrant/rpmbuild/BUILDROOT/asbits-1.0.0-1.el7.x86_64

%files
%license LICENSE
/usr/bin/asbits
%doc

%changelog
* Mon May 29 2023 Benjamin Toll <ben@benjamintoll.com> - 1.0.0-1
- First asbits package

Print a list of all of the tags rpm knows about:

$ rpm --querytags
  • new edits
%install
mkdir -p %{buildroot}/%{_bindir}
install -m 0755 %{name} %{buildroot}%{_bindir}/%{name}

Name:           simple-chat
Version:        1.0.0
Release:        1%{?dist}
Summary:        Here be a simple chat server!

License:        GPLv3+
URL:            https://benjamintoll.com/
Source0:        https://github.com/btoll/simple-chat/releases/download/1.0.0/%{name}-%{version}.tar.gz

BuildRequires:  gcc
Requires:       make

%description
Here be a simple chat server!

%prep
%setup -q

%build
make %{?_smp_mflags}

%install
%make_install

%files
%license LICENSE
%{_bindir}/%{name}
%doc

%changelog
* Mon May 29 2023 Benjamin Toll <ben@benjamintoll.com> - 1.0.0-1
- First simple-chat package

References