Building RPM package requires packages from outside repositories - python-3.x

I have developed a python script and want to put it in a RPM package. The only problem is that this script uses ovirtsdk4 module, which is not one of the builtin python modules. That being said, I would have to install this module within the RPM package. I can think of two ways to approach this:
1 - Using pip3 in the %post section.
2 - Putting the python3-ovirt-engine-sdk4 in the "Requires: package " section.
However, first way does not seem quite reliable and the second doesn't seem to work properly since this package is not available on the CentOS-XXX repositories. (It belong to the ovirt repo).
Can you think of a better way to approach this or am I missing anything?
Many thanks.

The fact that the package is not in the CentOS repositories should not cause any problem, just make sure that you can download from the ovirt repository, then the update should run normally.
Test first manually if you can yum install python3-ovirt-engine-sdk4.
EDIT: don't install using pip3, because then you cannot manage the dependencies with rpm. You had the right intuition trying to use the rpm dependencies.

Related

How to install dorodango package manager Scheme language

I needed to use Purely Functional Data Structures in Scheme (pfds),
so I found a resource for it (https://github.com/ijp/pfds). I cloned
it using git command, and so far successful.
I have racket installed and needed these pfds to work. For which
first I had to install the pfds using a package manager called “dorodango” to
install pfds on Gitlab (https://gitlab.com/rotty/dorodango.git).
So the problem now is that how I install dorodango package manager from
the resource I found on Gitlab.
Can someone help? Please.
Whoa! If I understand you correctly, this is Much Easier than you think.
First, though, it looks to me like you need to back up many steps.
To install the pfds package for racket, you need to do one (and only one) of these two things. Either:
run raco pkg install pfds from the command-line, or if you're not a command-line person,
Use the package manager built into DrRacket.
No need to git clone anything, no need to use dorodango. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something about your situation?
(For more information, check out the Getting Started with Packages.)

Rpm-spec file. running yum groupinstall

Good afternoon,
I am currently building an RPM that has some requirements I have not found answers to on the web. I have narrowed this down to a single question.
Normally when I run an install from command line, one of the steps has me run the following command yum groupinstall "Compatibility libraries" which installs 32-bit compatibility libraries on my 64-bit desktop. I am wondering if there is a way to accomplish this in the Requires: field of my RPM-spec file, as I have only found a way to require very specific RPM's for dependencies?
I could always add in the 10-15 individual packages that get installed with yum groupinstall "Compatibility Libraries", but I was hoping there was a better option.
Description of RPM:
My RPM is very basic in nature. It will untar multiple tar files into various locations, overwrite files throughout the main install directory, install compatibility libraries, and then proceed to startup a service.
If anyone needs more information to what I am trying to accomplish please let me know. Thank you.
You can only require specific packages, not groups, in your Requires: lines. You should absolutely not run yum in your %post script, because then (a) you are then hiding your dependencies, and nobody likes to see things get installed that they didn't expect, and (b) you will probably end up getting stuck because yum in %post would need to wait for the existing yum process to exit.
For library Requires:, the rpm build process will generally figure things out for you. You still need to manually specify the appropriate BuildRequires: dependencies, which are things that are required to build the package.
If you want to update your question with more details (e.g., a link to the spec file and a description of what you're trying to do, if it's not obvious from the spec), maybe we can come up with better solutions.

Building rpm, overriding _topdir, but getting BuildRequires deps?

I have a libfoo-devel rpm that I can create, using the trick to override _topdir. Now I want to build a package "bar" which has a BuildRequires 'libfoo-devel". I can't seem to find the Right Way to get access to the contents of libfoo-devel without having to install it on the build host. How should I be doing it?
EDIT:
My build and target distros are both SuSE.
I prefer solutions that don't require mock, since I believe SuSE does not include it in its stock repo.
Subsequent EDIT:
I believe that the answer I seek is in the build package. Perhaps it's SuSE's answer to mock? Or it's the distributed version of the oBS service?
DESCRIPTION
build is a tool to build SuSE Linux
RPMs in a safe and clean way. build
will install a minimal SuSE Linux as
build system into some directory and
will chroot to this system to compile
the package. This way you don't risk
to corrupt your working system (due to
a broken spec file for example), even
if the package does not use BuildRoot.
build searches the spec file for a
BuildRequires: line; if such a line is
found, all the specified rpms are
installed. Otherwise a selection of
default packages are used. Note that
build doesn't automatically resolve
missing dependencies, so the specified
rpms have to be sufficient for the
build.
Note that if you really don't need libfoo-devel installed to build package bar the most sensible alternative would be to remove libfoo-devel from the BuildRequires directive (and maybe put the requirement where it belongs).
However, if you cannot do that for some reason, create a "development" rpm database. Basically it involves using rpm --initdb --root /path/to/fake/root. Then populate it with all of the "target packages" of your standard distro installation.
That's a lot of rpm --install --root /path/to/fake/root --justdb package-name.rpm commands, but maybe you can figure out a way to copy over your /var/lib/rpm/* database files and use those as a starting point. Once you have the alternative rpm database, you can fake the installation of the libfoo-devel package with a --justdb option. Then you'll be home free on the actual rpm build.
If neither mock nor the openSUSE Build Service are a viable choice then you will have to buckle down and install the package, either directly or in a chroot; the package provides files that the SRPM packager has decided are required to build, and hence is in the BuildRequires tag.

Best way to Manage Packages Compiled from Source

I'm looking into trying to find an easy way to manage packages compiled from source so that when it comes time to upgrade, I'm not in a huge mess trying to uninstall/install the new package.
I found a utility called CheckInstall, but it seems to be quite old, and I was wondering if this a reliable solution before I begin using it?
http://www.asic-linux.com.mx/~izto/checkinstall/
Also would simply likely to know any other methods/utilities that you use to handle these installations from source?
Whatever you do, make sure that you eventually go through your distribution's package management system (e.g. rpm for Fedora/Mandriva/RH/SuSE, dpkg for Debian/Ubuntu etc). Otherwise your package manager will not know anything about the packages you installed by hand and you will have unsatisfied dependencies at best, or the mother of all messes at worst.
If you don't have a package manager, then get one and stick with it!
I would suggest that you learn to make your own packages. You can start by having a look at the source packages of your distribution. In fact, if all you want to do is upgrade to version 1.2.3 of MyPackage, your distribution's source package for 1.2.2 can usually be adapted with a simple version change (unless there are patches, but that's another story...).
Unless you want distribution-quality packages (e.g. split library/application/debugging packages, multiple-architecture support etc) it is usually easy to convert your typical configure & make & make install scenario into a proper source package. If you can convince your package to install into a directory rather than /, you are usually done.
As for checkinstall, I have used it in the past, and it worked for a couple of simple packages, but I did not like the fact that it actually let the package install itself onto my system before creating the rpm/deb package. It just tracked which files got installed so that it would package them, which did not protect against unwelcome changes. Oh, and it needed root prilileges to work, which is another main sticking point for me. And lets not go into what happens with statically linked core utilities...
Most tools of the kind seem to work that way, so I simply learnt to build my own packages The Right Way (TM) and let checkinstall and friends mess around elsewhere. If you are still interested, however, there is a list of similar programs here:
http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/automating-destdir.html
PS: BTW checkinstall was updated at the end of 2009, which probably means that it's still adequately current.
EDIT:
In my opinion, the easiest way to perform an upgrade to the latest version of a package if it is not readily available in a repository is to alter the source package of the latest version in your distribution. E.g. for Centos the source packages for the latest version are here:
http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.5/os/SRPMS/
http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.5/updates/SRPMS/
...
If you want to upgrade e.g. php, you get the latest SRPM for your distrbution e.g. php-5.1.6-27.el5.src.rpm. Then you do:
rpm -hiv php-5.1.6-27.el5.src.rpm
which installs the source package (just the sources - it does not compile anything). Then you go to the rpm build directory (on my mandriva system its /usr/src/rpm), you copy the latest php source tarball to the SOURCES subdirectory and you make sure it's compressed in the same way as the tarball that just got installed there. Afterwards you edit the php.spec file in the SPECS directory to change the package version and build the binary package with something like:
rpmbuild -ba php.spec
In many cases that's all it will take for a new package. In others things might get a bit more complicated - if there are patches or if there are some major changes in the package you might have to do more.
I suggest you read up on the rpm and rpmbuild commands (their manpages are quite good, in a bit extensive) and check up the documentation on writing spec files. Even if you decide to rely on official backport repositories, it is useful to know how to build your own packages. See also:
http://www.rpm.org/wiki/Docs
EDIT 2:
If you are already installing packages from source, using rpm will actually simplify the building process in the long term, apart from maintaining the integrity of your system. The reason for this is that you won't have to remember the quirks of each package on your own ("oooh, right, now I remember, foo needs me to add -lbar to its CFLAGS"), as the build process will be in the .spec file, which you could imagine as a somewhat structured build script.
As far as upgrading goes, if you already have a .spec file for a previous version of the package, there are two main issues that you may encounter, but both exist whether you use rpm to build your package or not:
A patch that was applied to the previous version by the distribution does not apply any more. In many cases the patch has already been applied to the upstream package, so you can simply drop it. In others you may have to edit it - or I suppose if you deem it unimportant you can drop it too.
The package changed in some major way which affected e.g. the layout of the files it installs. You do read the release notes notes for each new version, don't you?
Other than these two issues, upgrading often boils down to just changing a version number in the spec file and running rpmbuild - even easier than installing from a tarball.
I would suggest that you have a look at the tutorials or at the source package for some simple piece of software such as:
http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.5/os/SRPMS/ipv6calc-0.61-1.src.rpm
http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.5/os/SRPMS/libevent-1.4.13-1.src.rpm
If you have experience in buildling packages from a tarball, using rpm to build software is not much of a leap really. It will never be as simple as installing a premade binary package, however.
I use checkinstall on Debian. It should not be so different on CentOS. I use it like that:
./configure
make
sudo checkinstall make install # fakeroot in place of sudo works usally for more security
# install the package generated

Packaging multiple rpms in one file

Is it possible to paqckage multiple rpms into one file. I have got two bundles one of which requires that the other be installed. I would like to create a single installable out of them in such a way that this installer will first invoke pkg 1 and then install pkg 2. Is this possible? What about deb packages? Sorry if it a basic question. I have not worked with installers on Linux before. I have created Windows installers. There you can create two merge modules (.msm) and package them into a standalone installer (.msi) and specify the order of execution. I am looking for similar functionality on Linux.
EDIT: I think the question was not clear enough. Let me try to rephrase it. I have a bunch of runtime libraries which is currently shipped as a standalone installer. Another team develops products which use these libraries at runtime. I now want to provide the libraries to the product team in some form (sub-package) which they can include with their installer and configure their installer to install my sub-package first. Both packages should be available locally to the end user. They are not available on any repository and cannot be pulled down from the net at install time.
Try packaging them into a self extraction bash script. You won't have to modify or aggregate the libraries and rpms together. This should yield an executable file that can be included in another installation process. The last step of the extraction should be to call "rpm -i" with the rpm files as arguments.
Reference on building a self extracting bash script:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1005818
First : you don't have to repackage anything, especially not if your application uses some external libraries. You just have to mention in your recipe that your RPM (or DEB) depends on the other one. Both apt-get (for deb) and yum (for rpm) will check these dependencies and install them if needed.
See :
http://rpm5.org/docs/api/dependencies.html (rpm) and http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/Linux-For-Devices-Articles/How-to-make-deb-packages/ (deb)
(These were just the first ones I found, you can find better resources out there :p).

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