I have an RPM I am making and this is in a very controlled environment so let's also assume it is safe to allow another RPM package to overwrite certain files contained from the original RPM package.
I know from experience if you try to install an RPM package that overwrites another RPM packages file's you get a warning that there is a conflict and the install fails (yes you can do some command line hacking but that is not ideal for the situation).
Is there any way through the original RPM packages spec file that you can specify these files are not part of the package they can be overwritten by another RPM package or is that just strictly prohibited from ever happening?
Is there any way through the original RPM packages spec file that you can specify these files are not part of the package they can be overwritten by another RPM package or is that just strictly prohibited from ever happening?
You can use %ghost directive for this purpose.
http://ftp.rpm.org/max-rpm/s1-rpm-inside-files-list-directives.html
Related
I'm creating an RPM file (with rpmbuild) whose post-install script will create a file in /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/. To make sure that the directory already exists, I'd like to specify a dependency on a package which creates it.
Is it correct in this case to add a Requires: /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d line to the spec file? Or is it not allowed to depend on directories, and should I rather add a dependency on xorg-x11-xinit package (which appears to provide this directory on my system)?
The package is intended to work on CentOS (RHEL) 6.
This should work (you can Require any path), but you should be depending on the package that provides that path. There must be a reason you are not doing this?
You should use virtual packages to avoid surprises, when the required file can be provided by more than one package.
In your example, yum provides says that /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d is provided by xorg-x11-xinit and qt5-qtbase-gui, so, specifying that path as a dependency could pull a package you don expect.
You should have a virtual package for each possible package that provides the file. The package my-xinit-x11 should contain:
Requires: xorg-x11-xinit
Provides: my-xinit
And your package should contain:
Requires: my-xinit
More virtual packages can be created with the same Provides, so when either is installed rpmbuild will see the dependency as satisfied
I am working with RPM package manager for about a month now. Currently I want to use rpm -U to upgrade already existing content from previous RPM execution but I need to know the rpm package location on the file system.
The only way I can think of is searching whole file system for rpm name in %pre script but I would really like to avoid that option. Is there any way to get the path of the rpm package (package can be anywhere on the system) as a variable inside the spec file (%pre and %post script). Hope I explained my issue clearly enough.
Any help or proposal is welcome.
There isn't one location (or path) where a package is installed,
so I'm not sure what you are asking.
The files that are installed by a installed rpm package called "foo"
can be displayed with
rpm -ql foo
There is no common prefix on the paths except "/" in general.
I am building a bootable ISO to be used to install a Linux image (Oracle Linux, 5.8). This is using anaconda with a kickstart file to select the packages to be loaded. Some of these packages are failing with dependency problems in their %post section.
Eg, this is seen in /root/install.log after the installation is complete:
Installing thirdparty-tools-1.00-09.noarch
/var/tmp/rpm-tmp.97891: line 1: ln: command not found
/var/tmp/rpm-tmp.97891: line 2: ln: command not found
/var/tmp/rpm-tmp.97891: line 3: ln: command not found
/var/tmp/rpm-tmp.97891: line 4: ln: command not found
error: %post(thirdparty-tools-1.00-09.noarch) scriptlet failed, exit status 127
I'm trying to find out if it is possible to control/override the package ordering, without editing any RPMs to add dependencies. I've been looking through the anaconda / kickstart documentation (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Anaconda/Kickstart#Chapter_3._Package_Selection), and searching extensively elsewhere, so I think that the answer is actually 'no, you can't do this'. Which would be a shame.
The problem is that I am trying to include various third-party RPMs, which are not under my control and which have been digitally signed. These include some processing in a %post section. This processing requires some standard Linux commands, eg 'ln', 'touch', etc, which are supplied within the coreutils package. The third-party package does not currently include a dependency on the coreutils package, though obviously it should really. Anaconda uses its own partial ordering algorithm to choose what order to install these packages, and the third-party packages are being installed before the coreutils package. Obviously, the proper solution is to get these RPMs fixed by the third-party; however, this is likely to take too long.
I was hoping that their might be some hidden / un-documented option for the kickstart file, which could add in extra dependencies. Ideally, I'd like to be able to add something like this to the %packages section:
%packages
#admin-tools
#base
#core
#system-tools
thirdparty-tools
# We would like to add some magic command to indicate a missing dependency
thirdparty-tools dependson coreutils
So, my question is: Is it possible to control or override the package ordering without editing any RPMs to add dependencies?
Very many thanks for any help.
If you can't get the source RPM, you can use rpmrebuild to re-create the RPM:
rpmrebuild -e -n -d . -p thirdparty-tools-1.00-09.noarch
This will bring up a re-created spec file in your default editor, where you can make changes to the requires lines. Also, you may want to change the package name too, so that your re-built version is differentiated from the upstream vendor's version (I usually append "-local" to the package name).
Your package "thirdparty-tools" needs to specify all of its requirements. If you can get a SRPM of this package, you can modify the spec to indicate that you need coreutils, bash, etc in your package.
If you can't modify this package at all, your best option is to create a wrapper package that has the necessary requirements. Just use your favorite editor to create a file "thirdparty-tools-installer.spec" and ensure you include coreutils as a requirement as well as "thirdparty-tools". You can refer to rpm.or for more information http://www.rpm.org/max-rpm/s1-rpm-build-creating-spec-file.html
Lastly, you can just do yum -y install thirdparty-tools in the %post section of Kickstart. It's uglier for sure, but it will probably work.
Is it possible to keep RPM content in the filesystem after the uninstallation ?
Basically, I don't want to erase the files generated by the RPM when someone runs rpm -e, but still remove the package from the list of installed RPMs. I want to uninstall my application manually from the server and I cannot find a way to do so.
Thanks in advance.
Specfile creation
From this perspective as a package creator, you can flag files as configurations. John Warbrick at Cambridge Uni has a good rundown of the different file markings you can use in an RPM specfile and how they behave during upgrade.
Files marked %config, if changed, are:
left behind on uninstall but renamed with an .rpmsave extension
untouched on update or reinstall, but the payload copy is installed with an .rpmnew extension
Warbrick does not deal with straight package removal: if a file marked %config is unchanged, erasing the package will remove the file. (Bear in mind that, according to RPM scriptlet ordering, RPM update or reinstall begins with erasing the old package, before the new files are lain down. I.e., the old unchanged config is replaced with the new config.)
It would be an abuse of RPM file classification to mark something a %config that is not really a config. This is important because sysadmins need to be able to trust the package payload. Plus, you probably don't want such a file to be renamed with an extension.
Your best hope then is to create the file during RPM %post. Files copied to the filesystem in %install are checked against the %files list and stored in the RPM database, but files created in %post are not. Again, this an abuse of the RPM spec file format, but if you mention it in the %description and any other documentation, but especially if it's logically expected behavior in the context of your package, you'll maybe get some sympathy.
Existing packages
For sysadmins wanting to remove a package without removing its payload, you use rpm --justdb. First, check the file list:
# rpm -ql $PACKAGE | tee $PACKAGE.payload
[rpm returns list of files, tee saves it in the file $PACKAGE.payload]
# rpm -e --justdb $PACKAGE
(At this stage, you may get a complaint about deps, so repeat with --nodeps if you must.)
And finally, check that the package is gone, but payload is still there:
# rpm -q $PACKAGE
package $PACKAGE is not installed
# ls -l $(<$PACKAGE.payload)
[ls queries list of files saved in $PACKAGE.payload]
(Or for a more reliable ls if filenames contain spaces, which would be unconscionable in RPM.)
# cat $PACKAGE.payload|xargs -d '\n' ls -l
Other observations
Note that for a package created using the method outlined at the top of my answer, attempting to list the files it owns with rpm -ql $PACKAGE will not show those persistent files. Another consequence of throwing down files during %post is that another package which "owns" those files could overwrite them unexpectedly - they're not listed in the RPM database, so they're not protected.
The two methods I've outlined break Best Practices for both RPM package creation and sysadmin. Please be very careful how you use this dangerous "little bit of knowledge". Maybe there's something else you could do to create the desired situation.
(Finally, I know this is a question from four year back. It wasn't answered. It needed answering. Cheers.)
rpm -e --repackage package_name will drop a re-installable copy in /var/spool/repackage. You can extract from that rpm using rpm2cpio if you need those files back individually.
One of the advantages of RPMS is exactly that: you can uninstall (remove)
all the files easily.
If you want to install the files provided by an RPM manually,
simply unpack the RPM as root, with:
cd / &&
rpm2cpio *.rpm | cpio -idmv
It's not a good idea, but you can unpack RPMS like that elsewhere (e.g. under ${HOME}),
and that's very useful. You may need to adjust some environment variables though.
You don't pollute the RPM database but still use the contents of an RPM.
Of course your application may get broken by system updates,
because it is not protected by dependencies.
Anyway this is how you "install" and RPM if you are not root.
Removal is also easy (if installation path chosen suitably).
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.