Is there a way I can flag a configuration file as optional so when verification is invoked (rpm -v), it will ignore a missing configuration file?
I have an RPM package which I include a default configuration file for my application. The configuration file is not required for my application but I'd like to include it for easy configuration purposes. If the file was deleted, the application will work as expected (with some internal defaults). The problem I'm facing is that if I delete my configuration file and then run a verification on my installed RPM, the RPM indicates the package is not in good standing:
rpm -V test-rpm
(outputs)
missing c /etc/test/test.conf
Minimized SPEC definition:
Version: 0.0.1
Name: test-rpm
...
%install
install -m 644 $resource_directory/test.conf %{buildroot}/etc/test/test.conf
...
%files
%defattr(-,root,root)
%config(noreplace) /etc/test/test.conf
...
Is there some option I haven't found yet or am I misunderstanding something about RPMs?
This is what %config(missingok) is for I believe.
The %config(missingok) indicates that the file need not exist on the installed machine. The %config(missingok) is frequently used for files like /etc/rc.d/rc2.d/S55named where the (non-)existence of the symlink is part of the configuration in %post, and the file may need to be removed when this package is removed. This file is not required to exist at either install or uninstall time.
Related
I have a rpm created for dev environment and CONTAINS a configuration file that points to dev. Now I have to create the rpm for another environment for which I need to replace just one file in the SOURCES folder and update the reference in .spec and rebuild it. Issue is that I don't have the .spec file that I used to create the rpm for dev.
So upon searching, came across rpmrebuild and I was able to see the .spec file in the editor.
When I give rpmrebuild command, the spec file opens in the editor.
Here's the small snippet from the file
/root/rpmbuild/SOURCES /root/rpmbuild/SOURCES
%files
%attr(0755, root, root) "/opt/**{replace/with/newfile/path**}"
But updating that that gives me - File not found: /root/.tmp/rpmrebuild.2345/work/root/opt/{path/to/newfile}
I don't know if I have to use rpmrebuild command with any --params in order to replace the file in the SOURCES and its reference in the .spec. There are no other changes to be made.
Please guide.
Note: I am a unix novice
I presume you do not have the src.rpm for this package. If you do, then it's very easy, simply install that with rpm -ihv /path/to/src/rpm as you would do with any RPM file. The contents, unless specified otherwise, will be extracted to ~/rpmbuild. The spec will be under ~/rpmbuild/SPECS, the sources under ~/rpmbuild/SOURCES, etc.
If you do not have the src.rpm but only the RPM itself, install the rpmrebuild package from the EPEL repos and then:
$ rpmrebuild -e -p /path/to/package
It will open the spec in your default editor. Edit it and save the spec wherever you want.
Then, assuming you have all the needed source files (declared in the spec using the SourceN directives), you can call:
$ rpmbuild -bb /path/to/spec
To rebuild the RPM from the edited spec.
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
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.
In the process of building an RPM package, I have to specify the BuildRoot and later will be used in %install which invovles $RPM_BUILD_ROOT. I always think that $RPM_BUILD_ROOT is the fake installation for RPM to perform packaging. Then, at install time using the RPM package, it will install into actual location. For example:
$RPM_BUILD_ROOT/usr/bin
I thought that $RPM_BUILD_ROOT is for the packaging process only, and in some ways RPM can distinguish the $RPM_BUILD_ROOT and the actual install location when the user performs "rpm -ivh package.rpm" will be /usr/bin.
But recently upon reading some documents, it is suggested that $RPM_BUILD_ROOT is the actual location which will be installed, and the $RPM_BUILD_ROOT is specified by user with the setting of environment variable $RPM_BUILD_ROOT in order to let the users install the package in their desire locations. Otherwise, $RPM_BUILD_ROOT will be null and it will install into the default location. In the above case, it is /usr/bin . Thus, $RPM_BUILD_ROOT is not just for packaging or "fake installation" process, but is a way for user to define install location, similar to select folder location in Windows.
I don't know my thinking is correct or not. Can someone please verify? Thanks in advance.
$RPM_BUILD_ROOT (or the equivalent %{buildroot} SPEC file macro) always holds the directory under which RPM will look for any files to package. The RPM scripts (e.g. the script that compresses the manual pages) will also use that value to know where to look for the files that were just installed. Normally, this value will be non-empty and contain a location away from the system directories - usually somewhere under /tmp or /var/tmp.
The author of the SPEC file is expected to make sure that make install (or whatever installer the software in question is using) will place any files under $RPM_BUILD_ROOT, with the same hierarchy that should be used when the software is finally installed. E.g. to have RPM install ls in /bin/ls, the %install SPEC file section should make sure that ls is placed in $RPM_BUILD_ROOT/bin/ls.
The author of the SPEC file is also expected to use the BuildRoot: tag to specify a proper location. Alternatively, the build system could have an rpmrc RPM configuration file with a proper entry. In any case the build root should be set, so that:
Normal users will be able to build the source package.
Should the superuser ever build the source package, the build process will not clobber any system files, unless the superuser installs the resulting binary package. And yes, there may be a good reason to build some packages as root - for example, running the full glibc testsuite requires root privileges for some tests.
That said, RPM can and will build a package with an empty build root variable. In that case both the build install and the final destination locations will coincide. A potential call to e.g. make install will use the default locations, thus clobbering the system files under e.g. /usr/lib if run with sufficient privileges. Additionally, having /usr/bin/* in your %files section will happily pull the whole contents of the build host /usr/bin/ directory into your binary package.
Bottom line:
Never use an empty build root.
Do not build packages as root unless there is absolutely no other way.
the file ~/.rpmmacros defines the paths per user:
%_topdir %(echo $HOME)/rpmbuild
%_tmppath %{_topdir}/tmp
and one can also define them with rpmbuild command line parameters:
rpmbuild --define '_topdir /home/username/rpmbuild'