RPM HOWTO (RPM at Idle)
Donnie Barnes,
[email protected]
v2.0, 8 April 1997
1. Introduction
RPM is the Red Hat Package Manager. While it does contain Red Hat in
the name, it is completely intended to be an open packaging system
available for anyone to use. It allows users to take source code for
new software and package it into source and binary form such that
binaries can be easily installed and tracked and source can be rebuilt
easily. It also maintains a database of all packages and their files
that can be used for verifying packages and querying for information
about files and/or packages.
Red Hat Software encourages other distribution vendors to take the
time to look at RPM and use it for their own distributions. RPM is
quite flexible and easy to use, though it provides the base for a very
extensive system. It is also completely open and available, though we
would appreciate bug reports and fixes. Permission is granted to use
and distribute RPM royalty free under the GPL.
More complete documentation is available on RPM in the book by Ed
Bailey, Maximum RPM. That book is available for download or purchase
at www.redhat.com <
http://www.redhat.com>.
2. Overview
First, let me state some of the philosophy behind RPM. One design
goal was to allow the use of ``pristine'' sources. With RPP (our
former packaging system of which none of RPM is derived), our source
packages were the ``hacked'' sources that we built from.
Theoretically, one could install a source RPP and then make it with no
problems. But the sources were not the original ones, and there was
no reference as to what changes we had to make to get it to build.
One had to download the pristine sources separately. With RPM, you
have the pristine sources along with a patch that we used to compile
from. We see this as a big advantage. Why? Several reasons. For
one, if a new version of a program comes out, you don't necessarily
have to start from scratch to get it to compile under RHL. You can
look at the patch to see what you might need to do. All the compile-
in defaults are easily visible this way.
RPM is also designed to have powerful querying options. You can do
searches through your entire database for packages or just certain
files. You can also easily find out what package a file belongs to
and where it came from. The RPM files themselves are compressed
archives, but you can query individual packages easily and quickly
because of a custom binary header added to the package with everything
you could possibly need to know contained in uncompressed form. This
allows for fast querying.
Another powerful feature is the ability to verify packages. If you
are worried that you deleted an important file for some package, just
verify it. You will be notified of any anomalies. At that point, you
can reinstall the package if necessary. Any config files that you had
are preserved as well.
We would like to thank the folks from the BOGUS distribution for many
of their ideas and concepts that are included in RPM. While RPM was
completely written by Red Hat Software, its operation is based on code
written by BOGUS (PM and PMS).
3. General Information
3.1. Acquiring RPM
The best way to get RPM is to install Red Hat Linux. If you don't
want to do that, you can still get and use RPM. It can be acquired
from ftp.redhat.com <
ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/code/rpm>.
3.2. RPM Requirements
The main requirement to run RPM is cpio 2.4.2 or greater. While this
system is intended for use with Linux, it may very well be portable to
other Unix systems. It has, in fact, been compiled on SunOS, Solaris,
AIX, Irix, AmigaOS, and others. Be warned, the binary packages
generated on a different type of Unix system will not be compatible.
Those are the minimal requirements to install RPMs. To build RPMs
from source, you also need everything normally required to build a
package, like gcc, make, etc.
4. Using RPM
In its simplest form, RPM can be used to install packages:
rpm -i foobar-1.0-1.i386.rpm
The next simplest command is to uninstall a package:
rpm -e foobar
One of the more complex but highly useful commands allows you to
install packages via FTP. If you are connected to the net and want to
install a new package, all you need to do is specify the file with a
valid URL, like so:
rpm -i
ftp://ftp.pht.com/pub/linux/redhat/rh-2.0-beta/RPMS/foobar-1.0-1.i386.rpm
Please note, that RPM will now query and/or install via FTP.
While these are simple commands, rpm can be used in a multitude of
ways as seen from the Usage message:
RPM version 2.3.9
Copyright (C) 1997 - Red Hat Software
This may be freely redistributed under the terms of the GNU Public License
usage: rpm {--help}
rpm {--version}
rpm {--initdb} [--dbpath <dir>]
rpm {--install -i} [-v] [--hash -h] [--percent] [--force] [--test]
[--replacepkgs] [--replacefiles] [--root <dir>]
[--excludedocs] [--includedocs] [--noscripts]
[--rcfile <file>] [--ignorearch] [--dbpath <dir>]
[--prefix <dir>] [--ignoreos] [--nodeps]
[--ftpproxy <host>] [--ftpport <port>]
file1.rpm ... fileN.rpm
rpm {--upgrade -U} [-v] [--hash -h] [--percent] [--force] [--test]
[--oldpackage] [--root <dir>] [--noscripts]
[--excludedocs] [--includedocs] [--rcfile <file>]
[--ignorearch] [--dbpath <dir>] [--prefix <dir>]
[--ftpproxy <host>] [--ftpport <port>]
[--ignoreos] [--nodeps] file1.rpm ... fileN.rpm
rpm {--query -q} [-afpg] [-i] [-l] [-s] [-d] [-c] [-v] [-R]
[--scripts] [--root <dir>] [--rcfile <file>]
[--whatprovides] [--whatrequires] [--requires]
[--ftpuseport] [--ftpproxy <host>] [--ftpport <port>]
[--provides] [--dump] [--dbpath <dir>] [targets]
rpm {--verify -V -y} [-afpg] [--root <dir>] [--rcfile <file>]
[--dbpath <dir>] [--nodeps] [--nofiles] [--noscripts]
[--nomd5] [targets]
rpm {--setperms} [-afpg] [target]
rpm {--setugids} [-afpg] [target]
rpm {--erase -e} [--root <dir>] [--noscripts] [--rcfile <file>]
[--dbpath <dir>] [--nodeps] [--allmatches]
package1 ... packageN
rpm {-b|t}[plciba] [-v] [--short-circuit] [--clean] [--rcfile <file>]
[--sign] [--test] [--timecheck <s>] specfile
rpm {--rebuild} [--rcfile <file>] [-v] source1.rpm ... sourceN.rpm
rpm {--recompile} [--rcfile <file>] [-v] source1.rpm ... sourceN.rpm
rpm {--resign} [--rcfile <file>] package1 package2 ... packageN
rpm {--addsign} [--rcfile <file>] package1 package2 ... packageN
rpm {--checksig -K} [--nopgp] [--nomd5] [--rcfile <file>]
package1 ... packageN
rpm {--rebuilddb} [--rcfile <file>] [--dbpath <dir>]
rpm {--querytags}
You can find more details on what those options do in the RPM man
page.
5. Now what can I really do with RPM?
RPM is a very useful tool and, as you can see, has several options.
The best way to make sense of them is to look at some examples. I
covered simple install/uninstall above, so here are some more
examples:
� Let's say you delete some files by accident, but you aren't sure
what you deleted. If you want to verify your entire system and see
what might be missing, you would do:
rpm -Va
� Let's say you run across a file that you don't recognize. To find
out which package owns it, you would do:
rpm -qf /usr/X11R6/bin/xjewel
The output would be:
xjewel-1.6-1
� You find a new koules RPM, but you don't know what it is. To find
out some information on it, do:
rpm -qpi koules-1.2-2.i386.rpm
The output would be:
Name : koules Distribution: Red Hat Linux Colgate
Version : 1.2 Vendor: Red Hat Software
Release : 2 Build Date: Mon Sep 02 11:59:12 1996
Install date: (none) Build Host: porky.redhat.com
Group : Games Source RPM: koules-1.2-2.src.rpm
Size : 614939
Summary : SVGAlib action game with multiplayer, network, and sound support
Description :
This arcade-style game is novel in conception and excellent in execution.
No shooting, no blood, no guts, no gore. The play is simple, but you
still must develop skill to play. This version uses SVGAlib to
run on a graphics console.
� Now you want to see what files the koules RPM installs. You would
do:
rpm -qpl koules-1.2-2.i386.rpm
The output is:
/usr/doc/koules
/usr/doc/koules/ANNOUNCE
/usr/doc/koules/BUGS
/usr/doc/koules/COMPILE.OS2
/usr/doc/koules/COPYING
/usr/doc/koules/Card
/usr/doc/koules/ChangeLog
/usr/doc/koules/INSTALLATION
/usr/doc/koules/Icon.xpm
/usr/doc/koules/Icon2.xpm
/usr/doc/koules/Koules.FAQ
/usr/doc/koules/Koules.xpm
/usr/doc/koules/README
/usr/doc/koules/TODO
/usr/games/koules
/usr/games/koules.svga
/usr/games/koules.tcl
/usr/man/man6/koules.svga.6
These are just several examples. More creative ones can be thought of
really easy once you are familiar with RPM.
6. Building RPMs
Building RPMs is fairly easy to do, especially if you can get the
software you are trying to package to build on its own.
The basic procedure to build an RPM is as follows:
� Make sure your /etc/rpmrc is setup for your system.
� Get the source code you are building the RPM for to build on your
system.
� Make a patch of any changes you had to make to the sources to get
them to build properly.
� Make a spec file for the package.
� Make sure everything is in its proper place.
� Build the package using RPM.
Under normal operation, RPM builds both binary and source packages.
6.1. The rpmrc File
Right now, the only configuration of RPM is available via the
/etc/rpmrc file. An example one looks like:
require_vendor: 1
distribution: I roll my own!
require_distribution: 1
topdir: /usr/src/me
vendor: Mickiesoft
packager: Mickeysoft Packaging Account <
[email protected]>
optflags: i386 -O2 -m486 -fno-strength-reduce
optflags: alpha -O2
optflags: sparc -O2
signature: pgp
pgp_name: Mickeysoft Packaging Account
pgp_path: /home/packages/.pgp
tmppath: /usr/tmp
The require_vendor line causes RPM to require that it find a vendor
line. This can come from the /etc/rpmrc or from the header of the
spec file itself. To turn this off, change the number to 0. The same
holds true for the require_distribution and require_group lines.
The next line is the distribution line. You can define that here or
later in the header of the spec file. When building for a particular
distribution, it's a good idea to make sure this line is correct, even
though it is not required. The vendor line works much the same way,
but can be anything (ie. Joe's Software and Rock Music Emporium).
RPM also now has support for building packages on multiple
architectures. The rpmrc file can hold an ``optflags'' variable for
building things that require architecture specific flags when
building. See later sections for how to use this variable.
In addition to the above macros, there are several more. You can use:
rpm --showrc
to find out how your tags are set and what all the available flags
are.
6.2. The Spec File
We'll begin with discussion of the spec file. Spec files are required
to build a package. The spec file is a description of the software
along with instructions on how to build it and a file list for all the
binaries that get installed.
You'll want to name your spec file according to a standard convention.
It should be the package name-dash-version number-dash-release number-
dot-spec.
Here is a small spec file (vim-3.0-1.spec):
Summary: ejects ejectable media and controls auto ejection
Name: eject
Version: 1.4
Release: 3
Copyright: GPL
Group: Utilities/System
Source: sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/utils/disk-management/eject-1.4.tar.gz
Patch: eject-1.4-make.patch
Patch1: eject-1.4-jaz.patch
%description
This program allows the user to eject media that is autoejecting like
CD-ROMs, Jaz and Zip drives, and floppy drives on SPARC machines.
%prep
%setup
%patch -p1
%patch1 -p1
%build
make RPM_OPT_FLAGS="$RPM_OPT_FLAGS"
%install
install -s -m 755 -o 0 -g 0 eject /usr/bin/eject
install -m 644 -o 0 -g 0 eject.1 /usr/man/man1
%files
%doc README COPYING ChangeLog
/usr/bin/eject
/usr/man/man1/eject.1
6.3. The Header
The header has some standard fields in it that you need to fill in.
There are a few caveats as well. The fields must be filled in as
follows:
� Summary: This is a one line description of the package.
� Name: This must be the name string from the rpm filename you plan
to use.
� Version: This must be the version string from the rpm filename you
plan to use.
� Release: This is the release number for a package of the same
version (ie. if we make a package and find it to be slightly broken
and need to make it again, the next package would be release number
2).
� Icon: This is the name of the icon file for use by other high level
installation tools (like Red Hat's ``glint''). It must be a gif
and resides in the SOURCES directory.
� Source: This line points at the HOME location of the pristine
source file. It is used if you ever want to get the source again
or check for newer versions. Caveat: The filename in this line
MUST match the filename you have on your own system (ie. don't
download the source file and change its name). You can also
specify more than one source file using lines like:
Source0: blah-0.tar.gz
Source1: blah-1.tar.gz
Source2: fooblah.tar.gz
These files would go in the SOURCES directory. (The directory struc�
ture is discussed in a later section, "The Source Directory Tree".)
� Patch: This is the place you can find the patch if you need to
download it again. Caveat: The filename here must match the one
you use when you make YOUR patch. You may also want to note that
you can have multiple patch files much as you can have multiple
sources. ] You would have something like:
Patch0: blah-0.patch
Patch1: blah-1.patch
Patch2: fooblah.patch
These files would go in the SOURCES directory.
� Copyright: This line tells how a package is copyrighted. You
should use something like GPL, BSD, MIT, public domain,
distributable, or commercial.
� BuildRoot: This line allows you to specify a directory as the
``root'' for building and installing the new package. You can use
this to help test your package before having it installed on your
machine.
� Group: This line is used to tell high level installation programs
(such as Red Hat's ``glint'') where to place this particular
program in its hierarchical structure. The group tree currently
looks something like this:
Applications
Communications
Editors
Emacs
Engineering
Spreadsheets
Databases
Graphics
Networking
Mail
Math
News
Publishing
TeX
Base
Kernel
Utilities
Archiving
Console
File
System
Terminal
Text
Daemons
Documentation
X11
XFree86
Servers
Applications
Graphics
Networking
Games
Strategy
Video
Amusements
Utilities
Libraries
Window Managers
Libraries
Networking
Admin
Daemons
News
Utilities
Development
Debuggers
Libraries
Libc
Languages
Fortran
Tcl
Building
Version Control
Tools
Shells
Games
� %description It's not really a header item, but should be
described with the rest of the header. You need one description
tag per package and/or subpackage. This is a multi-line field that
should be used to give a comprehensive description of the package.
6.4. Prep
This is the second section in the spec file. It is used to get the
sources ready to build. Here you need to do anything necessary to get
the sources patched and setup like they need to be setup to do a make.
One thing to note: Each of these sections is really just a place to
execute shell scripts. You could simply make an sh script and put it
after the %prep tag to unpack and patch your sources. We have made
macros to aid in this, however.
The first of these macros is the %setup macro. In its simplest form
(no command line options), it simply unpacks the sources and cd's into
the source directory. It also takes the following options:
� -n name will set the name of the build directory to the listed
name. The default is $NAME-$VERSION. Other possibilities include
$NAME, ${NAME}${VERSION}, or whatever the main tar file uses.
(Please note that these ``$'' variables are not real variables
available within the spec file. They are really just used here in
place of a sample name. You need to use the real name and version
in your package, not a variable.)
� -c will create and cd to the named directory before doing the
untar.
� -b # will untar Source# before cd'ing into the directory (and this
makes no sense with -c so don't do it). This is only useful with
multiple source files.
� -a # will untar Source# after cd'ing into the directory.
� -T This option overrides the default action of untarring the Source
and requires a -b 0 or -a 0 to get the main source file untarred.
You need this when there are secondary sources.
� -D Do not delete the directory before unpacking. This is only
useful where you have more than one setup macro. It should only be
used in setup macros after the first one (but never in the first
one).
The next of the available macros is the %patch macro. This macro
helps automate the process of applying patches to the sources. It
takes several options, listed below:
� # will apply Patch# as the patch file.
� -p # specifies the number of directories to strip for the patch(1)
command.
� -P The default action is to apply Patch (or Patch0). This flag
inhibits the default action and will require a 0 to get the main
source file untarred. This option is useful in a second (or later)
%patch macro that required a different number than the first macro.
� You can also do %patch# instead of doing the real command: %patch #
-P
That should be all the macros you need. After you have those right,
you can also do any other setup you need to do via sh type scripting.
Anything you include up until the %build macro (discussed in the next
section) is executed via sh. Look at the example above for the types
of things you might want to do here.
6.5. Build
There aren't really any macros for this section. You should just put
any commands here that you would need to use to build the software
once you had untarred the source, patched it, and cd'ed into the
directory. This is just another set of commands passed to sh, so any
legal sh commands can go here (including comments). Your current
working directory is reset in each of these sections to the toplevel
of the source directory, so keep that in mind. You can cd into
subdirectories if necessary.
6.6. Install
There aren't really any macros here, either. You basically just want
to put whatever commands here that are necessary to install. If you
have make install available to you in the package you are building,
put that here. If not, you can either patch the makefile for a make
install and just do a make install here, or you can hand install them
here with sh commands. You can consider your current directory to be
the toplevel of the source directory.
6.7. Optional pre and post Install/Uninstall Scripts
You can put scripts in that get run before and after the installation
and uninstallation of binary packages. A main reason for this is to
do things like run ldconfig after installing or removing packages that
contain shared libraries. The macros for each of the scripts is as
follows:
� %pre is the macro to do pre-install scripts.
� %post is the macro to do post-install scripts.
� %preun is the macro to do pre-uninstall scripts.
� %postun is the macro to do post-uninstall scripts.
The contents of these sections should just be any sh style script,
though you do not need the #!/bin/sh.
6.8. Files
This is the section where you must list the files for the binary
package. RPM has no way to know what binaries get installed as a
result of make install. There is NO way to do this. Some have
suggested doing a find before and after the package install. With a
multiuser system, this is unacceptable as other files may be created
during a package building process that have nothing to do with the
package itself.
There are some macros available to do some special things as well.
They are listed and described here:
� %doc is used to mark documentation in the source package that you
want installed in a binary install. The documents will be
installed in /usr/doc/$NAME-$VERSION-$RELEASE. You can list
multiple documents on the command line with this macro, or you can
list them all separately using a macro for each of them.
� %config is used to mark configuration files in a package. This
includes files like sendmail.cf, passwd, etc. If you later
uninstall a package containing config files, any unchanged files
will be removed and any changed files will get moved to their old
name with a .rpmsave appended to the filename. You can list
multiple files with this macro as well.
� %dir marks a single directory in a file list to be included as
being owned by a package. By default, if you list a directory name
WITHOUT a %dir macro, EVERYTHING in that directory is included in
the file list and later installed as part of that package.
� %files -f <filename> will allow you to list your files in some
arbitrary file within the build directory of the sources. This is
nice in cases where you have a package that can build it's own
filelist. You then just include that filelist here and you don't
have to specifically list the files.
The biggest caveat in the file list is listing directories. If you
list /usr/bin by accident, your binary package will contain every file
in /usr/bin on your system.
6.9. Building It
6.9.1. The Source Directory Tree
The first thing you need is a properly configured build tree. This is
configurable using the /etc/rpmrc file. Most people will just use
/usr/src.
You may need to create the following directories to make a build tree:
� BUILD is the directory where all building occurs by RPM. You don't
have to do your test building anywhere in particular, but this is
where RPM will do it's building.
� SOURCES is the directory where you should put your original source
tar files and your patches. This is where RPM will look by
default.
� SPECS is the directory where all spec files should go.
� RPMS is where RPM will put all binary RPMs when built.
� SRPMS is where all source RPMs will be put.
6.9.2. Test Building
The first thing you'll probably want to to is get the source to build
cleanly without using RPM. To do this, unpack the sources, and change
the directory name to $NAME.orig. Then unpack the source again. Use
this source to build from. Go into the source directory and follow
the instructions to build it. If you have to edit things, you'll need
a patch. Once you get it to build, clean the source directory. Make
sure and remove any files that get made from a configure script. Then
cd back out of the source directory to its parent. Then you'll do
something like:
diff -uNr dirname.orig dirname > ../SOURCES/dirname-linux.patch
This will create a patch for you that you can use in your spec file.
Note that the ``linux'' that you see in the patch name is just an
identifier. You might want to use something more descriptive like
``config'' or ``bugs'' to describe why you had to make a patch. It's
also a good idea to look at the patch file you are creating before
using it to make sure no binaries were included by accident.
6.9.3. Generating the File List
Now that you have source that will build and you know how to do it,
build it and install it. Look at the output of the install sequence
and build your file list from that to use in the spec file. We
usually build the spec file in parallel with all of these steps. You
can create the initial one and fill in the easy parts, and then fill
in the other steps as you go.
6.9.4. Building the Package with RPM
Once you have a spec file, you are ready to try and build your
package. The most useful way to do it is with a command like the
following:
rpm -ba foobar-1.0.spec
There are other options useful with the -b switch as well:
� p means just run the prep section of the specfile.
� l is a list check that does some checks on %files.
� c do a prep and compile. This is useful when you are unsure of
whether your source will build at all. It seems useless because
you might want to just keep playing with the source itself until it
builds and then start using RPM, but once you become accustomed to
using RPM you will find instances when you will use it.
� i do a prep, compile, and install.
� b prep, compile, install, and build a binary package only.
� a build it all (both source and binary packages).
There are several modifiers to the -b switch. They are as follows:
� --short-circuit will skip straight to a specified stage (can only
be used with c and i).
� --clean removes the build tree when done.
� --keep-temps will keep all the temp files and scripts that were
made in /tmp. You can actually see what files were created in /tmp
using the -v option.
� --test does not execute any real stages, but does keep-temp.
6.10. Testing It
Once you have a source and binary rpm for your package, you need to
test it. The easiest and best way is to use a totally different
machine from the one you are building on to test. After all, you've
just done a lot of make install's on your own machine, so it should be
installed fairly well.
You can do an rpm -u packagename on the package to test, but that can
be deceiving because in building the package, you did a make install.
If you left something out of your file list, it will not get
uninstalled. You'll then reinstall the binary package and your system
will be complete again, but your rpm still isn't. Make sure and keep
in mind that just because you do a rpm -ba package, most people
installing your package will just be doing the rpm -i package. Make
sure you don't do anything in the build or install sections that will
need to be done when the binaries are installed by themselves.
6.11. What to do with your new RPMs
Once you've made your own RPM of something (assuming its something
that hasn't already been RPM'ed), you can contribute your work to
others (also assuming you RPM'ed something freely distributable). To
do so, you'll want to upload it to ftp.redhat.com
<
ftp://ftp.redhat.com>.
6.12. What Now?
Please see the above sections on Testing and What to do with new RPMs.
We want all the RPMs available we can get, and we want them to be good
RPMs. Please take the time to test them well, and then take the time
to upload them for everyone's benefit. Also, please make sure you are
only uploading freely available software. Commercial software and
shareware should not be uploaded unless they have a copyright
expressly stating that this is allowed. This includes Netscape
software, ssh, pgp, etc.
7. Multi-architectural RPM Building
RPM can now be used to build packages for the Intel i386, the Digital
Alpha running Linux, and the Sparc. It has been reported to work on
SGI's and HP workstations as well. There are several features that
make building packages on all platforms easy. The first of these is
the ``optflags'' directive in the /etc/rpmrc. It can be used to set
flags used when building software to architecture specific values.
Another feature is the ``arch'' macros in the spec file. They can be
used to do different things depending on the architecture you are
building on. Another feature is the ``Exclude'' directive in the
header.
7.1. Sample spec File
The following is part of the spec file for the ``fileutils'' package.
It is setup to build on both the Alpha and the Intel.
Summary: GNU File Utilities
Name: fileutils
Version: 3.16
Release: 1
Copyright: GPL
Group: Utilities/File
Source0: prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/fileutils-3.16.tar.gz
Source1: DIR_COLORS
Patch: fileutils-3.16-mktime.patch
%description
These are the GNU file management utilities. It includes programs
to copy, move, list, etc, files.
The ls program in this package now incorporates color ls!
%prep
%setup
%ifarch alpha
%patch -p1
autoconf
%endif
%build
configure --prefix=/usr --exec-prefix=/
make CFLAGS="$RPM_OPT_FLAGS" LDFLAGS=-s
%install
rm -f /usr/info/fileutils*
make install
gzip -9nf /usr/info/fileutils*
7.2. Optflags
In this example, you see how the ``optflags'' directive is used from
the /etc/rpmrc. Depending on which architecture you are building on,
the proper value is given to RPM_OPT_FLAGS. You must patch the
Makefile for your package to use this variable in place of the normal
directives you might use (like -m486 and -O2). You can get a better
feel for what needs to be done by installing this source package and
then unpacking the source and examine the Makefile. Then look at the
patch for the Makefile and see what changes must be made.
7.3. Macros
The %ifarch macro is very important to all of this. Most times you
will need to make a patch or two that is specific to one architecture
only. In this case, RPM will allow you to apply that patch to just
one architecture only.
In the above example, fileutils has a patch for 64 bit machines.
Obviously, this should only be applied on the Alpha at the moment.
So, we add an %ifarch macro around the 64 bit patch like so:
%ifarch axp
%patch1 -p1
%endif
This will insure that the patch is not applied on any architecture
except the alpha.
7.4. Excluding Architectures from Packages
So that you can maintain source RPMs in one directory for all
platforms, we have implemented the ability to ``exclude'' packages
from being built on certain architectures. This is so you can still
do things like
rpm --rebuild /usr/src/SRPMS/*.rpm
and have the right packages build. If you haven't yet ported an
application to a certain platform, all you have to do is add a line
like:
ExcludeArch: axp
to the header of the spec file of the source package. Then rebuild
the package on the platform that it does build on. You'll then have a
source package that builds on an Intel and can easily be skipped on an
Alpha.
7.5. Finishing Up
Using RPM to make multi-architectural packages is usually easier to do
than getting the package itself to build both places. As more of the
hard packages get built this is getting much easier, however. As
always, the best help when you get stuck building an RPM is to look a
similar source package.
8. Copyright Notice
This document and its contents are copyright protected.
Redistribution of this document is permitted as long as the content
remains completely intact and unchanged. In other words, you may
reformat and reprint or redistribute only.
