RPM Build

References:

• https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_create_an_RPM_package
• https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines

Build Environment Setup

Create a dedicated build user. Never build RPMs as root.

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# useradd mockbuild
# passwd mockbuild

Install the required tools:

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# dnf install @development-tools fedora-packager rpmdevtools wget

Login as the build user and set up the build tree:

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$ rpmdev-setuptree

This creates the standard ~/rpmbuild/{BUILD,RPMS,SOURCES,SPECS,SRPMS} directory structure.

Working with Existing Source Packages

Download an existing source RPM and install it into your build tree:

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$ dnf download --source nginx
$ rpm -ivh nginx*.src.rpm
$ rm nginx*.src.rpm

Building from a Spec File

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$ rpmbuild -ba ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/nginx.spec

You will likely encounter missing build dependencies. Install them as needed. The dnf builddep command can handle this automatically:

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# dnf builddep ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/nginx.spec

Adding Custom Modules

When adding third-party modules to an existing package, you need to:

1. Download the module source tarballs into ~/rpmbuild/SOURCES/
2. Add Source entries to the spec file pointing to the tarballs
3. Add any new BuildRequires and Requires dependencies
4. Add %setup lines after the main %setup -q to extract the additional sources:
   • Use -T to prevent re-extracting the original tarball
   • Use -D to preserve existing directories
   • Use -a N where N is the source number
   • Use -n dirname to set the expected directory name
5. Add --add-module=./module-dir flags to the ./configure invocation in the %build section

Signing Packages

RPM packages can be signed with a GPG key to verify their authenticity. First set the signing key in your ~/.rpmmacros:

%_signature gpg
%_gpg_name Your Name <[email protected]>

Then sign packages with:

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$ rpm --addsign ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64/your-package.rpm