Introduction to RPM Packaging
Systems Management
In general, a pre-built, open source application is called a package and bundles all the binary, data, and configuration files required to run the application. A package also includes all the steps required to deploy the application on a system, typically in the form of a script. The script might generate data, start and stop system services, or manipulate files and directories. A script might also perform operations to upgrade existing software to a new version.
Because each operating system has its idiosyncrasies, a package is typically tailored to a specific system. Moreover, each operating system provides its own package manager, a special utility to add and remove packages from the system. SUSE-based systems – openSUSE and SUSE Linux Enterprise - use the RPM Package Manager. The package manager precludes partial and faulty installations and “uninstalls” by adding and removing the files in a package atomically. The package manager also maintains a manifest of all packages installed on the system and can validate the existence of prerequisites and co-requisites beforehand.
This document describes in detail how to create an RPM package on SUSE-based systems.
Disclaimer: Documents published as part of the SUSE Best Practices series have been contributed voluntarily by SUSE employees and third parties. They are meant to serve as examples of how particular actions can be performed. They have been compiled with utmost attention to detail. However, this does not guarantee complete accuracy. SUSE cannot verify that actions described in these documents do what is claimed or whether actions described have unintended consequences. SUSE LLC, its affiliates, the authors, and the translators may not be held liable for possible errors or the consequences thereof.
1 What Is a Package #
A package is a way of distributing software on Linux systems. A single application is distributed as one or more packages. Usually the main package contains the program, and in addition some optional or secondary packages.
On some platforms, applications are self-contained into a directory. This means installing an application is simply adding a directory, and uninstalling the application is simply removing this directory.
Linux systems tend to share as much of their components as possible. Partly this is the case because of some advantages of this philosophy. But mainly it happens because of the fact that in the Linux ecosystem, the whole universe is built by the same entity, except for a few 3rd party applications. This makes it easy to assume that a library is available for all applications to consume.
In a MacOS system, only the core comes from a single vendor, and all applications are provided by third party suppliers. It is therefore harder to make assumptions, and they tend to ship their own version of any depending component, with the exception of everything being documented as the “platform”.
1.1 Anatomy of a Package #
As an example, we start with a well-known UNIX tool: rsync.
A package is an archive file:
rsync-3.1.2-1.5.x86_64.rpm
This archive file contains all files related to the application:
$ rpm -qpl rsync-3.1.2-1.5.x86_64.rpm /etc/logrotate.d/rsync /etc/rsyncd.conf /etc/rsyncd.secrets /etc/sysconfig/SuSEfirewall2.d/services/rsync-server /etc/xinetd.d/rsync /usr/bin/rsync /usr/bin/rsyncstats /usr/lib/systemd/system/rsyncd.service /usr/sbin/rcrsyncd /usr/sbin/rsyncd /usr/share/doc/packages/rsync /usr/share/doc/packages/rsync/COPYING /usr/share/doc/packages/rsync/NEWS /usr/share/doc/packages/rsync/README /usr/share/doc/packages/rsync/tech_report.tex /usr/share/man/man1/rsync.1.gz /usr/share/man/man5/rsyncd.conf.5.gz
Additionally, it contains some extra metadata. This metadata should include but it is not limited to:
Name
Summary
Description
License
etc.
As an example, the metadata for rsync look as follows:
$ rpm -qpi rsync-3.1.2-1.5.x86_64.rpm Name : rsync Version : 3.1.2 Release : 1.5 Architecture: x86_64 Install Date: Wed 26 Oct 2016 01:31:12 PM CEST Group : Productivity/Networking/Other Size : 636561 License : GPL-3.0+ Signature : RSA/SHA256, Mon 17 Oct 2016 02:32:40 AM CEST, Key ID b88b2fd43dbdc284 Source RPM : rsync-3.1.2-1.5.src.rpm Build Date : Mon 17 Oct 2016 02:32:26 AM CEST Build Host : lamb18 Relocations : (not relocatable) Packager : http://bugs.opensuse.org Vendor : openSUSE URL : http://rsync.samba.org/ Summary : Versatile tool for fast incremental file transfer Description : Rsync is a fast and extraordinarily versatile file copying tool. It can copy locally, to/from another host over any remote shell, or to/from a remote rsync daemon. It offers a large number of options that control every aspect of its behavior and permit very flexible specification of the set of files to be copied. It is famous for its delta-transfer algorithm, which reduces the amount of data sent over the network by sending only the differences between the source files and the existing files in the destination. Rsync is widely used for backups and mirroring and as an improved copy command for everyday use. Distribution: openSUSE Tumbleweed
To get a list of additional packages which the respective package requires to be
installed to work, use the command Requires as shown
below:
$ rpm -qp --requires rsync-3.1.2-1.5.x86_64.rpm /bin/sh /usr/bin/perl config(rsync) = 3.1.2-1.5 coreutils diffutils fillup grep libacl.so.1()(64bit) libacl.so.1(ACL_1.0)(64bit) libc.so.6()(64bit) libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.10)(64bit) libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.14)(64bit) libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.15)(64bit) libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.2.5)(64bit) libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.3)(64bit) libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.3.4)(64bit) libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.4)(64bit) libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.6)(64bit) libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.7)(64bit) libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.8)(64bit) libpopt.so.0()(64bit) libpopt.so.0(LIBPOPT_0)(64bit) libslp.so.1()(64bit) rpmlib(CompressedFileNames) <= 3.0.4-1 rpmlib(PayloadFilesHavePrefix) <= 4.0-1 rpmlib(PayloadIsLzma) <= 4.4.6-1 sed systemd
As an example, a package may need a library, or an executable that is called during runtime.
To get a list of information the respective package provides for other packages to
work, use the command Provides as shown below:
$ rpm -qp --provides rsync-3.1.2-1.5.x86_64.rpm config(rsync) = 3.1.2-1.5 rsync = 3.1.2-1.5 rsync(x86-64) = 3.1.2-1.5
1.2 Installing Packages #
When a package is installed, the content (or list of files) is placed on the
system at the location of each file path relative to the root
(/) directory.
Additionally, the metadata of the package (and the fact that it is installed) is
recorded in a system-wide database located in /var/lib/rpm.
This is managed by the rpm tool, the utility that manages
packages at the lowest level.
Packages can be installed with the rpm tools:
$ rpm -U rsync-3.1.2-1.5.x86_64.rpm
When you do this, you can perform the same queries without specifying the
-p option and using what is called the NVRA
(name-version-release-architecture, rsync-3.1.2-1.5.x86_64) or a
subset of it, for example, just the name (rsync).
$ rpm -q --provides rsync
The rpm tool will not help you if the dependencies of the
package are not met at installation time. It will then refuse to install the package
to avoid having the system in an inconsistent state.
Features like automatically finding the required packages and retrieving them, are
implemented in higher-level tools like zypper.
1.3 Dependency Matching #
The section Section 1.1, “Anatomy of a Package” explains that a package contains a list
of Requires and Provides. Those are not
package names, but arbitrary symbols. A package can require or provide any string of
text.
The main rule is that each package provides its own name. This means the rsync
package Provides: rsync.
You have also learned that rsync requires /bin/sh. While this looks like a file name, in our context it is an arbitrary symbol and the meaning is given by the whole distribution. The reason why it does not require a package named sh instead is that it provides a layer of indirection that makes the system cohesive.
/bin/sh is a capability provided by the bash package. This allows rsync to depend on any shell implementation as long as it provides that symbol.
The distribution build system will scan all executables a package installs in a
system and inject automatically those Provides. The packager does
not need to take care of them.
The same is done with libraries. As an example, rsync does not
depend on the glibc package. When glibc was
built, the build system scanned the content, found
/lib64/libc.so.6 and injected a Provides:
libc.so.6()(64bit) into the glibc metadata. In the
case of shared libraries it is not so important where they are located, because the
linker configuration takes care of that. When the rsync package
was built (glibc needed to be installed at that point to build
it), the build system scanned the executable /usr/lib/rsync and
realized it was linked against libc.so.6:
$ ldd /usr/bin/rsync
linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffccb34a000)
libacl.so.1 => /lib64/libacl.so.1 (0x00007fc406028000)
libpopt.so.0 => /usr/lib64/libpopt.so.0 (0x00007fc405e1b000)
libslp.so.1 => /usr/lib64/libslp.so.1 (0x00007fc405c02000)
libc.so.6 => /lib64/libc.so.6 (0x00007fc405863000)
libattr.so.1 => /lib64/libattr.so.1 (0x00007fc40565e000)
libcrypto.so.1.0.0 => /lib64/libcrypto.so.1.0.0 (0x00007fc4051c4000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib64/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007fc404fa7000)
/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00005653cd048000)
libdl.so.2 => /lib64/libdl.so.2 (0x00007fc404da3000)
libz.so.1 => /lib64/libz.so.1 (0x00007fc404b8d000)Therefore, it injected Requires: libc.so.6()(64bit) to the rsync package.
Now compare it to other packaging systems. The package
musicplayer requires libsound.
/usr/bin/musicplayer links to
/usr/lib64/libsound.so.5. At a later point in time,
musicplayer is rebuilt against a newer
libsound, which is not published. The user installs
musicplayer without any issue because it only
Requires: libsound (as in the package name). However, when
the user tries to run it, he or she gets the following message:
$ musicplayer error while loading shared libraries: libsound.so.7: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
The layer of indirection of automatically injected dependencies prevents this manual work from keeping dependencies in synchronization. Packages only provide what they really carry (because provides are injected by advanced scanners). Packages only require what they really need (because requires are injected by scanning executables, scripts for shebangs, etc.).
This allows rpm based distributions to use these conventions highly cohesive. It makes upgrades less problematic and the danger of breaking your system nearly non-existent. At the same time, the conventions and indirections between Provides and Requires allow for packages to depend on more abstract capabilities, instead of specific package names (which sometimes get renamed, split, obsoleted, etc). For example, you can be sure the vim package provides vi.
There are also other dependencies with more advances purposes:
Conflicts, Obsoletes, etc. Their names let
you easily understand what purposes they have.
1.4 Weak Dependencies #
Not everything is as strict as you might think. Sometimes a package works better if another package is present. Sometimes a package enhances the functionality of another package, however in neither case they are required. For this purpose, packages can have the following dependencies:
Recommends: a soft version of requires. If the recommended packages are not installed, the package will be installed anyway. Higher level tools however may pull automatically recommended packages based on user settings.The reverse of this dependency is
Supplements. For example a package spellchecker couldSupplementsan office-suite package.SuggestsandEnhances:the forward and backward version of Recommends and Supplements in a weaker version.
2 Working with Packages #
For daily system administration and maintenance, the rpm tool does
not suffice. You will quickly fall into what is commonly called the “dependency hell”.
This means you download packages manually to quickly satisfy a dependency, but then you
realize the new package implicates another dependency.
This problem is taken care of by a tool that implements a solver. The solver considers:
The list of installed packages (and therefore all its dependencies)
The list of available packages
The user request (“install package foo”, “upgrade system”)
The solver performs an operation that finds the best solution to a problem that has many solutions. Therefore “best” is defined by policies, user settings, the distribution itself, etc.
On SUSE systems, the solver is implemented by the libsolv /> project (see more at https://github.com/openSUSE/libsolv. This engine implements both a
satisfiability algorithm and an efficient way to represent the problem in memory.
Originally it was developed by Michael Schroeder at SUSE, but today it powers also other
distribution package managers, such as Fedora’s dnf.
The rest of the package manager includes:
Handling of package repositories
Checking the integrity of packages
Fetching remote packages
Reading and honoring user/system policies
In SUSE systems, this functionality is implemented by the ZYpp (see https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Libzypp)library, which also includes a command-line tool called zypper.
While tools like YaST (see https://yast.github.io/) also interact with ZYpp, on the console you will likely interact with
zypper. The command
$ zypper install rsync-3.1.2-1.5.x86_64.rpm
will, unlike rpm, check what else your system is missing, retrieve it, and then install all the required packages in the right order. It will also warn you if another package conflicts with what you are installing, or if the operation has more than one solution, and ask you for your decision what to do.
But from where does the system “retrieve other packages”?
2.1 Repositories #
zypper can install a package directly from an rpm file. If there is the need for installing dependencies or retrieving packages – for example when you upgrade a system - you will need a “library” of packages. This is what is called a repository. A repository is:
A collection of packages
A set of metadata files
The metadata is nothing more than the information present in the rpm file (Name, Description, Dependencies). The metadata allows the package manager to operate with the repository without having stored all rpm files locally. Every operation that is processed uses the given information of the package, and then the rpm files are retrieved on demand at installation time.
$ zypper lr # | Alias | Name | Enabled | GPG Check | Refresh --+----------------+----------------+---------+-----------+-------- 1 | non-oss | NON-OSS | Yes | ( p) Yes | Yes 2 | oss | OSS | Yes | ( p) Yes | Yes 3 | oss-update | OSS Update | Yes | ( p) Yes | Yes 4 | update-non-oss | Update Non-Oss | Yes | ( p) Yes | Yes
A system normally will have the following repositories:
The base repository, which contains all the distribution packages
Additional modules, add-on products or extensions
An update repository for each base product or extension
Running list repositories with -u will display the URI of the
repository:
zypper lr -u
http://download.opensuse.org/update/leap/42.2/oss/.If you visit the URI, you will see:
a
x86_64directory containing all architecture-dependent packages (this means ones that contain executables, shared libraries, etc)a
noarchdirectory containing architecture-independent packages (this means ones containing data or scripts)a
repodatadirectory, containing the metadata for all packages
The metadata for this type of repositories consists in a
repodata/repomd.xml file index, which is signed
(repomd.xml.asc) using a key already present in the
original system. repodata/repomd.xml refers to other metadata
file with their checksums. The most important file is
primary.xml which contains all package dependencies.
If you have a directory with rpm packages, you can create the metadata for them
using the createrepo tool. After that you can serve that
repository via HTTP.
If you have a directory with rpms you want to use as repository, you don’t need to add metadata. ZYpp allows to have a plain local directory as a repository, and will read the metadata directly from the rpm files into its cache.
2.1.1 Refreshing a Repository #
You can refresh a repository with the command
$ zypper ref
While the base repository of the distribution is normally immutable, repositories like the one containing updates often get new content. The purpose of refreshing a repository is to get the up-to-date version of the metadata locally, so that all operations (solving, retrieval) match the current content of the repository.
If a repository is out of date, it means the local metadata represents a previous version of the repository content. You could try to solve this and fetch packages, but those packages may not exists on the repository anymore, and you will get an error at retrieval time.
The list of repositories of the system is kept in
/etc/zypp/repos.d. zypper provides
most of repository operations in a safer way than trying to update these files
manually.
During refresh, metadata is cached locally at
/var/cache/zypp/raw and converted to an efficient
format for solving operations in /var/cache/zypp/solv.
2.1.2 Services #
Services are a higher-level version of repositories. It is another index that lists repositories. When the system is subscribed to a service, refreshing the service will result in a new list of repositories, and the package manager will add new ones or remove obsolete ones.
Services are used for example on SUSE Linux Enterprise with the SUSE Customer Center (SCC). A customer is subscribed to a service provided by SCC using proper credentials. The customer, based on his or her entitlements, can “activate” a new product. SUSE Customer Center knows about those activations, and on service refresh, it will provide a new list of repositories that includes the new activated product.
Services can be installed remote (like SCC), or locally, via a plug-in, on the
system. The package manager asks the plug-in for a list of repositories. It is
up to the plug-in to build this list. This is normally used for integration with
other systems. For example, the connectivity between zypper
and Spacewalk respective SUSE Manager (see https://www.suse.com/products/suse-manager/ was originally
implemented using a local plug-in.
2.1.3 Repository sources #
If you are using SUSE Linux Enterprise, your repositories will appear after
the SUSEConnect tool registers your product against the SUSE
Customer Center at https://scc.suse.com/login.
If you are using openSUSE, the default installation will set up the base and
update the repositories. Additionally, there is a lot of content published by
the community on the build service projects or via projects like
packmanpackman (see http://packman.links2linux.org/.
SUSE Linux Enterprise users can take advantage of the community content via the Package Hub at https://packagehub.suse.com/.
2.2 Other Package Manager Operations #
You can use zypper lu to list updates, and zypper
up to install them.
You can lock packages to avoid them being removed or pulled-in using
zypper addlock or zypper removelock. You
can also list active locks with zypper locks.
The distribution upgrade operation dup is used to do
destructive upgrades. This means packages may be suggested for removal as
dependencies like Obsoletes are taken into account. It is usually
used to upgrade to major releases or to update rolling distributions like Tumbleweed
(see https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Tumbleweed. This command
needs to be used with care.
2.3 Other Solvable Types (Products, Patterns, System) #
The package manager solver loads all available and installed packages and cares for solving the dependencies. However, there are other entities similar to packages that also have dependencies.
2.3.1 Patterns #
Patterns are used to install a collection of software in a comfortable way. For example you can install a working Laptop-oriented system with the command:
$ zypper install -t pattern laptop
But where do patterns come from? They do not exists on their own. The package managers creates them dynamically from packages named patterns-XXXXXX which have a special set of dependencies. Installing a pattern would actually install the package representing that pattern. The other way around is true, if you install the package representing the pattern, it will make the system look like the pattern is installed.
The command:
$ zypper info --provides patterns-openSUSE-laptop
reveals some detail behind patterns (equivalent to rpm -q --provides
patterns-openSUSE-laptop).
2.3.2 Products #
Similar to patterns, products can be queried with:
$ zypper search -t product
“Product” comes from a package called
XXXXXX-release which has some special dependencies
(rpm -q --provides openSUSE-release). The release
package/product installs some information in
/etc/products.d that is used by other tools get
information about the base and add-on products installed.
2.3.3 Patches #
Patches are used for updates and described by the
updateinfo.xml section of the metadata. They represent
an entity that conflicts with older versions of one or more packages. Installing
a patch does not install packages, but generates a conflict in the solver that
ends with the affected version of packages being upgraded.
Patches also carry additional property, like the CVE (see https://cve.mitre.org/identifiers of the issues they fix or links to bug tracker incidents.
2.3.4 System #
During solving, there is one entity providing dependencies that is used to
match locale and hardware information. If you have a Wi-Fi card, the package
manager will dynamically read /sys/devices and make this
entity have provides like:
Provides :modalias(pci:v0000104Cd0000840[01]sv*sd*bc*sc*i*)
A package providing a Wi-Fi driver for some cards (for example, wlan-kmp-default), could have the following dependencies:
Supplements: modalias(kernel-default:pci:v0000104Cd0000840[01]sv*sd*bc*sc*i*) Supplements: modalias(kernel-default:pci:v0000104Cd00009066sv*sd*bc*sc*i*) Supplements: modalias(kernel-default:pci:v000010B7d00006000sv*sd*bc*sc*i*)
This results in the fact that, at solving time, if the hardware is present, the driver will be selected automatically.
This is one of the core features of the Kernel Module Packages (KMP) section of the SUSE SolidDriver Program (see https://drivers.suse.com/doc/SolidDriver/Kernel_Module_Packages.html. For more information about the SUSE SolidDriver Program and about KMP's, check the article “Using SLES and the SLE SDK to Build a Kernel Module Package (KMP)” at https://www.suse.com/communities/blog/using-sles-and-the-sle-sdk-build-kernel-module-package-kmp/.
Something similar is done with translation packages and the current configured system locale.
Be aware that all those types mentioned (Patterns, Products, System) are
only present at solving time. Actually your system consists only of
packages, and all information comes from the installed packages. Every
operation on patches, patterns and products result in a package operation.
The purpose behind is to make the package manager compatible with the lower
level rpm tool.
3 Creating packages #
When packages are created they provide a so called .spec file. A
spec file defines the attributes of the package, explicit dependencies (others are
injected as already mentioned), and how the content of the package is created. A very
simple spec file would be:
Name: mypackage
Version: 1.0
Release: 0
License: MIT
Summary: Dummy package
BuildRoot: %{_tmppath}/%{name}-%{version}-build
%description
Dummy text
%install
mkdir -p %{buildroot}%{_datadir}/%{name}
touch %{buildroot}%{_datadir}/%{name}/CONTENT
%files
%defattr(-,root,root)
%{_datadir}/%{name}/CONTENT
%changelogThis spec file creates a directory /usr/share/mypackage and puts
a dummy CONTENT file in it.
spec files are heavily defined by macros that make sure that paths and values are
specified by the distribution. Those macros are shipped by the base distribution and are
located in /usr/lib/rpm and /etc/rpm. Other
packages may contribute more macros. For example the macros defined in
/usr/lib/rpm/golang-macros.rb are provided by the
golang-packaging package and are useful to create packages that
use the Go language.
3.1 Common Macros #
When building spec files, you should be familiar with macros like %{_prefix}, %{_datadir}, %{_mandir}, %{_libdir}, %{_bindir}, etc... You can evaluate a macro as follows:
$ rpm --eval "%{_libdir}"
/usr/lib643.2 Sub-packages #
Sometimes you will build multiple components from a single source that are independent of each other.
The sources for a package Office Suite may result in:
A Word Processor
A Spreadsheet
Common libraries
Development files
For this, you can declare subpackages, independent description
and attributes sections for each component. The build section is common to all
subpackages, and then again in the %files section, you will
declare which files go to each subpackage. In this example, the subpackages could
be:
office-wordprocessor
office-spreadsheet
liboffice
office-devel
3.3 Building with rpmbuild #
You can build a package with the rpmbuild tool. It requires the
spec file to be in a specific location. You can tweak the standard configuration to
search spec files in the current directory:
$ cat ~/.rpmmacros
%topdir /space/packages
%_builddir %{topdir}/build
%_rpmdir %{topdir}/rpms
%_sourcedir %(echo $PWD)
%_specdir %(echo $PWD)
%_srcrpmdir %{topdir}/rpmsYou can configure it so that built packages are saved in
/space/packages. Make the tweaks according to your own
preferences.
When this is set up, enter the following command:
$ rpmbuild -bb mypackage.spec Executing(%install): /bin/sh -e /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.lVzwnj + umask 022 + cd /space/packages/build + mkdir -p /home/duncan/rpmbuild/BUILDROOT/mypackage-1.0-0.x86_64/usr/share/mypackage + touch /home/duncan/rpmbuild/BUILDROOT/mypackage-1.0-0.x86_64/usr/share/mypackage/CONTENT + /usr/lib/rpm/brp-compress + /usr/lib/rpm/brp-suse Processing files: mypackage-1.0-0.x86_64 Provides: mypackage = 1.0-0 mypackage(x86-64) = 1.0-0 Requires(rpmlib): rpmlib(CompressedFileNames) <= 3.0.4-1 rpmlib(PayloadFilesHavePrefix) <= 4.0-1 Checking for unpackaged file(s): /usr/lib/rpm/check-files /home/duncan/rpmbuild/BUILDROOT/mypackage-1.0-0.x86_64 Wrote: /space/packages/rpms/x86_64/mypackage-1.0-0.x86_64.rpm Executing(%clean): /bin/sh -e /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.0xLGri + umask 022 + cd /space/packages/build + /usr/bin/rm -rf /home/duncan/rpmbuild/BUILDROOT/mypackage-1.0-0.x86_64 + rm -rf filelists
Now you can verify the content of the package:
% rpm -qpl /space/packages/rpms/x86_64/mypackage-1.0-0.x86_64.rpm /usr/share/mypackage/CONTENT
Everything that you put into the %{buildroot} did end up as content of the package.
The term “building a package” can have two meanings. One is assembling the package from existing content. You could build your application in Jenkins, take the built artifacts and use the spec file to package it.
However, where rpm excels is that you can build the application
in the spec file itself, and use the distribution and dependencies to set up the
build environment.
A common use case to illustrate this is the typical Linux application built with
configure && make && make
install. In the next example you build a package for gqlplus (see
http://gqlplus.sourceforge.net/, an alternative client for
Oracle databases.
Provided that you have readline and ncurses development headers, you can build
this application by unpacking the TAR archive and performing the commands mentioned
above. Some programs require an extra step with autoconf to
generate the configure script. This is specific to building
software and has nothing to do with packaging.
When you do ./configure you need to pass the right
--prefix. Macros can help here. You could use the command
configure --prefix=%{_prefix}. However, there is a better
macro called %configure which takes care and sets
most of the configuration options (You can also try expanding it with echo
$(rpm --eval '%configure')).
The package cannot build if some libraries are not present. A C compiler is there,
but the basic build tools (make) are not available. That is what
BuildRequires are for. They define what
packages are needed for building - but not necessarily at runtime.
On the other hand, the original oracle-instantclient-sqlplus package is required at runtime, but you do not need it to build your package.
Name: gqlplus
Version: 1.15
Release: 0
License: GPL-2.0
Summary: A drop-in replacement for sqlplus, an Oracle SQL client
Url: http://gqlplus.sourceforge.net/
Group: Productivity/Databases/Clients
Source0: %{name}-%{version}.tar.bz2
BuildRequires: readline-devel
BuildRequires: ncurses-devel
BuildRequires: gcc make autoconf automake
BuildRoot: %{_tmppath}/%{name}-%{version}-build
Requires: oracle-instantclient-sqlplus
%description
GQLPlus is a drop-in replacement for sqlplus, an Oracle SQL client, for Unix and Unix-like platforms. The difference between GQLPlus and sqlplus is command-line editing and history, plus table-name and column-name completion.
%prep
%setup -q
%build
aclocal && autoconf
automake --add-missing
%configure
make %{?_smp_mflags}
%install
%makeinstall
%files
%defattr(-,root,root)
%doc ChangeLog README LICENSE
%{_bindir}/gqlplus
%changelogThe Source0 section specifies a source that you can refer later using the %SOURCE0 or %{S:0} macros. You can have more than one source (Source1, etc).
The prep section uses the %setup macro (see http://ftp.rpm.org/max-rpm/s1-rpm-inside-macros.html#S2-RPM-INSIDE-SETUP-MACROto unpack the sources. You could as well operate directly on the source files if you need to do something unconventional.
As we need make install to install the files inside %{buildroot}, we should call make install
DESTDIR=%{buildroot}, but %makeinstall is a macro for that.
The files section list the files rpmbuild should expect to find inside the %{buildroot} macro that will be the content of the package.
You do not need to add a runtime Requires to the readline and ncurses libraries. Because the executable is linked against the ones installed by the -devel packages, it will be scanned and the right Requires will be injected:
$ rpm -qp --requires gqlplus-1.15-0.x86_64.rpm libc.so.6()(64bit) ... libncurses.so.6()(64bit) libreadline.so.7()(64bit) oracle-instantclient-sqlplus ...
These symbols are provided by the right package, thus the solver will match them:
rpm -q --whatprovides 'libncurses.so.6()(64bit)' libncurses6-6.0-19.1.x86_64
For more information on how to build packages for various types of software, visit the openSUSE Packaging Guidelines at https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Packaging_guidelines.
3.4 Building in a Real Build Environment #
Building this way means the build environment is your system. If a package is available in BuildRequires, you will have to install it on your system first.
If the software you are building links against some library only if it is
available, even if you do not mention it in your BuildRequires, if that library is present in your system, it will
taint the build and make the command configure find it.
The following section outlines what to do if you want to build against only the packages that are in the build requirements.
3.4.1 The Open Build Service #
The Open Build Service at http://openbuildservice.org/ allows to build packages for multiple distributions and architectures. Visit the Materials section of the Web site (see http://openbuildservice.org/help/) for a deeper introduction. For the package you are building, you can get an account at the openSUSE Build Service instance. Go to your “Home Project”, and click “Create New Package”. Upload the spec file and sources.
After that you need to configure some target distributions for your home project. That can be one base distribution, or another project. This shows the power by allowing building based on layers that can override things from previous layers.
Add the most popular (open)SUSE distributions (latest Leap and Tumbleweed) and your package will be built automatically. A repository will be published automatically and made available for public consumption.
Every time the sources change, the package will be rebuilt. If you have more packages in the same project, those will be rebuilt in the right order, and re-published.
The Open Build Service cannot only build packages, but also images from those packages. All SUSE products and the openSUSE distributions are built using the Open Build Service. Contributors submit new sources, and the Open Build Service takes care of assembling everything (and openQA later ensures that everything works).
3.4.2 Using the Open Build Service locally #
With the osc tool you can checkout packages from the Open
Build Service, make changes to them and resubmit them.
$ osc co home:dmacvicar gqlplus A home:dmacvicar A home:dmacvicar/gqlplus A home:dmacvicar/gqlplus/gqlplus-1.15.tar.bz2 A home:dmacvicar/gqlplus/gqlplus.changes A home:dmacvicar/gqlplus/gqlplus.spec At revision 4.
The most interesting feature is the ability to build packages or images locally. osc allows you to build in an isolated environment (either a chroot jail [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chroot] or a virtual machine) by setting up that environment automatically using the BuildRequires of the spec file. It also allows you to build against a different distribution than the one you are running.
$ cd home:dmacvicar/gqlplus $ osc build openSUSE_Leap_42.2 ...
3.5 Improving the Package #
When you build a package in the Open Build Service, you will find out that, in addition to the automated actions that inject dependencies, there are several checks being done to the package.
These checks are very detailed. But this is the only way to ensure quality and consistency when a product is assembled from thousands of sources by hundreds of contributors.
The spec-cleaner tool can help you keeping your spec file in
shape:
$ spec-cleaner -i gqlplus.spec
For example, it can help you converting BuildRequires:
foo-devel dependencies to BuildRequires:
pkgconfig(foo). If a -devel package installs a
pkg-config module, a Provides:
pkgconfig(foo) is automatically injected. If the build process
(./configure or Makefile) uses
pkg-config to find the software, it makes more sense and it
is closer to reality to depend on pkgconfig(foo) being present,
regardless which -devel package provides it.
You can get more information about how to fix post-build checks in the openSUSE Packaging Checks page at https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Packaging_checks.
3.6 Changelogs #
Until now you left the %changelog section
empty. Some distributions write the history of the package to the changelog.
SUSE-flavored distributions keep the changelog in a separate
.changes file. To quickly generate or update it, you can
use osc vc in the directory containing the spec file and the
sources.
4 Legal notice #
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Below we draw your attention to the license under which the articles are published.
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Copyright (C) 2000, 2001, 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA. Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
0. PREAMBLE #
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2. VERBATIM COPYING #
You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License. You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute. However, you may accept compensation in exchange for copies. If you distribute a large enough number of copies you must also follow the conditions in section 3.
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If the required texts for either cover are too voluminous to fit legibly, you should put the first ones listed (as many as fit reasonably) on the actual cover, and continue the rest onto adjacent pages.
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Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications adjacent to the other copyright notices.
Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license notice giving the public permission to use the Modified Version under the terms of this License, in the form shown in the Addendum below.
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Include an unaltered copy of this License.
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If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or appendices that qualify as Secondary Sections and contain no material copied from the Document, you may at your option designate some or all of these sections as invariant. To do this, add their titles to the list of Invariant Sections in the Modified Version's license notice. These titles must be distinct from any other section titles.
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You may add a passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover Text, and a passage of up to 25 words as a Back-Cover Text, to the end of the list of Cover Texts in the Modified Version. Only one passage of Front-Cover Text and one of Back-Cover Text may be added by (or through arrangements made by) any one entity. If the Document already includes a cover text for the same cover, previously added by you or by arrangement made by the same entity you are acting on behalf of, you may not add another; but you may replace the old one, on explicit permission from the previous publisher that added the old one.
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You may extract a single document from such a collection, and distribute it individually under this License, provided you insert a copy of this License into the extracted document, and follow this License in all other respects regarding verbatim copying of that document.
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If a section in the Document is Entitled "Acknowledgements", "Dedications", or "History", the requirement (section 4) to Preserve its Title (section 1) will typically require changing the actual title.
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You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly provided for under this License. Any other attempt to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Document is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.
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The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions of the GNU Free Documentation License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/.
Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number. If the Document specifies that a particular numbered version of this License "or any later version" applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that specified version or of any later version that has been published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation. If the Document does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation.
ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents #
Copyright (c) YEAR YOUR NAME. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".
If you have Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts and Back-Cover Texts, replace the "with...Texts". line with this:
with the Invariant Sections being LIST THEIR TITLES, with the Front-Cover Texts being LIST, and with the Back-Cover Texts being LIST.
If you have Invariant Sections without Cover Texts, or some other combination of the three, merge those two alternatives to suit the situation.
If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we recommend releasing these examples in parallel under your choice of free software license, such as the GNU General Public License, to permit their use in free software.