How to build rpm to point to unique config files, macros, and db

["Dennis McRitchie" <dmcr Princeton EDU>]

Hi,

We are in the process of developing a repository of rpm packages for
multiple OSs. Each OS's repository will be NFS-mountable from any user's
machine running that OS, and users must then be able to execute the instance
of rpm residing in that repository to install any of the packages recorded
in that rpm instance's db.

Aside from the need to build (and adapt) rpm for each OS, and (for non-Linux
OSs) to populate the rpm db with the OS-provided packages, I am having
difficulty in figuring out how rpm determines the location of its master
rpmrc file (usually in /usr/lib), and the location of its db.

As a test, I built rpm under Linux using the sources within the 4.2 src rpm
file. I mimicked what the rpm.spec file does in terms of passing arguments
to "configure", amending them to point to the real install target within my
repository. I then executed "make" and "make install", and everything went
where it should, including the normal contents of "/usr/bin", /usr/lib" and
/usr/lib/rpm".

However, when I execute that instance of rpm using "rpm --showrc" it is
still looking in /usr/lib to find its rpmrc file. (It also still points to
/usr/lib/rpm/macros and to the /etc directory on the "macrofiles" line, but
I can edit that manually if need be.)

What do I need to do to get rpm to look at "/<my-repository>/lib/rpmrc" by
default instead of /usr/lib/rpmrc?

And can I assume that once I get it to do that, that it will also look for
its db in "/<my-repository>/lib/rpm"?

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,
       Dennis

Dennis McRitchie
Research & Academic Applications Support (RAAS)
Academic Services Department
Office of Information Technology
Princeton University
327 87 Prospect
609-258-4612