Re: Off-root building of RPMs

[John Pye <john pye student unsw edu au>]

Hi Nigel,

Nigel Metheringham wrote:

>On Fri, 2006-05-05 at 10:48 +1000, John Pye wrote:
>  
>
>>The first problem is that according to 'Maximum RPM' 
>>    
>>
>
>Maximum RPM is really rather dated now.
>  
>
I checked the 'snapshot' Max RPM as well. Also not updated, I guess.

>  
>
>>I found that the only way to build RPMs off-root was to use the
>>suggested .rpmmacros to replace %_topdir with something else. There was
>>a nice little download script on the RPM webpage that looked after all
>>that. But it seems that the manual needs to be updated to explain if/why
>>the .rpmrc approach isn't working, and whether or not that's a
>>Fedora-only issue, or what.
>>    
>>
>
>Best thing is probably to get the Fedora RPM Development Tools - see
>	http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/fedora-rpmdevtools
>
>fedora-buildrpmtree sets things up for you.  An alternative is
>(strangely) the cpan2rpm command/package - 
>	cpan2rpm --mk-rpm-dirs
>sets things up for you
>
>  
>
>>Next, my off-root RPM build fails due to 'install -o root -g root'
>>commands. What is the suggested why to have RPMs built for correct root
>>installation if you're not able to use the 'install -o' command during
>>the build? Is that where the %defattr stuff comes into play? Should I
>>not use 'install -o' in RPMs?
>>    
>>
>
>Don't set the owner in the %install phase, but instead use a combination
>of %defattr for the overall attributes setting, and %attr for specific
>file/directory attribute setting.
>  
>
Ok, that was the right move.

>  
>
>>Finally, my trickiest problem. I have an RPM spec file as shown below
>>that results in a dependency on '/usr/bin/perl5'. I don't have this on
>>my system, so I want to trace back where the dependency is coming from.
>>I suspect that the 'update-mime-database' command in my %pre and %post
>>could be responsible -- how can I check that?
>>    
>>
>
>Just do a 
>	find /my/source/dir -type f -print | xargs fgrep /usr/bin/perl5
>
>and see what you get.
>
>The thing like that that catches me out sometimes is examples in the
>package documentation that get swept up and including in the %doc file
>set.  If any of those are executable they will be included in the deps
>checking - so an executable perl script which starts
>	#!/usr/bin/perl5
>
>will cause that dep.  Solution is to chmod the file to 444.
>  
>
There was a perl file lurking which I hadn't seen. Thanks for that.

>Reading the stuff on the Fedora Extras wiki is worth doing - even if you
>never intend to submit packages to Extras or even use Fedora.  Start at
>	http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Guidelines
>
>If you are packaging stuff that is going to be put on any other machine
>I would strongly recommend using a proper build environment, which makes
>sure that things aren't just building because you happen to have a file
>in a particular place on your box... it makes things reproducible.
>
>The Fedora Extras favoured one appears to be Mock:-
>	http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Extras/MockTricks
>	http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Projects/Mock
>
>Personally I use mach - which I find more efficient since it does not
>rebuild the build environment every time.  [However I do wonder if we
>should get something with a happy medium - saves the clean build
>environment as a archive, and reinstates that each time]
>
>Mach is at
>	http://thomas.apestaart.org/projects/mach/
>and is also packaged within Fedora Extras and some other environments.
>  
>
I'll take a look at those things. Thanks heaps for those tips.

Cheers
JP