Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- linux:rpm [2006/10/25 23:28]
a created
+++ linux:rpm [2009/05/25 00:35]
127.0.0.1 external edit
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
+===== Useful command list =====
 **To install a package (i=install v=verbose h=show hash marks):**
    rpm -ivh package.rpm
@@ Line 29: / Line 31: @@
 **Mass uninstall of packages that match a pattern:**
    rpm -qa | grep pattern | xargs rpm -e
+**How to extract contents of an RPM package**
+   rpm2cpio package.rpm | cpio -dimv
+As the name implies, rpm2cpio takes an RPM package file and converts it to a cpio archive. The -i flag to the cpio command indicates that cpio is reading in the archive to extract files, and the -d flag tells cpio to construct directories as necessary. The -v flag tells cpio to list file names as files are extracted, and the -m flag tells cpio to retain previous file modification times when creating files.
+===== Building a dummy/empty RPM =====
+To create such a fake RPM file, first ensure that you have the rpm-build package installed. Then, save this text somewhere as
+''dummy.spec'':
+   Summary: Dummy Package to provide tomcat5
+   Name: dummy-tomcat
+   Version: 1.0
+   Release: 1
+   Group: System Environment/Base
+   License: Beerware
+   BuildArch: noarch
+   Provides: tomcat5, tomcat5-admin-webapps
+   %description
+   This meta-package fools other packages to think you have tomcat5 installed
+   %files
+Now, run the command: **rpmbuild -bb dummy.spec**
+It will create a dummy-1.0-1.noarch.rpm which when installed, will
+provide tomcat5 (assuming your software looks at the provides list
+rather than the name list).