Rhn Rpm Guidelines - Red Hat NETWORK 4.0 - CHANNEL MANAGEMENTT GUIDE Manual

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information about the package and its contents. RPM queries the headers quickly and
easily.
System Verification
Another feature is the ability to verify packages. If you are worried a file related to
a package was deleted, you can verify the package to check the status of the files it
provides. The verification notifies you of any anomalies. If errors do exist, you can re-
install the files easily. Modified configuration files are preserved during reinstallation.
Pristine Sources
A crucial design goal of RPM is to allow the use of pristine software sources, as
distributed by the original authors of the software. With RPM, the pristine sources can
be packaged, along with any patches that were used, plus complete build instructions.
This is an important advantage for several reasons. For instance, if a new version
of a program is released, you do not necessarily have to start from scratch to make it
compile. You can look at the patch to see what you might need to do. All the compiled-
in defaults and changes made to get the software to build properly are easily visible
using this technique.
Keeping sources pristine may seem important only to developers, but it results in
higher quality software for end users, as well.

3.1.2. RHN RPM Guidelines

The strength of RPM lies in its ability to define dependencies and identify conflicts accu-
rately. Red Hat Network relies on this aspect of RPM. Red Hat Network offers an auto-
mated environment, which means that no manual intervention can take place during the
installation of a package. Therefore, when building RPMs for distribution through Red Hat
Network, it is imperative to follow these rules:
1. Learn RPM. It is crucial to have a fundamental understanding of the important fea-
tures of RPM to build packages properly. For more information about RPM, start
with the following resources:
http://www.rpm.org/RPM-HOWTO/
•
http://www.redhat.com/docs/books/max-rpm/
•
http://www.rpm.org/mailing_list/
•
http://fedora.redhat.com/participate/developers-guide/ch-rpm-building.html
•
2. When building an RPM for a child channel, build the package on a fresh install of
Red Hat Enterprise Linux of the same version as the child's base channel. Be sure to
apply all updates from Red Hat Network first.
Chapter 3. Building Custom Packages