Rhn Rpm Guidelines - Red Hat NETWORK SATELLITE 5.3.0 - CHANNEL MANAGEMENT Management Manual

Chapter 3. Building Custom Packages
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 accurately. Red
Hat Network relies on this aspect of RPM. Red Hat Network offers an automated 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 features of RPM to
build packages properly. For more information about RPM, start with the following resources:
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/drafts/rpm-guide-en/index.html
•
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/developers-guide/ch-rpm-building.html
•
http://www.gurulabs.com/GURULABS-RPM-LAB/GURULABS-RPM-GUIDE-v1.0.PDF
•
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.
3. The RPM package must install without using the --force or --nodeps options. If you cannot
install an RPM cleanly on your build system, Red Hat Network cannot install it automatically on a
system.
4. The RPM package filename must be in the NVR (name, version, release) format and must contain
the architecture for the package. The proper format is name-version-release.arch.rpm.
For example, a valid RPM package filename is pkgname-0.84-1.i386.rpm, where name is
pkgname, version is 0.84, release is 1, and arch is i386.
5. The RPM package should be signed by the maintainer of the package. Unsigned packages may
be distributed through Red Hat Network, but the Red Hat Update Agent (up2date) must be
forced to accept them. Signing packages is highly recommended and is covered in
"Digital Signatures for RHN
6. If the package is changed in any way, including changing the signature or recompiling, the version
or release must be increased incrementally. In other words, the NVRA (including architecture) for
each RPM distributed through RHN must correspond to a unique build to avoid ambiguities.
7. No RPM package may obsolete itself.
8. If a package is split into separate packages, be extremely careful with the dependencies. Do not
split an existing package unless there is a compelling reason to do so.
9. No package may rely upon interactive pre-install, post-install, pre-uninstall, or post-uninstall
scripts. If the package requires direct user intervention during installation, it cannot work with Red
Hat Network.
6
Packages".
Section 3.2,