Making an RPM that contains only text files

I wanted to make an RPM file that contained a few configuration files for Cfengine (namely failsafe.cf and update.cf) so that this RPM file could be quickly deployed on many servers with minimal effort and no errors. Here is how I did it, hopefully you can easily adapt it to your needs.

These instructions assume you already have the RPM and RPMbuild tools installed and the ~/rpmbuild/{BUILD,SOURCES,RPM,SPECS} directories ready for use.

1. Make a directory for the files under your ~/rpmbuild/SOURCES directory that contains the package name and version number:

   mkdir ~/rpmbuild/SOURCES/cfengine-bootstrap-1.0

2. If all the files go into a single directory then you can just put them all here. Otherwise, create the directory structure you need, e.g.,

   mkdir -p ~/rpmbuild/SOURCES/cfengine-bootstrap-1.0/var/cfengine/inputs

3. Copy the files into the directory or directories:

   cp -a ~/.cfagent/inputs/{failsafe.cf,update.cf} \
      ~/rpmbuild/SOURCES/cfengine-bootstrap-1.0/

4. Create a SPEC file (example below) in ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/.
5. Build your RPM:

   rpmbuild -bb ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/cfengine-bootstrap-1.0.spec

6. Check that your RPM file contains the files you expect:

   ~$ rpm -qlp ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64/cfengine-bootstrap-1.0-1.x86_64.rpm
   /var/cfengine
   /var/cfengine/inputs
   /var/cfengine/inputs/failsafe.cf
   /var/cfengine/inputs/update.cf

7. Move the RPM file to your repository.
8. Run createrepo on your repository directory.
9. Run yum makecache to update YUM's file list.
10. Type “yum search cfengine” (or whatever the name of your file is) and you should see it.

    $ yum search cfengine
    ========================== Matched: cfengine ==========================
    cfengine.x86_64 : Server configuration administration tool
    cfengine-community.x86_64 : The Cfengine Configuration System
    cfengine-docs.x86_64 : Cfengine documentation
    cfengine-bootstrap.noarch : Cfengine files for boot-strapping

Here is my SPEC file for the above example:

Summary: Cfengine failsafe and update files for boot-strapping
Name: cfengine-bootstrap
Version: 1.0
Release: 1%{?dist}
License: None
Group: System Environment/Base
URL: http://www.ispltd.com/
Source: %{name}-%{version}.tgz
BuildRoot: %{_tmppath}/%{name}-%{version}-%{release}-root
BuildArch: noarch

%description
Basic files to get a new server running with Cfengine.
Once a server has these it can contact the master policy
server and retrieve the full set of policy files.

%prep
%setup
%build
%install
%{__install} -d -m0775 %{buildroot}%{_localstatedir}/cfengine/inputs/
cp -a *.cf %{buildroot}%{_localstatedir}/cfengine/inputs/

%post
%preun
%clean
%files
%defattr(-, root, root, 0755)
# %config(noreplace) /var/cfengine/inputs/*.cf
%{_localstatedir}/cfengine/

%changelog
* Fri Nov 03 2010 Angelo Babudro <tech. support`@`ispltd. c`om> - 1.0
- First release (remove back-ticks & spaces in e-mail to write to me)