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IUS Packaging Guidelines

IUS packages are usually based on their Fedora counterparts. Because of that, IUS packages can mostly just follow Fedora packaging guidelines, only deviating when necessary. EPEL packaging guidelines are another useful reference that should be followed if possible. In the course of creating/maintaining an IUS package, if something non-compliant is discovered that came from the Fedora spec file, it should be reported to the Fedora package maintainer to get corrected. This will likely benefit IUS in the future when an even newer package is created from the future Fedora spec file.

The most significant difference between a normal Fedora or EPEL package is the mechanisms used to achieve safe replacement of stock packages. An IUS safe replacement package has a different name than the stock equivalent, but provides that stock name. For example, to replace a stock package named foo (version 2), a foo3 (version 3) package would include the following line:

Provides:       foo = %{version}-%{release}

Unless foo3 is a noarch package, then it should also contain another architecture-specific provides line.

Provides:       foo%{?_isa} = %{version}-%{release}

The foo3 package will also need to conflict with the stock package name. There are two reasons for this: it must not conflict with the name it provides, and more importantly it will have file conflicts with the stock package and thus cannot be installed at the same time.

Conflicts:      foo < %{version}-%{release}

This results in the follow common lines in most IUS spec files.

Provides:       foo = %{version}-%{release}
Provides:       foo%{?_isa} = %{version}-%{release}
Conflicts:      foo < %{version}-%{release}

These lines will need to be applied to the top level package as well as any subpackages. Remember that any noarch subpackages can omit the architecture-specific provides.