Build rpms without requiring rpmbuild

[jordansissel]

rpmbuild isn't available on some systems without going through pains to install it manually.

The RPM format is poorly documented, but in general, it should be doable to generate RPMs directly from ruby instead of rpmbuild. This would also let me avoid any workarounds I might require to use rpmbuild.

[jneen]

+1. It would be awesome for people to be able to build all sorts of packages in one go, on the same box.

[jordansissel]

Exactly. I already generate .deb files without the help of any debian tools. rpm's internal format is some serious bullshit, but I made headway a few weeks ago (see lib/rpm/ in the fpm source tree).

[howardjones]

Or at least document that it requires rpmbuild :-) The docs don't appear to mention external dependencies at all...

(but +1 for being able to build rpm and deb on anything!)

[ankurcha]

Any update on this?

[jordansissel]

Not yet, I haven't had energy yet to implement the 'write an rpm file' library in Ruby.

[ankurcha]

Is this something I can help with? I have some spare cycles that I can give.

If you have any notes or something I can give it a whirl.

[jordansissel]

The ruby library I wrote "arr-pm" implements reading an RPM. It needs write support (which should include setting any property in the rpm, adding files, signing, etc)

http://github.com/jordansissel/ruby-arr-pm

[kevinkjt2000]

This is the one thing keeping me from using fpm for rpm creation. Adding the pure ruby capability of writing rpm files would be exactly in line with the first bit of the README.

• If fpm is not helping you make packages easily, then there is a bug in fpm.
• If you are having a bad time with fpm, then there is a bug in fpm.

Should this issue be labeled with bug?

[jordansissel]

@kevinkjt2000 I don't make much strong use of github issue labels in this project. If it comforts you, I can add a bug label.

This is the one thing keeping me from using fpm for rpm creation

Can you describe your situation more? What about rpmbuild prevents you from using it?

[kevinkjt2000]

Can you describe your situation more? What about rpmbuild prevents you from using it?

Sure thing 😄

rpmbuild isn't available on some systems without going through pains to install it manually.

[jarondl]

It does not handle most metadata yet (significantly package requirements), but if all you want is to put files in an rpm, you may consider rpmpack (tar2rpm), written in golang without calling rpmbuild.
https://github.com/google/rpmpack