Understanding RPM (2009-02-08 classroom)

---nirik has changed the topic to: Fedora IRC Classroom - Understanding RPM - The engine behind yum with your teacher Clint Savage (herlo) - See Classroom for tonights schedule of classes.		Feb 07 01:41
*jds2001 is here		Feb 07 01:41
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*nirik is here. Hopefull some of the other folks in channel are awake.		Feb 07 01:42
herlo	Hi all... My name is Clint Savage, I am a Fedora Ambassador in North America and am an experienced Linux Instructor...	Feb 07 01:42
*mj0vy1 is ready..		Feb 07 01:42
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herlo	been teaching linux for 3 years now, have taught for RH (as a contractor) and other companies including IBM, HP, etc...	Feb 07 01:42
*herlo is now down pimping his resume :)		Feb 07 01:42
herlo	So I'd like to start by talking about RPM, it's basic benefits and why it's important to the world.	Feb 07 01:43
herlo	RPM - Originally stood for Red Hat Package Manager, now dually named RPM Package Manager	Feb 07 01:43
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herlo	is essentially to help manage loads of files, including binaries, configuration and documentations...	Feb 07 01:43
herlo	in one easy way.	Feb 07 01:44
herlo	of course, there are other package management systems. And many distributions use RPM as their package management system.	Feb 07 01:44
herlo	DPKG, that's the Debian way...	Feb 07 01:44
herlo	Ubuntu uses this as well	Feb 07 01:44
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herlo	Ports, from the BSD family	Feb 07 01:44
herlo	Portage is part of the gentoo system	Feb 07 01:45
herlo	there's one called conary, which is pretty new, from the Foresight folks...	Feb 07 01:45
herlo	the benefits of packaging are quite large, but essentially, it makes it easy to contain all the files that belong to a particular application...	Feb 07 01:45
herlo	RPM has a small database (I still believe its berkeley db)	Feb 07 01:46
herlo	located in /var/lib/rpm	Feb 07 01:46
herlo	and each of the files in there are __db.00* which represent the RPM database...	Feb 07 01:46
herlo	which makes it easy for RPM to query and find out what has and hasn't been installed...	Feb 07 01:47
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herlo	there is also the *rpm* command, which is the core functionality of how rpm works...	Feb 07 01:47
herlo	which is what we'll mainly talk about in this class...	Feb 07 01:47
herlo	rpm can install, verify and query existing packages as well as packages we wish to install.	Feb 07 01:48
herlo	rpm can also fix problems where yum can't and hopefully we'll get a chance to talk about these corner cases	Feb 07 01:48
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herlo	another thing, one that most people don't realize, but rpm can do dependency resolution.	Feb 07 01:48
herlo	and that's a little tricky, but we'll talk about dependency resolution later on...	Feb 07 01:49
herlo	to start off with, I like to talk about rpm and how it can install packages, as well as upgrade and remove packages.	Feb 07 01:49
herlo	then we'll move to querying the database and packages...	Feb 07 01:49
herlo	the simplest way to install a package is to use rpm -i	Feb 07 01:50
herlo	something like this	Feb 07 01:50
herlo	rpm -i zsh-html-4.3.4-8.fc9.i386.rpm	Feb 07 01:50
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herlo	assuming that the rpm database doesn't have zsh-html already installed, it will verify this package and then install all the files associated with this package	Feb 07 01:51
herlo	if you are interested in following along with this package, you can download it at	Feb 07 01:52
herlo	http://herlo.fedorapeople.org/rpms/zsh-html-4.3.4-8.fc9.i386.rpm	Feb 07 01:52
herlo	it is the file that is also included in the current F10 base repository...	Feb 07 01:52
herlo	doing that install yields pretty much no output	Feb 07 01:53
herlo	and the package is in stalled	Feb 07 01:54
herlo	but the real question is what does that benefit us...	Feb 07 01:54
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herlo	and it's really simple, we now have the documentation for the zshell installed.	Feb 07 01:54
herlo	how do we erase an rpm?	Feb 07 01:55
herlo	well, that's rpm -e	Feb 07 01:55
herlo	prety straightforward as well, but there is one catch, let's try that now...	Feb 07 01:55
herlo	# rpm -e zsh-html-4.3.4-8.fc9.i386.rpm	Feb 07 01:55
herlo	error: package zsh-html-4.3.4-8.fc9.i386.rpm is not installed	Feb 07 01:55
herlo	hmm, I wonder why that happened :)	Feb 07 01:55
herlo	any thoughts?	Feb 07 01:55
brunowolff	.rpm	Feb 07 01:56
herlo	brunowolff: dig a little deeper there, you're right	Feb 07 01:56
herlo	the .rpm implies that we're trying to uninstall the rpm file, it's not what we ant	Feb 07 01:56
herlo	want	Feb 07 01:56
herlo	instead, what we want is	Feb 07 01:56
herlo	# rpm -e zsh-html-4.3.4-8.fc9.i386	Feb 07 01:57
herlo	and that will erase the package	Feb 07 01:57
herlo	but this would also work	Feb 07 01:57
herlo	# rpm -e zsh-html-4.3.4-8.fc9	Feb 07 01:57
herlo	and this	Feb 07 01:57
herlo	# rpm -e zsh-html-4.3.4-8	Feb 07 01:57
herlo	and this	Feb 07 01:57
herlo	# rpm -e zsh-html	Feb 07 01:57
herlo	because the way that rpm works, versioning is based upon several things	Feb 07 01:57
herlo	the version 4.3.4-8	Feb 07 01:57
herlo	the release fc9	Feb 07 01:57
herlo	the architecture i386	Feb 07 01:58
herlo	you'll find that there is only one zsh-html package and normally this is what you want...	Feb 07 01:58
herlo	I can also install or upgrade an rpm package...	Feb 07 01:58
VileGent	? cant we install with http as well	Feb 07 01:58
herlo	that's rpm -U	Feb 07 01:58
herlo	VileGent: indeed, we're getting there :)	Feb 07 01:59
herlo	VileGent: you can also install over ftp or http actually	Feb 07 01:59
herlo	so that http package I provided earlier would be a good way to go...	Feb 07 01:59
herlo	try this	Feb 07 01:59
herlo	rpm -U http://herlo.fedorapeople.org/rpms/zsh-html-4.3.4-8.fc9.i386.rpm	Feb 07 01:59
mj0vy1	!	Feb 07 01:59
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herlo	mj0vy1: please go ahead :)	Feb 07 01:59
mj0vy1	When I install, I am getting this error "Header V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 4ebfc273", but it installs eventually	Feb 07 02:00
herlo	mj0vy1: that's not an error, but we'll talk aobut that a little further on	Feb 07 02:00
mj0vy1	ok	Feb 07 02:00
herlo	if I don't cover it, let me know and I'll answer it in the q&a section	Feb 07 02:00
mj0vy1	alright..	Feb 07 02:00
herlo	okay, so you've installed and removed a package, let me include one somewhat deprecated option	Feb 07 02:00
herlo	rpm -F	Feb 07 02:01
herlo	-F stands for freshen, or update only	Feb 07 02:01
herlo	it allowed administrators to run an rpm -F *rpm and *only* upgrade packages that are installed on the system	Feb 07 02:01
brunowolff	Deprecated?	Feb 07 02:01
herlo	no packages that were in that directory (glob) that weren't already installed would not get installed	Feb 07 02:02
fenris02	(it should be mentioned that -F views .i386 and .i686 as "the same" so use sparingly)	Feb 07 02:02
brunowolff	Is there some better way to do what it does in rpm?	Feb 07 02:02
herlo	brunowolff: it's still fully functional, but it's been recommended against and isn't that useful	Feb 07 02:02
herlo	brunowolff: no, that's why it's still there	Feb 07 02:02
herlo	fenris02: as does all rpm unless you specify it (iirc)	Feb 07 02:03
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herlo	okay, so for now, pretend that -F is something you use sparingly as fenris02 pointed out :)	Feb 07 02:03
herlo	a couple other switches that are handy, -v verbose -h hash marks	Feb 07 02:03
herlo	so try this	Feb 07 02:03
herlo	rpm -e zsh-html	Feb 07 02:04
herlo	rpm -Uvh http://herlo.fedorapeople.org/rpms/zsh-html-4.3.4-8.fc9.i386.rpm	Feb 07 02:04
herlo	rpm -Uvh http://herlo.fedorapeople.org/rpms/zsh-html-4.3.4-8.fc9.i386.rpm	Feb 07 02:04
herlo	Retrieving http://herlo.fedorapeople.org/rpms/zsh-html-4.3.4-8.fc9.i386.rpm	Feb 07 02:04
herlo	Preparing... ########################################### [100%] 1:zsh-html ########################################### [100%]	Feb 07 02:04
herlo	as you do this install, you'll notice that there's a new percentage [50%] field and some new hash marks to show the progress	Feb 07 02:05
herlo	these are useful, especially when you are installing many packages at once...	Feb 07 02:06
herlo	I also wanted to mention that if you insall over ftp, it can use globbing, like * or ? in the url	Feb 07 02:06
herlo	so you could do something like this rpm -Uvh 'http://herlo.fedorapeople.org/rpms/zsh*'	Feb 07 02:07
herlo	and if there was zsh and zsh-html packages, it would install both (or upgrade)	Feb 07 02:07
herlo	questions?	Feb 07 02:08
herlo	okay, moving forward...	Feb 07 02:08
brunowolff	Is there a way to update and delete at the same time?	Feb 07 02:08
herlo	in what sense?	Feb 07 02:08
herlo	brunowolff: you want to update one package and remove another?	Feb 07 02:08
brunowolff	Sometimes you need to delete one package in order to install another one, but you can't delete it first because of dependencies.	Feb 07 02:09
brunowolff	Think of handling obsoletes.	Feb 07 02:09
herlo	brunowolff: well, that's a more advanced question, but we'll talk about --force and --nodeps near the end of this conversation...	Feb 07 02:09
herlo	however, there is one point I should make	Feb 07 02:09
fenris02	if all the deps are provided on the same rpm line, it'll work.	Feb 07 02:09
herlo	right	Feb 07 02:10
herlo	but here's my other point...	Feb 07 02:10
brunowolff	But --force may not work correctly with scripts. It would be nice to do it in one transaction.	Feb 07 02:10
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herlo	brunowolff: let's address that in the q&a because I want to get to your specific request...	Feb 07 02:10
herlo	but there's something else here, when you upgrade a package, the old package is removed and the new installed.	Feb 07 02:11
herlo	okay, so I have two things I need to address at the end :)	Feb 07 02:12
herlo	moving to querying...	Feb 07 02:12
herlo	to start with, let's talk about querying the rpm database and asking for the list of all packages installed	Feb 07 02:12
herlo	rpm -qa	Feb 07 02:12
herlo	I liked to do	Feb 07 02:12
herlo	rpm -qa | wc -l	Feb 07 02:13
herlo	to see how many packages are installed on my machine	Feb 07 02:13
herlo	another thing you can do is	Feb 07 02:13
herlo	rpm -qa '*zsh*'	Feb 07 02:14
herlo	I love to use this to search for any rpms that might match that pattern	Feb 07 02:14
herlo	another thing to look at is just	Feb 07 02:14
herlo	rpm -q	Feb 07 02:14
herlo	# rpm -q zsh-html	Feb 07 02:15
herlo	zsh-html-4.3.4-8.fc9.i386	Feb 07 02:15
herlo	another is	Feb 07 02:15
herlo	rpm -qi	Feb 07 02:15
herlo	Name  : zsh-html Relocations: (not relocatable)	Feb 07 02:15
herlo	Version  : 4.3.4 Vendor: Fedora Project	Feb 07 02:15
herlo	Release  : 8.fc9 Build Date: Thu 15 May 2008 10:17:38 PM MDT	Feb 07 02:16
herlo	Install Date: Sat 07 Feb 2009 07:03:01 PM MST Build Host: xenbuilder2.fedora.redhat.com	Feb 07 02:16
herlo	Group  : System Environment/Shells Source RPM: zsh-4.3.4-8.fc9.src.rpm	Feb 07 02:16
herlo	Size  : 2197128 License: BSD	Feb 07 02:16
herlo	Signature  : DSA/SHA1, Tue 28 Oct 2008 11:31:09 PM MDT, Key ID bf226fcc4ebfc273	Feb 07 02:16
herlo	Packager  : Fedora Project	Feb 07 02:16
herlo	URL  : http://zsh.sunsite.dk/	Feb 07 02:16
herlo	Summary  : Zsh shell manual in html format	Feb 07 02:16
herlo	Description :	Feb 07 02:16
herlo	The zsh shell is a command interpreter usable as an interactive login	Feb 07 02:16
herlo	shell and as a shell script command processor. Zsh resembles the ksh	Feb 07 02:16
herlo	shell (the Korn shell), but includes many enhancements. Zsh supports	Feb 07 02:16
herlo	command line editing, built-in spelling correction, programmable	Feb 07 02:16
herlo	command completion, shell functions (with autoloading), a history	Feb 07 02:16
herlo	mechanism, and more.	Feb 07 02:16
herlo	This package contains the Zsh manual in html format.	Feb 07 02:16
herlo	which provides the package information	Feb 07 02:16
herlo	and rpm -ql	Feb 07 02:16
herlo	rpm -ql zsh-html	Feb 07 02:17
herlo	/usr/share/doc/zsh-html-4.3.4	Feb 07 02:17
herlo	/usr/share/doc/zsh-html-4.3.4/zsh.html	Feb 07 02:17
herlo	/usr/share/doc/zsh-html-4.3.4/zsh_1.html	Feb 07 02:17
herlo	... snip ...	Feb 07 02:17
herlo	there's a lot of files listed here...	Feb 07 02:17
herlo	but there's a really cool one I like	Feb 07 02:17
herlo	rpm -qf	Feb 07 02:17
herlo	rpm -qf /bin/bash	Feb 07 02:18
herlo	bash-3.2-30.fc10.i386	Feb 07 02:18
herlo	so you can do this for any rpm that's installed	Feb 07 02:18
herlo	so try this one....	Feb 07 02:18
herlo	rpm -qf /bin/ls	Feb 07 02:18
herlo	and you'll find out that it's not in the ls package	Feb 07 02:18
herlo	coreutils-6.12-18.fc10.i386	Feb 07 02:19
herlo	also, you can check packages that aren't installed	Feb 07 02:20
herlo	rpm -qp	Feb 07 02:20
herlo	rpm -qlp	Feb 07 02:20
herlo	rpm -qip	Feb 07 02:20
herlo	will query the rpm file itself	Feb 07 02:20
herlo	and give similar results to -q, -ql, -qi	Feb 07 02:20
herlo	but for packages	Feb 07 02:21
herlo	moving to answer mj0vy1's question	Feb 07 02:21
herlo	verification...	Feb 07 02:21
herlo	mj0vy1: when you installed your package you got the Header missing error right?	Feb 07 02:21
herlo	that is because you don't have the RPM GPG keys installed...	Feb 07 02:22
herlo	to install your RPM GPG keys, they are automatically provided by Fedora in /etc/pki/rpm-gpg	Feb 07 02:23
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herlo	now, you can also get these from the CD media or right on the actual installed system...	Feb 07 02:23
herlo	to fix that issue, you may wish to run the following	Feb 07 02:24
herlo	rpm --import RPM-GPG-KEY /etc/pki/tls/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora	Feb 07 02:24
herlo	and any others you'd like to install	Feb 07 02:25
herlo	this will then allow you to verify the packages upon install	Feb 07 02:25
herlo	and you can do that prior to installing the package with	Feb 07 02:26
herlo	rpm -K zsh-html-4.3.4-8.fc9.i386.rpm	Feb 07 02:27
herlo	zsh-html-4.3.4-8.fc9.i386.rpm: (sha1) dsa sha1 md5 gpg OK	Feb 07 02:27
herlo	noting the gpg md5 and everything there is okay	Feb 07 02:27
herlo	you can do this with other rpm gpg keys and import things from other repos too...	Feb 07 02:28
jds2001	also, note that we're moving to sha256 digests likely in F12.	Feb 07 02:28
herlo	cool	Feb 07 02:29
herlo	jds2001: thanks for that	Feb 07 02:29
herlo	moving to the final stuffs with verification	Feb 07 02:29
herlo	you can use rpm -V to verify a particular package	Feb 07 02:29
herlo	after it's installed	Feb 07 02:29
herlo	if it returns an empty result, it's successful	Feb 07 02:30
herlo	if you get an error, then something is wrong	Feb 07 02:30
brunowolff	Not always.	Feb 07 02:30
nirik	unless it's a config file change. ;)	Feb 07 02:30
brunowolff	Some packages have scripts that modify what they install.	Feb 07 02:31
herlo	good point	Feb 07 02:31
jds2001	brunowolff: such packages are broken by design :)	Feb 07 02:31
jds2001	unless it's a config file, obviosuly	Feb 07 02:31
herlo	nirik: pam is a good example of the a config file changing	Feb 07 02:31
brunowolff	Well there are a number of them. I have filed bug reports on some in the past.	Feb 07 02:31
herlo	you can also verify package files, but I have never found a use for this	Feb 07 02:32
herlo	that's done with	Feb 07 02:32
herlo	rpm -Vp	Feb 07 02:32
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herlo	so a couple points to wrap it up then q&a	Feb 07 02:32
herlo	first off, when installing a kernel, never use -U with rpm	Feb 07 02:32
herlo	always use rpm -i or use *yum*	Feb 07 02:33
*herlo points to nirik's presentation		Feb 07 02:33
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herlo	another thing to talk about, I mentioned that rpm can do dependency resolutoin	Feb 07 02:33
herlo	I read people mentioning that you have to put all the dependencies on one line of an rpm command, this is not true	Feb 07 02:33
herlo	though it's the most common way	Feb 07 02:33
herlo	if you wish to use rpm and do resolution, you'll need to do two basic things...	Feb 07 02:34
*herlo doesn't know what happened to the rpmdb package, but recalls it was merged into rpm or soemthing, jds2001 ??		Feb 07 02:34
herlo	and you'll have to create a .rpmmacros file in your home directory	Feb 07 02:34
jds2001	i dont think so, i think it's gone.	Feb 07 02:35
jds2001	--aid never worked well anyways :)	Feb 07 02:35
herlo	yeah, it worked fine for me in RHEL4	Feb 07 02:35
herlo	hmm, well anyway	Feb 07 02:35
herlo	there's the .rpmmacros file	Feb 07 02:35
herlo	%_solve_pkgsdir /path/to/installtree/RedHat/RPMS/	Feb 07 02:35
herlo	%_solve_name_fmt  %{?_solve_pkgsdir}%%{NAME}-%%{VERSION}-%%{RELEASE}.%%{ARCH}.rpm	Feb 07 02:35
jds2001	yeah, in rhel it's still there i think.	Feb 07 02:35
herlo	add these lines and you can point to the rpm dir and resolve it all	Feb 07 02:36
fenris02	rpmdb function was replaced by 'yum provides' iirc	Feb 07 02:36
*nirik just thinks it's better to use yum now. ;)		Feb 07 02:36
herlo	yes, I agree	Feb 07 02:36
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herlo	well, that's good to know about rpmdb	Feb 07 02:36
herlo	so to address the --script question from brunowolff	Feb 07 02:37
herlo	brunowolff: wanna bring that back up again...	Feb 07 02:37
brunowolff	Yes	Feb 07 02:38
brunowolff	The case I am talking about is where you want to replace a package with a different one, such as with obsoletes in yum.	Feb 07 02:39
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brunowolff	If there is a dependency on the package being removed and it conflicts with the one being added it blocks doing the update one step at a time.	Feb 07 02:39
herlo	could you give an example	Feb 07 02:39
herlo	brunowolff: one choice might be --nodeps in that situation??	Feb 07 02:40
fenris02	--nodeps and --force are last-resort options that frequently do more harm than good.	Feb 07 02:40
brunowolff	I know I can force it, but if scripts are being run there could be problems.	Feb 07 02:40
*nirik nods at fenris02's comment.		Feb 07 02:40
fenris02	--noscripts exists too if that's the issue.	Feb 07 02:41
herlo	fenris02: --nodeps is somethign I use regularly to solve those problems. I'm a big fan of it when it comes to mono packages from OBS	Feb 07 02:41
herlo	fenris02: good catch!	Feb 07 02:41
brunowolff	lately I only do this if something is too broken for yum to handle, so it doesn't come up a lot.	Feb 07 02:41
fenris02	herlo, they have their use, but are frequently misused ime.	Feb 07 02:41
herlo	fenris02: true, which is why it's discouraged	Feb 07 02:42
brunowolff	No scripts doesn't run the scripts. That is usually even worse.	Feb 07 02:42
herlo	and should be used with great caution	Feb 07 02:42
herlo	any other questions?	Feb 07 02:43
brunowolff	I would have expected to be able to do something like rpm -U packagenew.rpm -e packageold	Feb 07 02:43
herlo	hmm, I don't think that's a good idea either, but I can see your desire...	Feb 07 02:44
fenris02	brunowolff, if the new package properly has an 'obsoletes: ' tag, that is not necessary	Feb 07 02:44
brunowolff	Really? rpm will automatically remove an obsoleted package?	Feb 07 02:45
fenris02	brunowolff, yes.	Feb 07 02:45
brunowolff	I thought I'd seen cases in the past when it didn't.	Feb 07 02:45
Falstius	brunowolff: a package can specify packages it replaces even if they don't have the same name.	Feb 07 02:45
fenris02	brunowolff, if they did not use an obsoletes: tag, it wont	Feb 07 02:45
jds2001	/win 34	Feb 07 02:45
herlo	lol	Feb 07 02:45
*herlo has to head, thanks all		Feb 07 02:45
brunowolff	Maybe what I saw where cases that were missing proper obsoletes definitions and would have broken yum as well.	Feb 07 02:45
nirik	well, I see we are at end of time here... shall we wrap things up?	Feb 07 02:46
herlo	enjoy the discussions...	Feb 07 02:46
nirik	the next class starts in 15min or so... Using Yum - Tricks and tips - Kevin Fenzi (nirik)	Feb 07 02:46
fenris02	thanks herlo. nicely done.	Feb 07 02:46
nirik	thanks herlo !	Feb 07 02:46
subfusc	yeah, thanks! it has been interesting to watch!	Feb 07 02:47

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