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+---
+layout: post
+title:  "Building Simple RPM Packages"
+date:   2019-09-23 15:00:00 -0400
+tags: [linux, rpm, packaging, rpmbuild]
+excerpt: "A very simple exercise to build a basic RPM package"
+categories: linux rpm packaging
+---
+
+A very simple exercise to build a basic RPM package.  We're not going to dive into package signing, or some of the lower level topics of packaging RPM's - rather, our objective for now is to simply generate a file and drop it on the filesystem.
+
+In this case, we don't care about the platoform, the OS release, or the architecture.
+
+## Install dependencies
+
+{% highlight bash %}
+$ yum install gcc rpm-build \
+  rpm-devel rpmlint make python \
+  bash coreutils diffutils patch \
+  rpmdevtools
+{% endhighlight %}
+
+## Sample Spec File
+
+{% highlight bash %}
+Name:           local-release
+Version:        2019.09
+Release:        8
+Summary:        local patching cycle release
+License:        GPL
+URL:            https://example.com
+BuildArch:      noarch
+
+%description
+Local release: 2019.09.2
+
+%build
+cat > local_release <<EOF
+2019.09.8
+EOF
+
+%install
+install -m 0775 -d $RPM_BUILD_ROOT/etc
+install -m 0644 sfmc_release $RPM_BUILD_ROOT/etc/local_release
+
+%clean
+rm -rf $RPM_BUILD_ROOT
+
+%files
+/etc/local_release
+
+%doc
+%changelog
+* Mon Sep 23 2019 Linux Team <linux-team@example.com>
+- Release cycle 2019.09
+{% endhighlight %}
+
+Save this file as `local-release.spec`
+
+## Setup build tree
+{% highlight bash %}
+$ rpmdev-setuptree
+{% endhighlight %}
+
+This will result in a structure like this:
+{% highlight bash %}
+$ tree rpmbuild/
+
+rpmbuild/
+├── BUILD
+├── BUILDROOT
+├── RPMS
+├── SOURCES
+├── SPECS
+└── SRPMS
+
+{% endhighlight %}
+
+## Build the RPM
+{% highlight bash %}
+$ rpmbuild -ba local-release.spec
+{% endhighlight %}
+
+This will result in:
+{% highlight bash %}
+rpmbuild/RPMS/noarch/local-release-2019.09-8.noarch.rpm
+{% endhighlight %}
+
+## Install & Validate
+{% highlight bash %}
+$ yum localinstall rpmbuild/RPMS/noarch/local-release-2019.09-8.noarch.rpm
+$ cat /etc/local_release
+{% endhighlight %}