This chapter covers guidelines for avoiding problems when creating RPMs and following best practices to avoid future problems as well.

When trying to avoid common problems, your best starting point is the RPM mailing list and newsgroup.

For best practices, you should start at the very beginning when you are planning what to build into an RPM. Always start with pristine sources and then patch as needed. Your RPM should include the pristine sources and any necessary patches. You should always create a source RPM, so that you can reproduce your RPM anywhere.

When building RPMs, copy good examples of spec files, as this will get you going far more quickly than any other technique. Use tools to help automate parts of your RPM-building process.

Never build RPMs when logged in as the root user.

This chapter ends the section on building RPMs. The next section covers programming to the RPM APIs.