Procedure 2.1. Creating a non-root buildroot

1. As root, install the rpmdevtools package with the following command:

    yum install -y rpmdevtools 

2. As a normal user, run the following command to create the ~/rpmbuild/ directory where packages are built:

    rpmdev-setuptree 

Procedure 2.2. Creating an example package: eject

1. In a shell prompt, go into the buildroot and create a new spec file for your package.
   1. To create a spec file template with the rpmdev-newspec command, run the following commands:

       cd ~/rpmbuild/SPECS 

       rpmdev-newspec eject 

      This creates a new spec file called eject.spec in the ~/rpmbuild/SPECS directory.
   2. To specify a spec file template for a particular type of packages, refer to the contents of the /etc/rpmdevtools/ directory, which includes spec file templates called spectemplate-type.spec. For example, to create a new spec file for a Python module, run the following commands:

       cd ~/rpmbuild/SPECS 

       rpmdev-newspec python-antigravity 

   3. For more information on creating a new spec file with rpmdev-newspec, run the rpmdev-newspec --help command.
   4. Alternatively, you can use the vim editor to create a spec file template for you. Change to the buildroot and run vim with the name of the spec file you want to create:

       cd ~/rpmbuild/SPECS 

       vi eject.spec 

2. Open the spec file in a text editor. The spec file should be similar to the following example:

   ​Name:           eject
   ​Version:        
   ​Release:        1%{?dist}
   ​Summary:        
   ​
   ​Group:          
   ​License:        
   ​URL:            
   ​Source0:        
   ​BuildRoot:      %{_tmppath}/%{name}-%{version}-%{release}-root-%(%{__id_u} -n)
   ​
   ​BuildRequires:  
   ​Requires:       
   ​
   ​%description
   ​
   ​
   ​%prep
   ​%setup -q
   ​
   ​
   ​%build
   ​%configure
   ​make %{?_smp_mflags}
   ​
   ​
   ​%install
   ​rm -rf $RPM_BUILD_ROOT
   ​make install DESTDIR=$RPM_BUILD_ROOT
   ​
   ​
   ​%clean
   ​rm -rf $RPM_BUILD_ROOT
   ​
   ​
   ​%files
   ​%defattr(-,root,root,-)
   ​%doc
   ​
   ​
   ​
   ​%changelog

   The Group and BuildRoot tags are deprecated

   Although the Group and BuildRoot tags are included in the spec file templates, RPM in Fedora 18 does not require the presence of these tags in the spec file and ignores them.

   The %clean and %defattr directives are deprecated

   Although the %clean and %defattr directives are included in the spec file templates, RPM in Fedora 18 does not require the presence of these directives in the spec file and ignores them.
3. Edit the Release tag to set the release value of the package. For example, set the value to 1%{?dist} if you are creating the initial release of the package:

   ​Release:        1%{?dist}
   

   The {?dist} tag is used to mark the distribution revision of a package.
4. Fill in the version and add a summary of the software:

   ​Version:        2.1.5
   ​Release:        1%{?dist}
   ​Summary:        A program that ejects removable media using software control
   

5. For the License tag, fill in the appropriate license for the software. In this case, eject uses the GNU General Public License v2.0 or later. The short name for this license is GPLv2+:

   ​License: GPLv2+
   

6. From the eject project website, get the URL of the website and fill it in the URL tag:

   ​URL:            http://www.pobox.com/~tranter
   

7. In the Source tag, fill in the URL of the source archive for the package:

   ​Source0: http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/utils/disk-management/%{name}-%{version}.tar.gz
   

8. Edit the BuildRequires tag with requirements that are needed to build the package. BuildRequires can contain either a list of required packages or files. For example, the eject package requires the gettext and libtool packages:

   ​BuildRequires: gettext
   ​BuildRequires: libtool
   

9. It is recommended to add a list of requirements that this package depends on to the Requires tag. Requires can contain either a list of required packages or files.
   In many cases, however, rpmbuild is able to detect the dependencies automatically for you so that you do not need to add them manually. For example, the eject package does not need any explicit requirements in the Requires tag, so do not include the tag in the spec file.
10. Add a description for the package. The lines of text in %description should be at most 79 characters long:

    ​%description
    ​The eject program allows the user to eject removable media (typically
    ​CD-ROMs, floppy disks or Iomega Jaz or Zip disks) using software
    ​control. Eject can also control some multi-disk CD changers and even
    ​some devices' auto-eject features.
    ​
    ​Install eject if you'd like to eject removable media using software
    ​control.
    

11. Add the %check section between the sections %build and %install in the spec file. The %check section typically contains the make test or make check command that runs any self-tests distributed with the software:

    ​%check
    ​make check
    

12. Edit the %install section by adding the following installation instructions that are specific to eject the to the spec file:

    install -m 755 -d $RPM_BUILD_ROOT/%{_sbindir}
    ln -s ../bin/eject $RPM_BUILD_ROOT/%{_sbindir}

    This calls the install program and creates a symbolic link, which is necessary to properly build and install the eject package.
13. Because the eject utility includes translation files, you need to define a macro called %find_lang, which will locate all of the translation files that belong to the package, and put this list in a file called %{name}.lang.
    1. To define the %find_lang macro, add the following to the %install section:

       ​%find_lang %{name}

    2. To include the %{name}.lang file with a list of translation files, add the file name with the -f option to %files:

       ​%files -f %{name}.lang

14. Add the list of documentation files that are included in eject to the %doc directive:

    ​%doc README TODO COPYING ChangeLog
    

15. Edit %changelog to describe the last change you have made to the package. Fill it in with the date, your name and email address, the version and release of the package, and a short description of what has changed in the package in the following format:

    * date Packager's Name <packager's_email> version-revision
    - Summary of changes

    To get the changelog entry in the required format, you can use the rpmdev-bumpspec utility. Run the following command:

     rpmdev-bumpspec --comment=summary of changes --userstring=Packager's Name <packager's_email> spec file 

    Because this is the first release of the package, run the rpmdev-bumpspec command with the following options:

     rpmdev-bumpspec --comment="Initial RPM release" --userstring="John Doe <jdoe@example.com>" eject.spec 

    This will produce a changelog entry in the spec file similar to the following:

    %changelog
    * Wed Oct 20 2011 John Doe <jdoe@example.com> 2.1.5-0.1
    - Initial RPM release
    

16. Now the spec file should look like in the following example:

    ​Name: eject
    ​Version: 2.1.5
    ​Release: 1%{?dist}
    ​Summary: A program that ejects removable media using software control
    ​
    ​License: GPLv2+
    ​URL: http://www.pobox.com/~tranter
    ​Source0: http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/utils/disk-management/%{name}-%{version}.tar.gz
    ​
    ​BuildRequires: gettext
    ​BuildRequires: libtool
    ​
    ​%description
    ​The eject program allows the user to eject removable media (typically
    ​CD-ROMs, floppy disks or Iomega Jaz or Zip disks) using software
    ​control. Eject can also control some multi-disk CD changers and even
    ​some devices' auto-eject features.
    ​
    ​Install eject if you'd like to eject removable media using software
    ​control.
    ​
    ​%prep
    ​%setup -q -n
    ​
    ​%build
    ​%configure
    ​make %{?_smp_mflags}
    ​
    ​%check
    ​make check
    ​
    ​%install
    ​rm -rf $RPM_BUILD_ROOT
    ​make install DESTDIR=$RPM_BUILD_ROOT
    ​
    ​install -m 755 -d $RPM_BUILD_ROOT/%{_sbindir}
    ​ln -s ../bin/eject $RPM_BUILD_ROOT/%{_sbindir}
    ​
    ​%find_lang %{name}
    ​
    ​%files -f %{name}.lang
    ​%doc README TODO COPYING ChangeLog
    ​%{_bindir}/*
    ​%{_sbindir}/*
    ​%{_mandir}/man1/*
    ​
    ​%changelog
    ​* Wed Oct 20 2011 John Doe <jdoe@example.com> 0.8.18.1-0.1
    ​- Initial RPM release
    

Procedure 2.3. Building an example package: eject

1. Download the source code archive for eject and place it in the ~/rpmbuild/SOURCES/ directory.
2. Obtain the spec file for eject and place it in the ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/ directory.
3. In a shell prompt, change to the ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/ directory and run the rpmbuild command:

    cd ~/rpmbuild/SPECS 

    rpmbuild -ba eject.spec 

4. If you end up with an error message similar to the following one, it means that you have not installed the package dependencies required by the eject package:

   error: Failed build dependencies:
   libtool is needed by eject-2.1.5-0.1.x86_64

   1. You can use yum to install the needed files or packages. Run the following command to install the required libtool package:

       yum install -y libtool 

5. In case you have received a build error related to the %install section, you may want to skip earlier stages of the build process with the --short-circuit option and restart the build process at the %install stage:

    rpmbuild -bi --short-circuit eject.spec 

6. Once you get a clean build, the last line of the rpmbuild output will be as follows:

   + exit 0

7. After a successful build with the rpmbuild -ba eject.spec command, the binary package will be placed in a subdirectory of the ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/ directory and the source package will be placed in ~/rpmbuild/SRPMS/.
8. If you just want to create a source package (.src.rpm), run the following command:

    rpmbuild -bs eject.spec  

   This will create the source package in the ~/rpmbuild/SRPMS/ directory, or recreate it if it has been previously created.

Procedure 2.4. Testing a spec file with rpmlint

1. If you have not previously installed the rpmlint package, install it now with the following command:

    yum install -y rpmlint 

2. To test a spec file with rpmlint, run the following command:

    rpmlint package.spec 

   By checking the spec file for correctness with the above command, rpmlint is able to catch many errors that can be often found in new or significantly changed spec files.
3. If the error messages reported with the above command are not clear enough, use the -i option, which provides more information on each error:

    rpmlint -i package.spec 

   Refer to the Fedora Packaging Guidelines for information on what rpmlint errors can be typically ignored.

Procedure 2.5. Testing a spec file, binary, and source package with rpmlint

1. Change to the ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/ directory in the buildroot environment and run the following command:

    rpmlint package.spec ../RPMS/*/package*.rpm ../SRPMS/package*.rpm 

   After running the command, rpmlint will build binary packages with debugging information.
2. Change to the ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/architecture/ directory to locate the binary packages that were built with rpmlint.
3. To check the files and their permissions included in the binary packages, use the rpmls command:

    rpmls *.rpm 

4. If the included files and their permissions are correct, proceed with running the following command as root to install the included files:

    rpm -ivp package.rpm 

   After a successful installation, you can test the installed files on your system.
5. After you have finished testing of the installed files, run the following command to uninstall the previously installed packages:

    rpm -e package.rpm 

Procedure 2.6. Testing a package with Mock

1. As root, run the following command to add your normal user that you intend to use with Mock to the mock group:

    usermod -a G mock user_name && newgrp mock 

2. Create a source package with the following command:

    rpmbuild -bs package.spec 

   where package.spec is the name of the spec file for your package.
3. To test a package locally with Mock, run the following command:

    mock -r config_name rebuild path_to_source_package 

   where config_name is the name of the configuration name. The configuration file name contains the name of the used system architecture and operating system (for example Fedora 18). Refer to the /etc/mock/ directory for a list of available configuration files.
   For example, to test the ~/rpmbuild/SRPMS/eject-2.1.5-0.1.fc18.src.rpm package for the AMD64 (x86_64) architecture on Fedora 18, run the following command:

    mock -r epel-6-x86_64 ~/rpmbuild/SRPMS/eject-2.1.5-0.1.fc18.src.rpm