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The good old rpm while building package in steps simply kept the content of the BuildRoot -- it was very useful for me, because if some piece of software was difficult to create, I could check BuildRoot if everything is OK.

Now, with all "improved" rpm -- the content of BuildRoot is deleted automatically, so I cannot really dive into it (installing step is not that long).

One hack I know of would be adding some kind of sleep at the end of install stage to rpm spec. But this is ugly.

So -- QUESTION -- how to keep the content of BuildRoot in nice way -- in other words, how to disable auto delete once and for good?

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4 Answers 4

Reset to default
8

Have you tried using rpmbuild -bi in testing, so that the you get everything built up through the %install phase? That should show you what's going on without automatically cleaning afterwards.

Then when you're satisfied, build as normal.

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1
  • Thank you. This is the least intrusive approach and it works.
    – greenoldman
    Apr 2, 2011 at 14:58
8

Just add 

    %define __spec_install_pre /bin/true

on top of the .spec file

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3
  • 1
    It works for me in RHEL/CentOS 7.
    – Like
    Dec 9, 2015 at 11:28
  • This works in Fedora 27.
    – Máté Wierdl
    Dec 14, 2017 at 1:02
  • And if someone is building from .src.rpm, there is a way to do this via CLI: rpmbuild --define '__spec_install_pre /bin/true' --rebuild *.src.rpm. Thanks a lot!
    – saulius2
    Jul 8, 2021 at 15:47
3

Try adding a dummy %clean to the spec file. Something like:

%clean
echo NOOP
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2
  • doesn't work, because BUILDROOT is deleted at the beginning of %install - it is part of the initialization of %install.
    – smcg
    Sep 16, 2014 at 18:58
  • If the goal is to keep buildroot after the build, for investigation, then it does work.
    – ederag
    Jan 29, 2018 at 8:35
0

This is annoying, I agree. If you don't mind modifying your rpm, I suggest going into the rpm source and finding out where the BuildRoot is deleted, disable that line (it is probably only one line), and recompile. The other thing I would suggest is filing a wishlist bug to restore the old behaviour, which I believe was configurable.

Question: in what version of rpm did this behavior change?

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3
  • I don't know about the version, but change in official rpm would be tough: lists.rpm.org/pipermail/rpm-list/2008-December/000040.html The explanation indicates that idelogy play a huge role. Patching rpm would be possible though, thank you for the hint. Maybe I would manage revert automatic BuildRoot creating too.
    – greenoldman
    Apr 1, 2011 at 10:11
  • @macias: I looked at the rpm sources on Debian (4.9.0-2), but didn't find out anything useful. However, even if the developers are not willing to change it, I expect they are willing to tell you how to do it for yourself.
    – Faheem Mitha
    Apr 1, 2011 at 10:35
  • luckily the -bi switch works for this case, so I skip patching if I can -- the software list with regressions are getting longer anyway.
    – greenoldman
    Apr 2, 2011 at 14:59

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