How to keep the content of the BuildRoot?

Question

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?

score 9 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 30 '15 at 09:52

9

Just add

    %define __spec_install_pre /bin/true

on top of the .spec file

answered Sep 30 '15 at 09:52

domusofsail

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It works for me in RHEL/CentOS 7. – Like Dec 09 '15 at 11:28
This works in Fedora 27. – Máté Wierdl Dec 14 '17 at 01:02
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 08 '21 at 15:47

score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 01 '11 at 00:55

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.

answered Apr 01 '11 at 00:55

mattdm

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Thank you. This is the least intrusive approach and it works. – greenoldman Apr 02 '11 at 14:58

score 4 · Answer 3 · edited Nov 29 '11 at 13:32

4

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

%clean
echo NOOP

edited Nov 29 '11 at 13:32

Michael Mrozek

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answered Nov 29 '11 at 11:33

iFred

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doesn't work, because BUILDROOT is deleted at the beginning of %install - it is part of the initialization of %install. – smcg Sep 16 '14 at 18:58
If the goal is to keep buildroot after the build, for investigation, then it does work. – ederag Jan 29 '18 at 08:35

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 01 '11 at 00:39

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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?

answered Apr 01 '11 at 00:39

Faheem Mitha

35,108

I don't know about the version, but change in official rpm would be tough: http://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 01 '11 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 01 '11 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 02 '11 at 14:59

How to keep the content of the BuildRoot?

4 Answers4