[Fedora-packaging] The better way to use %install section

[Tom "spot" Callaway]

On 06/08/2009 07:33 PM, Murilo Opsfelder Araújo wrote:
> Hi guys,
> 
> I'm packing a third party software and this third party software is a
> tarball with a install.sh and other binaries.

Well, this is a bit off topic for this list, but I'm in a good mood, so
I'll try to answer your questions.

> What's the better way to install these files?

The problem with the install.sh is that it almost certainly has the
install directories for those binaries hardcoded to /usr/bin. When
you're installing files during %install in an rpm, you want to install
those files into %{buildroot}%{_bindir}.

> Or do I need to copy all install.sh commands inside %install section?
> Something like this:
> 
> %install
> install -o root -w root -m 0755 bin1 %{_installdir}/bin1
> install -o root -w root -m 0755 bin2 %{_installdir}/bin2

So, yes, you need to do something like this:

install -m 0755 bin1 %{buildroot}/%{_bindir}
install -m 0755 bin2 %{buildroot}/%{_bindir}

Make sure you have "BuildRoot:" defined in the top section of the spec
file, see:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Guidelines#BuildRoot_tag for
some recommended values.

Also, %{_bindir} evaluates to /usr/bin, so it's the ideal macro to use
here with the %{buildroot} prefix.

> And one question just to confirm: do I need to list all bin* files
> inside %files in both case, right?

Yes, you can do it like this:

%files
%defattr(-,root,root,-)
%{_bindir}/bin*

Hope that helps,

~spot