how to 'rip apart' a rpm.

[Rick Stevens]

On 05/17/2010 02:12 PM, Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Monday 17 May 2010, Bill Davidsen wrote:
>> Gene Heskett wrote:
>>> On Saturday 15 May 2010, Kevin J. Cummings wrote:
>>>> On 05/15/2010 11:22 AM, reg at dwf.com wrote:
>>>>> I want to look at the individual files in a src rpm.
>>>>> How do I 'rip it apart' ??
>>>>
>>>> rpm -qpl src.rpm
>>>>
>>>> should show you a list of the files in the RPM.  When you "install" it,
>>>> they get installed in your rpmbuild sandbox under:  SPECS and SOURCES
>>>> subdirectories.
>>>>
>>>>> Doing an install doesnt seem to be the answer, It does something, but I
>>>>> have no idea where the bits and pieces are going.
>>>>> They are NOT in /usr/src/redhat nor in /root/rpmbuild.
>>>>
>>>> You really shouldn't be playing with source RPMs as root.  Look in your
>>>> user RPM sandbox:
>>>
>>> Then I'd suggest that doing so as a user be made possible.  I think its
>>> asinine that I am prevented from building my kernels as a user, simply
>>> because mkinird cannot be made to run if you are not root.
>>
>> You don't need mkinitrd to build a kernel, you need it to *install* a
>> kernel, two different operations. After you do the make you can make
>> modules_install and install with the -n option (if you wish) to inspect
>> what they will do, or just "su -c "make modules_install modules"
>> after the build is done.
>
> Clarify here: I can do all that as the user.  What I can't do, until somebody
> decides to fix mkinitrd, is to run it as the user.  That is my specific
> bitch.  And I think its perfectly valid.  mkinitrd simply will not run for
> anybody but root.

And this is a bad thing?  I, for one, don't want some low-level user
installing a kernel on my machines.  I don't want them installing
ANYTHING that's global.

When you get to the point where you're installing something that will
affect all the users on the machine or the operation of the machine
itself, only an administrator (e.g. "root") should be permitted to do
so.  This is the whole point of system security and tools such as "su"
and "sudo".
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