How to be compatible with rpm version 3

hayden · External Since: Jun 15, 2006 Posts: 4

I need to create an rpm that is compatible with rpm version 3. The
build computer is running Fedora Core 4 (rpm 4.4.1) and the deployment
computers are Redhat 6.2 (rpm 3.0.4).

To avoid getting off track, let me say up front that I know RedHat 6.2
is ancient/unsafe/smelly, but I have absolutely no control over the
target computers. I just need to make an rpm for them.

What options can I pass to rpmbuild to force backward compatiblity with
rpm 3 like this?

Thanks,
Bill Hayden

hayden · External Since: Jun 15, 2006 Posts: 4

hayden.RemoveThis@haydentech.com wrote:
>What options can I pass to rpmbuild to force backward compatiblity with
> rpm 3 like this?

Replying to myself...

I see that passing --nodirtokens to rpmbuild is/was the recommended way
to produce rpm 3 packages, but that functionality appears to be broken.
When I pass --nodirtokens, rpmbuild acts like it's doing the right
thing, but then just produces an empty rpm file. I noticed there is a
bug in the rpm bugzilla for this, and it's marked as WONTFIX for some
reason. Surely there must be some way to do this. Anyone?

Thanks,
Bill Hayden

J.O. Aho · External Since: Mar 26, 2004 Posts: 2183

hayden DeleteThis @haydentech.com wrote:
> I need to create an rpm that is compatible with rpm version 3. The
> build computer is running Fedora Core 4 (rpm 4.4.1) and the deployment
> computers are Redhat 6.2 (rpm 3.0.4).
>
> To avoid getting off track, let me say up front that I know RedHat 6.2
> is ancient/unsafe/smelly, but I have absolutely no control over the
> target computers. I just need to make an rpm for them.
>
> What options can I pass to rpmbuild to force backward compatiblity with
> rpm 3 like this?

Think you can take a look at this thread in the RedHat RPM list

http://www.redhat.com/archives/rpm-list/2001-July/msg00012.html

//Aho

hayden · External Since: Jun 15, 2006 Posts: 4

J.O. Aho wrote:
> Think you can take a look at this thread in the RedHat RPM list
>
> http://www.redhat.com/archives/rpm-list/2001-July/msg00012.html

Yes, I've seen that post. It says to use --nodirtokens which, as I
mentioned in my previous post, no longer works. That feature appears
to have broke around the rpm 4.0.2 or 4.0.3 timeframe and was never
fixed. So I need a solution which does not involve nodirtokens.

My potential working solutions are:
1. Use "%define _noPayloadPrefix 1" in my spec
2. Build 4.0.1 on my system and use --nodirtokens what that (rpm 3 does
not build or have the right libs to link on FC4)

When I use the #1 method, it produces a correctly sized rpm with no 4.x
rpmlib dependencies, but I'm not yet sure it will install on a rpm
3.0.4 system since it's still technically an rpm4 package. I'd really
rather not do #2 if at all possible.

Thanks,
Bill Hayden

Moe Trin · External Since: Aug 12, 2004 Posts: 1700

On 16 Jun 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup linux.redhat.rpm, in article
<1150475658.984466.61390.RemoveThis@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>, hayden.RemoveThis@haydentech.com
wrote:

>When I use the #1 method, it produces a correctly sized rpm with no 4.x
>rpmlib dependencies, but I'm not yet sure it will install on a rpm
>3.0.4 system since it's still technically an rpm4 package. I'd really
>rather not do #2 if at all possible.

Oh, boy - history. RH6.2 came with rpm-3.0.4-0.48 in March 2000, and
there were several updates through rpm-3.0.5-<mumble) ending up with
rpm-4.0.2-6x (Mar 21 2001). The latest rpm3.x could read rpm4 packages
(rpm-3.0.5 or better?) according to a contemporary posting from Jeff
Johnson in the Red Hat RPM mailing list (which this newsgroup was
mirroring). 3.0.5 came out in July 2000, and was superseded by 4.0.2.
Thus, I suspect your compatibility problem relates to 3.0.4 verses
3.0.5, not just 3.x

What you might try is finding the original installation media, as it
doesn't appear that this box was maintained. Then see if you can
locate the errata for 6.2 and see if it will install on a test system.
I vaguely recall intermediate problems - rpm-4 needed rpm-3.0.5-9 to
update, not 3.0.4 or earlier. I also vaguely recall that there were
some other packages that needed to be updated at the same time -
possibly 'db3-3.1.17-4.6x' and 'popt-1.6.2-6x'. You may be able to
find this stuff on http://sunsite.mff.cuni.cz in the directory
/MIRRORS/archive.download.redhat.com/redhat/linux/ or possibly on some
Red Hat archive server.

Old guy

hayden · External Since: Jun 15, 2006 Posts: 4

Moe Trin wrote:

> Oh, boy - history. RH6.2 came with rpm-3.0.4-0.48 in March 2000, and
> there were several updates through rpm-3.0.5-<mumble) ending up with
> rpm-4.0.2-6x (Mar 21 2001). The latest rpm3.x could read rpm4 packages
> (rpm-3.0.5 or better?) according to a contemporary posting from Jeff
> Johnson in the Red Hat RPM mailing list (which this newsgroup was
> mirroring). 3.0.5 came out in July 2000, and was superseded by 4.0.2.
> Thus, I suspect your compatibility problem relates to 3.0.4 verses
> 3.0.5, not just 3.x

You are entirely correct. However, I have no control over the
deployment machines, so just upgrading rpm is not an option. I *must*
support 3.0.4. Looking at the rpm source code, it appears that there
is no way to be compatible with 3.0.4 without using nodirtokens. So I
must either fix the nodirtokens bug myself, or hope an older version of
rpm will compile on Fedora Core 4 (I already know 3.0.4 won't).

Thanks,
Bill Hayden

J.O. Aho · External Since: Mar 26, 2004 Posts: 2183

hayden RemoveThis @haydentech.com wrote:
> Moe Trin wrote:
>
>> Oh, boy - history. RH6.2 came with rpm-3.0.4-0.48 in March 2000, and
>> there were several updates through rpm-3.0.5-<mumble) ending up with
>> rpm-4.0.2-6x (Mar 21 2001). The latest rpm3.x could read rpm4 packages
>> (rpm-3.0.5 or better?) according to a contemporary posting from Jeff
>> Johnson in the Red Hat RPM mailing list (which this newsgroup was
>> mirroring). 3.0.5 came out in July 2000, and was superseded by 4.0.2.
>> Thus, I suspect your compatibility problem relates to 3.0.4 verses
>> 3.0.5, not just 3.x
>
> You are entirely correct. However, I have no control over the
> deployment machines, so just upgrading rpm is not an option. I *must*
> support 3.0.4. Looking at the rpm source code, it appears that there
> is no way to be compatible with 3.0.4 without using nodirtokens. So I
> must either fix the nodirtokens bug myself, or hope an older version of
> rpm will compile on Fedora Core 4 (I already know 3.0.4 won't).

What about trying out the RPM for Fedora 5 on your system, maybe they have
already fixed the bug (I would make a backup of all the file included in the
FC4 rpm, in case the FC5 rpm would fail, so you easily can get the rpm-system
back working).

//Aho