Thank you all for responding.
More questions below...
At 12:40 PM 1/17/2007, Michael Schwendt wrote:
On Wed, 17 Jan 2007 12:26:32 -0800, Daniel Yek wrote:
How do I make sure that files created during rpm installation are being recorded as belonging to the package? I'm not sure, but I think if rpm %post install script created some symbolic links, they might not be recorded as installed by the rpm package. (Or are they?)
How RPM keeps track of files created by scripts? Does it trap system calls to record all created files and symbolic links? If not, what one needs to do to make sure that all files and symbolic links created are being accounted for properly?
You "touch" them in the %install section of your spec file and %ghost them in the %files section. That way they belong into the package. And upon package removal RPM will remove the files. Just make sure you don't %ghost any files which are filled with important contents at run-time. It might be unexpected by the user if such files (e.g. databases) are removed automatically when the package is uninstalled.
Thanks for the "%ghost", but is it documented? I didn't find it in the following URL after a quick search: http://www.rpm.org/max-rpm/ch-rpm-inside.html
Is %ghost supposed to be just like %file, but won't show up in "rpm -qpl" ?
Regarding "touch"...Can one create redundant list of file in %file without actually doing anything with it in %install? What would happen to "rpm -qpl" in this case?
Lets say a software package is utilizing utilities to install icon resources, etc. Lets says xdg-utils is bundled and used during RPM installation.
http://portland.freedesktop.org/xdg-utils-1.0/
xdg-utils scripts installed a bunch of files at unknown locations. What can I do to have those files remain tracked? If I can't read the scripts and create a list of all possible installation locations, is there something else I can do?
Then, assume that a future Fedora release preinstalled a (system-wide) xdg-utils package. Now, as designed, this system-wide xdg-utils installs icons to, then, finalized/spec-ed standard locations (a assumption; and the finalized locations are, of course, different from the current locations, which isn't ideal). Also, as designed, it is the system-wide copy of xdg-utils is invoked during the installation of a package released some times ago. So, there is no way the developer can predict where the future system-wide xdg-utils will install the files to.
Is there a solution for this scenario? If not, what is the best course of action?
Thanks.