Getting Started

Get a Fedora machine setup for development. Spinning up an EC2 instance with the latest Fedora is probably the easiest way [14]. Using Docker is another option but it is more complicated [13].
Build a Hello World RPM [1].
Upgrade to Rawhide.
Learn how to use the Koji build system [3].
Fix a bug in an existing package [15, 16].

Command Quickref

Setup a local build environment:

$ rpmdev-setuptree
(~/rpmbuild)

This will setup a hierarchy like the following:

~/rpmbuild/
  SPECS/
  SRPMS/
  SOURCES/
  RPMS/
  ...

Running a build (rpmbuild -ba) on a spec file under SPECS/, assuming sources have been placed in SOURCES/, will produce rpms in RPMS/ and/or SRPMS/.

Build a package locally:

$ rpmbuild -ba hello.spec

Build using a Koji build server:

$ koji build --scratch f29 ~/rpmbuild/SRPMS/hello-2.10-2.fc28.src.rpm
https://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/userinfo?userID=4194

How to clean the mock cache (`/var/cache/mock`):

$ mock --scrub all

Download sources for a spec file:

$ rpmbuild --undefine=_disable_source_fetch -ba package.spec

$ spectool -g -R package.spec

Install dependencies needed for rpmbuild:

$ dnf builddep package.spec
$ dnf builddep package.src.rpm

Packaging Tips

The shebang line for Python scripts in RPMs should be #!/usr/bin/python2 or #!/usr/bin/python3 and not #!/usr/bin/env python [17]. This is for two reasons. The python version should be explicitly specified. And env should be avoid to avoid picking up a users non-system version of python.

How to Build RPMs with a Docker Image

TODO [13]

Docker Notes

docker container ls
docker container ls -a

How to copy to/from a container:

# to a running container
docker cp HELLO.txt 25322d67c71b:/

# from a running container
docker cp 25322d67c71b:/HELLO.txt .

Start a stopped container:

docker start 25322d67c71b

Accessing a running container:

docker run -it fedora:23 /bin/bash

# exiting attach will stop the container
docker attach 25322d67c71b

# exiting from exec will not stop the container
docker exec -it 25322d67c71b bash