rpmbuilder

Clean, containerized RPM and SRPM build environments for Red Hat and openSUSE distributions. Builds spec files, fetches remote sources via spectool, auto-resolves package build dependencies, and supports tito release workflows.

Container images are published to quay.io/abn/rpmbuilder:

Set your source and output directories:

SOURCE_DIR=$(pwd)/sources
OUTPUT_DIR=$(pwd)/output
mkdir -p "${OUTPUT_DIR}"

Builds all .spec files in SOURCE_DIR, automatically downloads remote SourceX archives, installs BuildRequires, and outputs both SRPMs and binary RPMs:

podman run --rm -it \
    -v ${SOURCE_DIR}:/sources:z \
    -v ${OUTPUT_DIR}:/output:z \
    -e OUTPUT_USER=$UID \
    quay.io/abn/rpmbuilder:fedora-latest

If SOURCE_DIR contains a .tito project directory, rpmbuilder automatically provisions tito at runtime and runs tito build --test:

podman run --rm -it \
    -v ${SOURCE_DIR}:/sources:z \
    -v ${OUTPUT_DIR}:/output:z \
    -e OUTPUT_USER=$UID \
    quay.io/abn/rpmbuilder:fedora-latest

Because tito installs runtime dependencies into the container, they could inadvertently satisfy undeclared BuildRequires in a spec file. For strict isolation, run the build in two stages:

# Stage 1: Generate the SRPM only
podman run --rm -it \
    -v ${SOURCE_DIR}:/sources:z \
    -v ${OUTPUT_DIR}:/output:z \
    -e OUTPUT_USER=$UID \
    -e SRPM_ONLY=1 \
    quay.io/abn/rpmbuilder:fedora-latest

# Stage 2: Rebuild binary RPMs from that SRPM in a clean environment (no tito)
podman run --rm -it \
    -v ${OUTPUT_DIR}:/sources:z \
    -v ${OUTPUT_DIR}:/output:z \
    -e OUTPUT_USER=$UID \
    -e FROM_SRPM=1 \
    quay.io/abn/rpmbuilder:fedora-latest

To rebuild binary RPMs from existing .src.rpm files:

podman run --rm -it \
    -v ${SOURCE_DIR}:/sources:z \
    -v ${OUTPUT_DIR}:/output:z \
    -e OUTPUT_USER=$UID \
    -e FROM_SRPM=1 \
    quay.io/abn/rpmbuilder:fedora-latest

Dynamically enable Fedora COPR repositories or custom package repositories before build dependencies are installed:

• Via Environment Variables:

  podman run --rm -it \
      -v ${SOURCE_DIR}:/sources:z \
      -v ${OUTPUT_DIR}:/output:z \
      -e OUTPUT_USER=$UID \
      -e COPR_REPOS="@fedora-llvm-team/llvm-snapshots user/my-repo" \
      -e REPOS="https://example.com/custom.repo" \
      quay.io/abn/rpmbuilder:fedora-latest

• Via Configuration Files in ${SOURCE_DIR}:
  • ${SOURCE_DIR}/.copr: Plain text file listing COPR repos (one per line, # comments ignored).
  • ${SOURCE_DIR}/.repos: Plain text file listing repository URLs (one per line).
  • ${SOURCE_DIR}/.repos/*.repo: Drop-in .repo files automatically copied to the system repository directory.

Mount a host directory containing .crt certificates. Certificates are added to the system trust store before downloading remote sources or installing packages:

podman run --rm -it \
    -v ${SOURCE_DIR}:/sources:z \
    -v ${OUTPUT_DIR}:/output:z \
    -v ${CERT_DIR}:/etc/pki/ca-trust/source/anchors:z \
    -e OUTPUT_USER=$UID \
    quay.io/abn/rpmbuilder:fedora-latest

To inspect the environment or debug spec build failures interactively:

podman run --rm -it --entrypoint bash \
    -v ${SOURCE_DIR}:/sources:z \
    -v ${OUTPUT_DIR}:/output:z \
    quay.io/abn/rpmbuilder:fedora-latest

rpmbuilder provides both a turnkey reusable workflow and a composite action. They are consumed by path reference (abn/rpmbuilder/...@<ref>).

Use .github/workflows/rpm-build.yml to build across a matrix of images and upload build artifacts automatically:

jobs:
  build-rpms:
    uses: abn/rpmbuilder/.github/workflows/rpm-build.yml@main
    with:
      sources-path:   rpm
      images:         '["fedora-latest", "fedora-rawhide", "rockylinux-9", "opensuse-leap-15.6"]'
      copr-repos:     '@fedora-llvm-team/llvm-snapshots'
      rpm-lint:       true
      tito-two-stage: false   # set true for strict two-stage tito isolation

Use .github/actions/build for custom single-step pipelines:

- name: Build RPMs
  uses: abn/rpmbuilder/.github/actions/build@main
  with:
    image:       quay.io/abn/rpmbuilder:fedora-latest
    sources-dir: ${{ github.workspace }}/rpm
    mode:        auto   # or: srpm-only | from-srpm
    copr-repos:  '@fedora-llvm-team/llvm-snapshots'
    rpm-lint:    'true'

Build images directly using make (auto-detects podman or docker):

# Build default image (Fedora)
make build

# Build a specific distribution
BASE_IMAGE=rockylinux:9 TARGET_IMAGE=rpmbuilder:rocky-9 make build
BASE_IMAGE=opensuse/leap:15.6 TARGET_IMAGE=rpmbuilder:opensuse-leap-15.6 make build

# Force docker instead of podman
CONTAINER_CLI=docker make build

# Run the BATS test suite
TARGET_IMAGE=quay.io/abn/rpmbuilder:fedora-latest make test