rpmlint
is a tool for checking common errors in RPM packages.
rpmlint
can be used to test individual packages before uploading or to check
an entire distribution.
rpmlint
can check binary RPMs, source RPMs, and plain specfiles, but all
checks do not apply to all argument types.
For best check coverage, run rpmlint
on source RPMs instead of
plain specfiles.
The idea for rpmlint
is from the lintian tool of the Debian project.
All the checks reside in rpmlint/checks
folder. Feel free to provide new
checks and suggestions at:
https://github.com/rpm-software-management/rpmlint
For installation on your machine you will need the following packages:
Mandatory:
- Python 3.8 or newer
- python3-setuptools, python3-tomli (for
python3 < 3.11
), python3-tomli-w, python3-pyxdg, python3-pybeam - rpm and its python bindings
- binutils, cpio, gzip, bzip, xz and zstd
Optional, for running the test suite:
- devscripts
- dash
- a 32-bit glibc if on a 64-bit architecture
- desktop-file-utils
- libmagic and its python bindings
- enchant and its python bindings, along with en_US and cs_CZ dictionaries
- appstream-util, part of appstream-glib
rpmlint
is part of most distributions and as an user you can simply
dnf install rpmlint
You will need to have all the required modules as listed on the Install section above.
You will also need pytest
,pytest-cov
and pytest-xdist
,
which you can install individually or by running:
pip install -e ".[test]"
If all the dependencies are present you can just execute tests using:
python3 -m pytest
Or even pick one of the tests using pytest
:
python3 -m pytest test/test_config.py
Any help is, of course, welcome but honestly most probable cause for your visit
here is that rpmlint
is marking something as invalid while it shouldn't or
it is marking something as correct while it should not either :)
Now there is an easy way how to fix that. Our testsuite simply needs an extension to take the above problem into the account.
Primarily we just need the offending rpm file (best the smallest you can find or we would soon take few GB to take a checkout) and some basic expectation of what should happen.
This section focuses on how to build the tool as you develop it.
To build the tool, we'll use a tool called packit
. First, install packit
on your system:
dnf install packit
Then, build the project using:
packit build locally
If you encounter any errors, install the missing dependencies and run the same command again. Once the build is successful, you'll find a RPM file under the noarch
directory. To install the package on your system, run:
dnf install <the_rpm_you_just_built>
Alternatively, the built binary can be found in the rpmlint
directory under the .packit
directory, which you can run directly.
- I have rpmfile that should report unreadable zip file
- I store this file in git under
test/binary/texlive-codepage-doc-2018.151.svn21126-38.1.noarch.rpm
- Now I need to figure out what
check
should test this, in this casetest_zip.py
- For the testing I will have to devise a small function that validates my expectations:
@pytest.mark.parametrize('package', ['binary/texlive-codepage-doc'])
def test_zip2(tmpdir, package, zipcheck):
output, test = zipcheck
test.check(get_tested_package(package, tmpdir))
out = output.print_results(output.results)
assert 'W: unable-to-read-zip' in out
As you can see it is not so hard and with each added test we get better coverage on what is really expected from rpmlint and avoid naughty regressions in the long run.
Preferable approach for binary packages is to create artificial testcase (to keep binaries small and trivial). We are currently using OBS to produce binaries: https://build.opensuse.org/project/show/devel:openSUSE:Factory:rpmlint:tests
For a sample package see: https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/devel:openSUSE:Factory:rpmlint:tests/non-position-independent-exec
If you want to change configuration options or the list of checks you can use the following locations:
/etc/xdg/rpmlint/*toml
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/rpmlint/*toml
The configuration itself is a toml
file where for some basic inspiration
you can check up rpmlint/configdefaults.toml
which specifies format/defaults.
One can also include additional configuration files (or directories) by using the --config
option.
Note that all TOML configuration values are merged and not overridden.
So e.g. values in a list are concatenated. If you need an override,
use *.override.*toml
configuration file, where all defined values are selected as default.
Additional option to control rpmlint
behaviour is the addition of rpmlintrc
file
which uses old syntax for compatibility with old rpmlint
releases, yet
it can be normal toml
file if you wish:
setBadness('check', 0)
addFilter('test-i-ignore')
The location of rpmlintrc
can be set using --rpmlintrc
option.
Or it can load any *.rpmlintrc
or *-rpmlintrc
that are located in the same
folder as check RPM file (or a specfile). Note the auto-loading happens only
when one RPM file (or a specfile) is used.
The best practice is to store the name in $PACKAGE_NAME.rpmlintrc
.
setBadness
overrides a default badness for a given check and addFilter
ignores all errors
that match the given regular expression (one cannot filter out errors that are listed in BlockedFilters
in a configuration file).