RPM Training — Red Hat Package Manager Fundamentals for DevOps & System Administration

What Is RPM?

RPM (RPM Package Manager) is the low-level package format and management tool for RHEL, CentOS, Rocky Linux, Fedora, SUSE, and other RPM-based distributions. While YUM/DNF handles high-level dependency resolution from repositories, RPM handles the actual package installation, querying, verification, and — importantly — package building. RPM spec files define how source code is compiled, packaged, and installed, making RPM the foundation of software distribution for the RPM ecosystem.

Role in DevOps

RPM package building is a core DevOps skill for organizations that distribute software to RHEL-family systems. Building RPMs ensures: consistent installation across environments, dependency declaration, pre/post-install scripting, file ownership tracking, and GPG-signed package verification. In enterprise environments, custom RPM repositories (hosted in Nexus/Artifactory) provide a governed, auditable distribution channel for internal software.

Who Should Attend

• DevOps engineers packaging internal software for RHEL-family distributions
• Build/release engineers building RPM-based software distribution pipelines
• System administrators creating custom RPMs for enterprise configuration

Learning Outcomes

• Build RPM packages from source using spec files and rpmbuild
• Write spec files — preamble, %prep, %build, %install, %files, %changelog
• Sign RPMs with GPG for verified distribution
• Create YUM/DNF repositories with createrepo and host in Nexus/Artifactory
• Automate RPM builds in CI/CD (Jenkins, GitHub Actions)
• Query and verify installed packages with RPM

Course Modules

1. RPM Fundamentals — Package structure. Naming conventions. Querying (rpm -q). Verification (rpm -V).
2. Spec File Development — Preamble (Name, Version, Release). Build sections. %files. %changelog. Macros.
3. Package Building — rpmbuild. BuildRoot. mock for clean chroot builds. rpmlint for quality checks.
4. GPG Signing — Key generation. Signing packages. Signature verification. Trust chain.
5. RPM in CI/CD — Jenkins + rpmbuild. GitHub Actions for RPM builds. Automated sign + publish.
6. Enterprise RPM Distribution — createrepo. Hosting in Nexus/Artifactory. YUM/DNF integration. Compliance.

Hands-on Labs (8 total)

Write a spec file for a Python application. Build an RPM with rpmbuild and mock. Sign an RPM with GPG. Create a YUM repository with createrepo. Build a CI/CD pipeline that builds, signs, and publishes RPMs.

Related Courses

See YUM/DNF Training, APT Training, SysOps Training, and DevOps Engineering.