This chapter introduced the task of building RPMs, whether building RPMs from your own applications or from software you have gathered elsewhere. In both cases, the steps for building the RPMs are the same.

In most cases, you should build an RPM of the sources for your application, an RPM that can be used to reproduce the build of the application. Create a second RPM that holds the binary application. Once you set up the commands and define the spec file for the binary RPM, making a source RPM is trivial.

Use the rpmbuild command to create RPMs. This command uses an RPM spec file to define the commands and settings for creating the RPM.

The next chapter delves into the spec files that define the RPM directives for your packages.