RPM Package Manager

The RPM Package Manager (RPM) is a powerful package management system capable of

  • building computer software from source into easily distributable packages
  • installing, updating and uninstalling packaged software
  • querying detailed information about the packaged software, whether installed or not
  • verifying integrity of packaged software and resulting software installation

News

RPM 4.18.2 released (Nov 13 2023)

  • This is a bug fix release with a few minor enhancements.
  • See release notes for details and download information
  • Highlights include:
    • New %{rpmversion} and %{_iconsdir} macros
    • New rpmspec(8) aliases for weak dependency queries
    • Add libmagic exceptions for HTML, SVG and PNG
    • Fix SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH=0 regression
    • Fix various rpm2archive(8) issues
    • Fix various Lua interface issues
    • Various regression fixes
    • Numerous documentation fixes and improvements

RPM 4.19.0 released (Sep 19 2023)

  • See release notes for details and download information
  • Highlights include:
    • New spec snippet support for dynamic spec generation
    • New sysusers.d(5) integration for automated user and group handling
    • Proper shell-like globbing and escaping in %files and CLI
    • Memory and address-space aware build resource allocation
    • Platform detection fixes and improvements for x86 CPUs
    • Chroot handling fixes
    • New CMake build system
    • Export of RPM libraries for CMake’s find_package()
    • Adoption of Linux containers in the test-suite, replacing fakechroot(1)
    • New Python binding usage examples
    • Translations split off
    • Removal of various deprecated and/or unused APIs
    • Various internal code cleanups

RPM 4.19.0 RC1 released (Sep 04 2023)

  • This is a release candidate with minor enhancements and bug fixes since BETA.
  • See draft release notes for details and download information
  • Highlights include:
    • New rpmspec aliases for weak dependency queries
    • More consistent behavior with %optflags and noarch builds
    • Test-suite fixes and tweaks to the new container-based backend
    • Export our libraries as a CMake find_package() config
    • Default to C.UTF-8 locale in CMake
    • Other CMake fixes and tweaks

CI migrated from SemaphoreCI Classic to GitHub Actions (Aug 03 2023)

  • Due to the planned discontinuation of SemaphoreCI Classic starting in early September 2023, we have moved to GitHub Actions for our CI needs (see #2569 for more details).

RPM 4.19.0 BETA released (Aug 02 2023)

  • This is a feature-complete pre-release with a number of bug fixes since ALPHA2.
  • See draft release notes for details and download information
  • Highlights include:
    • New sysusers.sh script as a drop-in replacement for systemd-sysusers(8)
    • New %{specpartsdir} macro for configuring the spec snippet location
    • New %{rpmversion} macro for obtaining the running RPM version
    • New Python binding usage examples
    • Adoption of Linux containers in the test-suite, replacing fakechroot(1)
    • Platform detection fixes and improvements for x86 CPUs
    • Chroot handling fixes

RPM 4.19.0 ALPHA2 released (Jun 09 2023)

  • This is a bug fix update to address a couple of issues found by the early adopters of ALPHA1, mostly related to some bits and pieces missed during the CMake transition.
  • See draft release notes for details and download information

RPM 4.19.0 ALPHA released (Apr 13 2023)

  • See draft release notes for details and download information
  • Highlights include:
    • New spec snippet support for dynamic spec generation
    • New sysusers.d(5) integration for automated user and group handling
    • Memory and address-space aware build resource allocation
    • Proper shell-like globbing and escaping in %files and CLI
    • New CMake build system
    • Translations split off
    • Removal of various deprecated and/or unused APIs
    • Various internal code cleanups

RPM 4.18.1 released (Mar 13 2023)

  • This is a bug fix release addressing a number of regressions and other issues.
  • See release notes for details and download information
  • Highlights include:
    • Preserve packages bit-by-bit again when adding and then removing signatures
    • Fix install of block and character special files
    • Disable debuginfod server lookups during package builds
    • Plugin fixes (fapolicyd and selinux)
    • Various OpenPGP and macro parser fixes

RPM v6 package format draft published (Jan 30 2023)

RPM 4.18.0 released (Sep 20 2022)

  • See release notes for details and download information
  • Highlights include:
    • Big file handling rework to address a class of symlink vulnerabilities during install, restore and erasure
    • More intuitive conditional builds macro %bcond
    • Weak dependencies accept qualifiers like meta and pre now
    • New Sequoia-based OpenPGP backend
    • New interactive shell for working with macros (rpmspec --shell) and embedded Lua (rpmlua)
    • New %conf spec section for build configuration
    • New rpmuncompress cli tool simplifies unpacking multiple sources
    • Numerous macro improvements and fixes
    • Numerous internal OpenPGP parser correctness and security fixes

POPT 1.19 released (Sep 20 2022)

  • See release notes for full details and download information
  • Highlights since popt 1.18 include
    • Two regressions from 1.18 fixed
    • Code cleanups and fixes
    • License clarification

For older news, head over to RPM timeline.