RPM2ARCHIVE(1)
2025-10-07
NAME
rpm2archive - Create tar or cpio archive from RPM Package Manager (RPM) package
SYNOPSIS
rpm2archive [options] [PACKAGE_FILE] ...
DESCRIPTION
rpm2archive converts RPM package files to other archive formats.
If the standard output is a regular file or a pipe, the archive is written to the standard output. If the standard output is a terminal, the output is written to a file by the same name, appended with a .tgz or .cpio.gz suffix when compressed or .tar or .cpio otherwise depending on the format. The output is compressed in the gzip(1) format by default.
rpm2archive does not verify package-level signatures or checksums, but it does verify the per-file checksums.
Supports RPM package formats 3, 4 and 6.
ARGUMENTS
PACKAGE_FILE
A binary or source RPM package.
If no arguments are present, or a dash (-) is given as an argument, data is read from the standard input.
OPTIONS
-n, --nocompression
Generate an uncompressed archive. If in the file creation mode, use .tar as postfix of the file name.
-f, --format=<FORMAT>
Generate archive in specified FORMAT:
- pax: Restricted Portable Archive Exchange as used by tar(1) (default)
- cpio: The "new" ASCII cpio(5) format. Note that this format has a 4GB limit on the individual file size.
EXIT STATUS
On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise.
EXAMPLES
rpm2archive glint-1.0-1.i386.rpm | tar -xvz
Extract glint-1.0-1.i386.rpm package contents with tar(1).
rpm2archive --nocompression --format=cpio glint-1.0-1.i386.rpm | cpio -idv
Extract glint-1.0-1.i386.rpm package contents as an uncompressed cpio(5), compatible with rpm2cpio(1) output.
rpm2archive glint-1.0-1.i386.rpm ; tar -xvz glint-1.0-1.i386.rpm.tgz
Extract glint-1.0-1.i386.rpm package contents into an archive named glint-1.0-1.i386.rpm.tgz and extract the written archive with tar(1).
cat glint-1.0-1.i386.rpm | rpm2archive - | tar -tvz
Feed glint-1.0-1.i386.rpm package into rpm2archive via standard input, and list contents with tar(1).