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In SUSE® Linux, RPM (RPM Package Manager) is used for managing software packages. Its main commands are rpm and rpmbuild. The powerful RPM database can be queried by the users, system administrators, and package builders for detailed information about the installed software.
Essentially, rpm has five modes: installing, uninstalling, or updating software packages; rebuilding the RPM database; querying RPM bases or individual RPM archives; integrity checking of packages; and signing packages. rpmbuild can be used to build installable packages from pristine sources.
Installable RPM archives are packed in a special binary format. These
archives consist of the program files to install and certain meta information
used during the installation by rpm to configure the
software package or stored in the RPM database for documentation purposes.
RPM archives normally have the extension .rpm
.
![]() | Software Development Packages |
---|---|
For a number of packages, the components needed for software development
(libraries, headers, include files, etc.) have been put into separate
packages. These development packages are only needed if you want to compile
software yourself, for example, the most recent GNOME packages. They can be
identified by the name extension |
SUSE Linux Enterprise RPM packages have a GnuPG signature. The key including the fingerprint is:
1024D/9C800ACA 2000-10-19 SuSE Package Signing Key <build@suse.de> Key fingerprint = 79C1 79B2 E1C8 20C1 890F 9994 A84E DAE8 9C80 0ACA
The command rpm --checksig
package
-1.2.3.rpm can be used to verify
the signature of an RPM package to determine whether it really originates
from SUSE or from another trustworthy facility. This is especially
recommended for update packages from the Internet. The SUSE public
package signature key normally resides in
/root/.gnupg/
. The key is additionally located in the
directory /usr/lib/rpm/gnupg/
to enable normal users to
verify the signature of RPM packages.