Inside an RPM package

• An RPM file is a CPIO archive with a special header prepended

• Two types of RPM files:

  • Source RPM (.src.rpm) contains a SPEC file (.spec), source tarballs (.tar.gz, .tar.bz2), other source files, and patches
  • Binary RPM (.i386.rpm, .i686.rpm, .sparc64.rpm) contains compiled files, documentation, configuration files, and pre/post install/uninstall scripts