Open a RPM on a Mac?

Question

I am on a MacBook Pro running Apple Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5.8).

I would like to unpackage a RPM and view the files contained within the wget-1.11.4-2.el5_4.1.src.rpm . I don't need to install the files to a particular location or run any %postinstall scripts or anything. I just want to unpackage this RPM so that I can view the source files underneath.

Is it possible to unpackage a RPM file on a non-RedHat/CentOS system?

Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' · Accepted Answer · 2020-10-21T11:10:36.883

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On modern systems, the built-in tar utility supports several other archive formats including rpm. So you can extract the files from the rpm with

tar -xf foo.rpm

Note that if you've installed GNU tools, tar may invoke GNU tar instead of the one that ships with macOS, depending on which set of GNU tools and on your $PATH. You need to use /usr/bin/tar, not GNU tar.

You can install rpm through Darwin Ports or Fink or Mac Ports or even a Darwin port, rpm4darwin.

To extract files from an rpm package without installing it, you can use the companion utility rpm2cpio, e.g.

rpm2cpio foo.rpm | cpio -i -d

There's also a portable rpm2cpio script if you don't want or can't get the version that's bundled with the rpm utility (the script may not work with older or newer versions of the rpm format though).

edited Oct 21 '20 at 11:10

answered Dec 09 '10 at 00:36

Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'

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Seems like I want rpm2cpio, and I use Mac Ports, but unfortunately [rpm2cpio is not availalbe in macports](http://www.macports.org/ports.php?by=name&substr=rpm2cpio). Maybe I'll try one of these alternatives. – Stefan Lasiewski Dec 09 '10 at 20:39
@Stefan: Isn't the `rpm2cpio` utility in the `rpm` port? If not try the script. – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' Dec 09 '10 at 20:48
@Giles : So it is, under `/opt/local/bin/rpm`! The PATH in my old environment must have been messed up. – Stefan Lasiewski Dec 09 '10 at 21:09
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It's also available in homebrew: $ brew install rpm2cpio – Raymond Kroeker Jan 17 '13 at 00:15
Appears rpm2cpio is actually in the `rpm` brew these days... – rogerdpack Aug 11 '17 at 22:19

score 29 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 30 '16 at 20:33

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From the command line you can use the tar command. For example tar -tf example.rpm | less to list all of the files in the rpm.

edited Nov 30 '16 at 20:33

Dave Gray

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answered Aug 25 '15 at 10:36

Jon Ashdown

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can you give more details ? – Archemar Aug 25 '15 at 12:02
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@Archemar ```tar -tvzf some.rpm``` to list the contents ```tar -xvzf some.rpm``` to extract – Jon Ashdown Aug 27 '15 at 13:42

score 10 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 28 '17 at 10:03

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To unpack all the files to the local directory:

tar -xvzf some.rpm

without the need to install any new tools

answered Feb 28 '17 at 10:03

Andrew Mackenzie

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score 8 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 23 '15 at 05:32

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Homebrew also has a recipe for rpm installation, just run

brew install rpm

answered Jul 23 '15 at 05:32

Andrew

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score 4 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 09 '10 at 02:04

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I would think that (like Windows and Linux) any archiver program should be able to decompress it. iArchiver, the unArchiver, and Archiver all list "read-only RPM" in their supported formats.

answered Dec 09 '10 at 02:04

mlschechter

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I guess most popular archivers for Windows - like WinRAR - have no such option. – Maciej Piechotka Dec 09 '10 at 04:06
From my perspective 'archiver' refers to single-purpose tools like `/usr/bin/tar`, `cpio`, etc. – Stefan Lasiewski Dec 09 '10 at 21:01

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 25 '14 at 21:44

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The portable rpm2cpio script is really good!

answered Dec 25 '14 at 21:44

Robin Liu

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score 2 · Answer 7 · edited Aug 08 '16 at 22:11

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Yes you can, Midnight Commander opens RPM files. I don't use it but google list some links that might point at a GUI.

edited Aug 08 '16 at 22:11

Eliran Malka

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answered Dec 08 '10 at 23:29

Maciej Piechotka

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Open a RPM on a Mac?

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