Selecting and creating RPMs for your application

Your application will typically depend on several components:

  1. Software packages that are shipped as a standard part of the SME Server. You do not need to include any of these packages; they are always present in the runtime environment.

  2. Software packages that are not a standard part of the SME Server, but that are required by your software, and would also be of general use in the runtime environment. For example: a Java runtime environment, libraries that enable communication with devices, etc. If possible, these packages should be made into separate packages, rather than being included in your application. This makes it easier to share them with other applications and enforces version compatiblity.

  3. Software packages that are not a standard part of the SME Server, and that are specific to your software application (i.e. not generally useful in the runtime environment). This is the raw Linux version of your application without any specific SME Server integration code. For example, if your application is already available for Linux in the form of RPMs - these RPMs are what we are referring to. These are referred to as the application RPMs.

  4. Any new files that you have created specifically in order to integrate your application into the SME Server runtime environment - should be packaged into a single RPM, as explained in the next section. This is referred to as the integration RPM.

So, if your application is based on Linux software that has already been packaged into RPMs, then you will need to create one new RPM:the integration RPM.

If, on the other hand, your application is based on Linux software that has not yet been packaged into RPMs, then you will probably need to create at least two RPMs: one or more application RPMs, and the integration RPM.

Finally, for simple customizations (such as the loggerdemo example earlier in this manual) there may be no application RPM at all. This would be typical if the point of the application is to change the server configuration without really adding a new software package. In this case you need only the integration RPM which contains the new template fragments, user interface screens, etc..

All files on the system, except for user data, must be installed by RPMs.