man7.org > Linux > man-pages

Linux/UNIX system programming training

rpm2archive(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | ARGUMENTS | OPTIONS | EXIT STATUS | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON 

RPM2ARCHIVE(1)           General Commands Manual           RPM2ARCHIVE(1)

NAME         top

       rpm2archive - Create tar or cpio archive from RPM Package Manager
       (RPM) package

SYNOPSIS         top

       rpm2archive [options] [PACKAGE_FILE] ...

DESCRIPTION         top

       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         top

       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         top

       -n, --nocompression
           Generate an uncompressed archive. If in the file creation
           mode, use .tar as postfix of the filename.

       -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         top

       On success, 0 is returned, a nonzero failure code otherwise.

EXAMPLES         top

       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).

SEE ALSO         top

       rpm2cpio(1), rpm(8)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the rpm (RPM Package Manager) project.
       Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨https://github.com/rpm-software-management/rpm⟩.  It is not known
       how to report bugs for this man page; if you know, please send a
       mail to [email protected].  This page was obtained from the
       project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://github.com/rpm-software-management/rpm.git⟩ on
       2026-01-16.  (At that time, the date of the most recent commit
       that was found in the repository was 2026-01-15.)  If you discover
       any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page, or you
       believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the page,
       or you have corrections or improvements to the information in this
       COLOPHON (which is not part of the original manual page), send a
       mail to [email protected]

RPM 6.0.90                      2026-01-16                 RPM2ARCHIVE(1)

Pages that refer to this page: rpm2cpio(1)

HTML rendering created 2026-01-16 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface.

For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here.

Hosting by jambit GmbH.

Cover of TLPI