How to open and extract RPM file on MacOS

Table of Contents

Background #

Are you trying to extract the contents of an RPM file on your Mac? I found myself in a similar situation, wanting to view the standard contents of a configuration file stored inside an RPM. Here’s a guide on how to open and extract an RPM file on MacOS.

Procedure #

First, download and install Homebrew on MacOSX.

MacBook:~ user$ /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

After successfully installing Homebrew, it’s time to install the rpm2cpio utility. This tool will be crucial to our task of extracting the RPM on MacOS.

MacBook:~ user$ brew install rpm2cpio
==> Downloading https://formulae.brew.sh/api/formula.jws.json
######################################################################### 100.0%
==> Downloading https://formulae.brew.sh/api/cask.jws.json
######################################################################### 100.0%
==> Fetching rpm2cpio
==> Downloading https://ghcr.io/v2/homebrew/core/rpm2cpio/manifests/1.4-1
######################################################################### 100.0%
==> Downloading https://ghcr.io/v2/homebrew/core/rpm2cpio/blobs/sha256:a0d766ccb
==> Downloading from https://pkg-containers.githubusercontent.com/ghcr1/blobs/sh
######################################################################### 100.0%
==> Pouring rpm2cpio--1.4.arm64_ventura.bottle.1.tar.gz
🍺  /opt/homebrew/Cellar/rpm2cpio/1.4: 3 files, 3.2KB
==> Running `brew cleanup rpm2cpio`...

With the rpm2cpio utility installed, you can now extract the RPM package in your MacOS. Run the following command to extract the contents of the RPM file.

MacBook:~ user$ rpm2cpio chrony-4.3-1.el9.x86_64.rpm | cpio -idmv
./etc/chrony.conf
./etc/chrony.keys
./etc/dhcp/dhclient.d/chrony.sh
./etc/logrotate.d/chrony
./etc/sysconfig/chronyd
./usr/bin/chronyc
./usr/lib/.build-id
./usr/lib/.build-id/27
./usr/lib/.build-id/27/22526e8b01c2e304dae76c95b96d08368d541b
./usr/lib/.build-id/bc
./usr/lib/.build-id/bc/b4a77a141da491a2df6664d74de0193e276d7c
./usr/lib/NetworkManager
./usr/lib/NetworkManager/dispatcher.d
./usr/lib/NetworkManager/dispatcher.d/20-chrony-dhcp
./usr/lib/NetworkManager/dispatcher.d/20-chrony-onoffline
./usr/lib/systemd/ntp-units.d/50-chronyd.list
./usr/lib/systemd/system/chrony-wait.service
./usr/lib/systemd/system/chronyd.service
./usr/lib/sysusers.d/chrony.conf
./usr/sbin/chronyd
./usr/share/doc/chrony
./usr/share/doc/chrony/FAQ
./usr/share/doc/chrony/NEWS
./usr/share/doc/chrony/README
./usr/share/licenses/chrony
./usr/share/licenses/chrony/COPYING
./usr/share/man/man1/chronyc.1.gz
./usr/share/man/man5/chrony.conf.5.gz
./usr/share/man/man8/chronyd.8.gz
./var/lib/chrony
./var/log/chrony
1253 blocks

And there you have it, a simple and effective method to open and extract an RPM file on MacOS. Now you can navigate and explore the contents of your RPM file as needed.

Updates #

2023-05-22: This article has been recently updated to reflect the latest commands for the Homebrew package manager and to illustrate the extraction process using a current RPM file.