RPM2ARCHIVE(1)              General Commands Manual             RPM2ARCHIVE(1)

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

SYNOPSIS
       rpm2archive [options] [PACKAGE_FILE] ...

DESCRIPTION
       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
       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
       -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:
           o   pax: Restricted Portable Archive Exchange as used by tar(1)
               (default)
           o   cpio: The "new" ASCII cpio(5) format. Note that this format has
               a 4GB limit on the individual file size.

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

EXAMPLES
       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
       rpm2cpio(1), rpm(8)

RPM 6.0.1                         2026-03-06                    RPM2ARCHIVE(1)