rpm2cpio - extracting rpm contects : cannot re-open payload

[paul_634]

I need to extract the contents of an rpm without installing the software. I have been trying to use
rpm2cpio | cpio -idv
as well as other combinations. However it keeps failing with the error :
----------------------------
cannot re-open payload:
End of volume
errno: 25, Can't read input
----------------------------
I have worked out the rpm2cpio is either not creating a correct cpio header or cpio is not working correctly.

Can you help with the correct command or an alternative way to extract the rpm please ?

thanks

[Stephen Keane]

Try

rpm2cpio file.rpm > file.cpio

Then try various cpio options against file.cpio. If you can successfuly create file.cpio then the cpio command is probably to blame.

[paul_634]

Hi thanks,

I have been able to create the cpio file but when i use cpio is gives the error
------------------------------
bash-2.05b# cpio -id < a.cpio
Out of phase--get help
Perhaps the "-c" option should be used
------------------------------
I used the c,b,s options to see if the file format was different but I am still stuck.

[Stephen Keane]

You could try -R flag for cpio (autoresync). Can you verify that the original RPM is OK?

You could try

# rpm -i --test file.rpm

[paul_634]

The cpio command with the -R option, gave the following error:
--------------------------------------------cpio -idR < a.cpio
cpio: Out of phase; resyncing.
cpio: Re-synced after skipping 5622042 bytes.
Archive file is incorrect or pathname exceeds MAXPATHLEN
--------------------------------------------
I have not been able to work out the error. Is it related to the rpm size ? the rpm is 768MB but well within the 2gb limit.

I also tried the rpm -i --test file.rpm command, it only advised I would need 603MB of space to install the rpm.

[Stephen Keane]

Not sure why cpio is upset. You can list the contents of the RPM using

# rpm -qlp file.rpm

(from memory - I don't have access to a Linux box at present). Check for unusually long file names, or Unicode or something unusual that might upset cpio?