Replace existing directory and all of its content when rpm package is installed

Question

I have created an rpm package and while installing it I want to replace all the existing directory and its contents with rpm package data

Let's say that I have a directory called config/ which has some config files (a.config, b.config, etc.), now a.config is deprecated and I don't want it anymore. So I created a new rpm package with all the files except a.config, but when I install the package it updates b.config and every other file in the directory but it doesn't delete or remove a.config.

I am using following command to install rpm package

rpm -Uvh --force package.rpm

I want to keep only those files and directory that are included in the package and delete other files and folders

Answer 1

If your first rpm package correctly included a.config in the %files section, and it remained untouched, and was not listed in your second version of the package %files section, then it should be removed automatically during the upgrade process. Your b.config would be the only file that remains, added during the installation of the second package.

The only way a.config would remain, is if it was never listed with %files.

Answer 2

To answer my own question,

whatever step you want to execute before rpm package installation starts, you need to define in %pre script in rpm spec file.

So I wrote

%pre
rm -f a.config

in my spec file and it removed the config file before rpm package installation started