rpm-build-4.0.4.184-alt1.x86_64 The problem is that if rpmbuild is used with --root, then this root prefix is used inconsistently with %buildroot , which leads to the impossibility to successfully build a package with non-empty %install and %files sections. Example (with --root /tmp/.private/imz/tmp.0fLun0M6Iq): warning: created %_tmppath directory /tmp/.private/imz/tmp.0fLun0M6Iq/tmp/.private/imz 0. rootdir prepended to %_tmppath (not really relevant for %buildroot) + umask 022 + /bin/mkdir -p /tmp/.private/imz/tmp.0fLun0M6Iq/usr/src/RPM/BUILD + cd /tmp/.private/imz/tmp.0fLun0M6Iq/usr/src/RPM/BUILD + /bin/chmod -Rf u+rwX -- /tmp/.private/imz/large-package-buildroot + : + /bin/rm -rf -- /tmp/.private/imz/large-package-buildroot 1. Cleaned up buildroot, not inside rootdir + PATH=/usr/libexec/rpm-build:/home/imz/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin:/sbin + mkdir -p /tmp/.private/imz/large-package-buildroot/usr/share/large-package 2. %buildroot (as used in %install) doesn't include rootdir + echo a + /usr/lib/rpm/brp-alt egrep: warning: egrep is obsolescent; using grep -E Hardlinking identical .pyc and .pyo files Hardlinking identical .pyc and .opt-?.pyc files error: No such file or directory: /tmp/.private/imz/tmp.0fLun0M6Iq/tmp/.private/imz/large-package-buildroot/usr/share/large-package 3. Processing %files: rootdir is prepended to buildroot, so the files created in %install can't be found. First part of a solution to this problem would be not to prepend rootdir to buildroot when processing %files. Second--optional and more tricky--part of the solution could be to somehow prepend rootdir to the value of %buildroot, so that existing spec-files' %install sections would operate under rootdir without modification. (If this is really desired. rootdir might be just for reading the db of installed packages, not for building...) After implementing the first part of the solution, this wouldn't lead to an inconsistency between %install and %files. Currently, %buildroot is usually predefined by rpmbuild as %{_tmppath}/%{name}-buildroot . There is no macro for the rootdir value, but if there were one, it could be prepended to this definition.