While Karanbir posted an interesting rpm the other day , that reminded me another commercial app I had to look once. The application was provided as an RPM, but it seems that none of the installed files was declared in the rpmdb .. and here is why :

[arrfab@waldorf vmware]\$ echo -e "Files present in the RPM package: \n" ; rpm -qlp VMware-Player-2.5.1-126130.x86_64.rpm ; echo -e "\nand now the RPM script : \n" ; rpm -qp --scripts VMware-Player-2.5.1-126130.x86_64.rpm
Files present in the RPM package:

/var/cache/vmware/VMware-Player-2.5.1-126130.x86_64.bundle

and now the RPM script :

preinstall program: /bin/sh
postinstall scriptlet (using /bin/sh):
# Execute bundle installer on install or upgrade after laying down bundle
# and then delete the bundle afterwards.
# Have to redirect the console to stdin because it's closed by default.
# Setting VMWARE_SKIP_RPM_UNINSTALL is necessary because we don't want the
# bundle to run rpm commands, since rpm will deadlock if that happens.
TERM=dumb VMWARE_SKIP_RPM_UNINSTALL=1 /var/cache/vmware/VMware-Player-2.5.1-126130.x86_64.bundle \
--required --console \< /dev/tty
rm -f /var/cache/vmware/VMware-Player-2.5.1-126130.x86_64.bundle
preuninstall scriptlet (using /bin/sh):
# On uninstall only, remove existing bundle installation.
if [ \$1 -eq 0 ]; then
if [ -e /usr/bin/vmware-uninstall ]; then
TERM=dumb /usr/bin/vmware-uninstall --console > /dev/null 2>&1
fi
fi
postuninstall program: /bin/sh

Do we really have to comment on that one ?