View Installation / Uninstallation Script Inside The RPM File

Q. How do I view the pre / post installation or uninstallation script inside the RPM file called foo.rpm under Red Hat Enterprise Linux / RHEL / CentOS / Fedora / Suse Linux? How do I list the package specific scriptlet(s) that are used as part of the installation and uninstallation processes?

A. To list the package specific scriptlet(s) that are used as part of the installation and uninstallation processes pass --scripts option to rpm command. You also need to specify the following options:

-q option : Query option
-p option : Query an (uninstalled) package PACKAGE_FILE. The PACKAGE_FILE may be specified as an ftp or http style URL, in which case the package header will be downloaded and querie).

General syntax for uninstalled foo.rpm file

$ rpm -qp --scripts foo.rpm
Find out Installation / Uninstallation scripts inside the rpm file called monit-4.9-2.el5.rf.x86_64.rpm:
$ rpm -qp --scripts monit-4.9-2.el5.rf.x86_64.rpm
Sample output:

 
warning: monit-4.9-2.el5.rf.x86_64.rpm: Header V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 6b8d79e6
preinstall scriptlet (using /bin/sh):
if ! /usr/bin/id monit &>/dev/null; then
        /usr/sbin/useradd -M -r -d /var/lib/monit -s /bin/sh -c "monit daemon" monit || \
                logger -t monit/rpm "Unexpected error adding user \"monit\". Aborting installation."
fi
postinstall scriptlet (using /bin/sh):
/sbin/chkconfig --add monit
preuninstall scriptlet (using /bin/sh):
if [ $1 -eq 0 ]; then
        service monit stop &>/dev/null || :
        /sbin/chkconfig --del monit
fi
postuninstall scriptlet (using /bin/sh):
/sbin/service monit condrestart &>/dev/null || :
if [ $1 -eq 0 ]; then
        /usr/sbin/userdel monit || logger -t monit/rpm "User \"monit\" could not be deleted."
fi

General syntax for installed httpd package

$ rpm -q --scripts httpd
Sample output:

preinstall scriptlet (using /bin/sh):
# Add the "apache" user
/usr/sbin/useradd -c "Apache" -u 48 \
        -s /sbin/nologin -r -d /var/www apache 2> /dev/null || :
postinstall scriptlet (using /bin/sh):
# Register the httpd service
/sbin/chkconfig --add httpd
preuninstall scriptlet (using /bin/sh):
if [ $1 = 0 ]; then
        /sbin/service httpd stop > /dev/null 2>&1
        /sbin/chkconfig --del httpd
fi