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Description of problem: We were trying to rebuild a source rpm. $ rpm --rebuild check-0.8-1.src.rpm check-0.8-1.src.rpm: file not found Running under strace revealed that the file it could not find was /usr/share/locale/en/LC_MESSAGES. I don't know why that file is not present... so: $ LANG=C rpm --rebuild check-0.8-1.src.rpm check-0.8-1.src.rpm: file not found Again, running under strace releaved that the actual file missing was /usr/lib/rpm/rpmb. I guessed this was from the rpm-build package was for some reason was not installed when we installed RH72, and then the build worked. However, for the last case at least, the error message should be "cannot find /usr/lib/rpm/rpmb. Do you have rpm-build installed?".
Invoke /usr/bin/rpmbuild, not /bin/rpm. Yes you need the rpm-build package installed. The build modes have moved to a different executable over a year ago, what remains is an attempt at legacy compatibility with previous behavior which, as you have seen, is somewhat feeble, but will not be fixed further.