If you get the above mentioned error while building an RPM, here’s what it means.  rpmbuild has executed the script:

usr/lib/rpm/check-buildroot

This looks through the files that are set to be installed in your rpm to see if any of them contain the embedded path used to build or install them in the rpmbuild process.    For example, I have my ~/.rpmmacros file set to up with the following entry:

%_topdir %(echo $HOME)/rpmbuild

which means that I build in  /home/ayoung/rpmbuild.  Underneath this directory, I see, amongst other things, the subdirectory BUIOLDROOT.  The current wisdom says that an RPM should use BUILDROOT as the target for any installs.  This is the set of files that get packaged up for the final RPM.  The files here then get checked to see if they have this path embedded in them.  For example, when building rubygem libxml, I see:

+ /usr/lib/rpm/check-buildroot
Binary file /home/ayoung/rpmbuild/BUILDROOT/rubygem-libxml-ruby-1.1.4-1.young.x86_64/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/libxml-ruby-1.1.4/lib/libxml_ruby.so matches
Found ‘/home/ayoung/rpmbuild/BUILDROOT/rubygem-libxml-ruby-1.1.4-1.young.x86_64’ in installed files; aborting

There is a simple work around.  in ~/.rpmmacros, add the line:

%__arch_install_post   /usr/lib/rpm/check-rpaths   /usr/lib/rpm/check-buildroot

Which is,  think, a typo, but it shuts off the check.  However, I wouldn’t advise doingthis.

In the case of libxml, the paths are there as an artifact of the build process.  The .so carried the full path to the directory in which it was build as a way to link to the source files, for debuggins.  I can see the path by running:

objdump –dwarf libxml_ruby.so

I don’t have a final solution, because I need to work through the gem install process, but the end effect will be

1. Remove an non-essential files that have this path in them
2. rewrite the path in the remaining files to be the correct location in the final installed location in the rpm

Update:  Since this is a ruby binary RPM, the correct thing to do is to move the gem install into the %build stage and then copy it into ${BUILDROOT}.  It currently happens in the %install stage.  RPM is wise enogh to do much magic in the BUILD stage, such as producing the debuginfo rpm and so on.