Linux/macOS: Retrieve RPMs from .sh file without running the script

Problem

Sometimes vendors ship their software as a single self-extracting .sh installer that contains multiple .rpm or other files inside.

Running the .sh directly might trigger installation logic you don’t want, so the challenge is: How can we safely unpack the RPMs without executing the script?

Solution

Most vendor installers provide built-in extraction flags that allow you to unpack it safely.

First, check whether your script supports extraction options:

• Run it with --help.
• Or open the file in a text editor (vi, vim, less) and search for the section that lists available options.
• Look for keywords like --target, --noexec, or --keep.

In my case, the script showed this usage block:

$0 [options] [--] [additional arguments to embedded script]

Options:
  --confirm             Ask before running embedded script
  --quiet               Do not print anything except error messages
  --noexec              Do not run embedded script
  --keep                Do not erase target directory after running
  --noprogress          Do not show the progress during decompression
  --nox11               Do not spawn an xterm
  --nochown             Do not give the extracted files to the current user
  --target dir          Extract directly to a target directory
                        (absolute or relative path)
  --tar arg1 [arg2 ...] Access the contents of the archive through tar
  --                    Pass following arguments to the embedded script

The key flags here are:

• --target -> specifies the output directory for extracted files
• --noexec -> prevents the embedded installer logic from executing

Here’s how I safely extracted the files from my .sh installer. You might need to create an extract directory before:

$ sh flashgrid_cluster_node_update-25.5.89.70767.sh --target extract/ --noexec
Creating directory extract/
Verifying archive integrity... All good.
Uncompressing update 100%

Checking the number of files extracted, shows 46:

$ ll extract/ | wc -l
46