RPath

rPath, Inc.

Company type	Private
Industry	Software
Founded	April 2005 (2005-04)
Founder	Erik Troan
Defunct	November 30, 2012 (2012-11-30)
Fate	Acquired by SAS Institute
Headquarters	Raleigh , United States
Area served	Global
Key people	Bill Marshall (CEO)
Products	Software packaging, deployment, and update automation platform; Conary package management tool
Parent	SAS Institute (from 2012)
Website	www.rpath.com

rPath, Inc. was a technology firm based in Raleigh, North Carolina that specialized in automating the processes of software packaging, deployment, and updates. The company offered a model-driven, version-controlled repository alongside a software distribution platform designed to efficiently handle components and their dependencies.

In November 2012, SAS Institute acquired rPath, leading to the discontinuation of rPath Linux.

History

Established in April 2005 by Erik Troan, known for co-authoring the Red Hat Package Manager (RPM), rPath initially concentrated on delivering packaged applications as virtual appliances tailored for independent software vendors (ISVs) and end users. Early executive leadership included CEO Bill Marshall. The company secured initial financing from North Bridge Venture Partners and General Catalyst Partners, raising $6.4 million in 2005, with subsequent funding rounds accumulating over $26 million by 2010.

As an early entrant in the software appliance sector, rPath transitioned by 2009 to focus on enterprise IT departments, providing automation solutions through software configuration modeling. Its commercial version control system managed manifests, packages, binaries, policies, and configurations—applying principles of source code control to deployed software environments. This methodology facilitated fast reproduction, patch management, rollback capabilities, and selective updates, thereby enhancing operational workflows.

The platform kept an exhaustive inventory of systems by maintaining version-controlled manifests that detailed every file and component within production environments. This enabled IT teams to create layered system variations—such as customized versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux integrated with specific middleware—and automatically enforce policies during build processes.

rPath’s technology performed automated analysis of software artifacts to chart comprehensive software supply chains—including operating system elements and libraries—minimizing maintenance errors caused by missing dependencies or conflicts. This approach guaranteed consistent system definitions throughout their lifecycle and ensured clean build environments.

A core component of rPath’s technology was Conary, an open-source package management and configuration tool that supported rollbacks, incremental updates ("changesets"), and distributed downloads, removing dependence on package managers like apt or yum.

The company’s solutions supported various platforms such as Microsoft Windows Server 2008/2003, Red Hat Enterprise Linux versions 4 and 5, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, and CentOS. Additionally, rPath provided its offerings through a software as a service model.

In 2010, rPath became part of the NRE Alliance alongside newScale and Eucalyptus Systems, collaborating to advance private and hybrid cloud computing technologies.

On November 30, 2012, SAS Institute acquired key assets and personnel from rPath to strengthen its analytics portfolio.

External links

• rPath, Inc.