Steps to set up a virtual machine for building RPMs

Configure a new virtual machine instance for each platform and distribution
Tested KVM/QEMU settings:
1 CPU, 2048 MB RAM, 10 GB disk image, VGA graphics, Core2duo CPU 32-bit/64-bit

Install distribution via CD/DVD ISO image (netinstall version)
- standard (non-LVM) partition layout, 2GB Swap only, 500MB /boot, rest /
- choose "Minimal" installation

Make sure the following additional packages (and dependencies) are installed

+ on RedHat/Fedora/CentOS:
vim-enhanced openssh-clients python tar screen
yum-utils rpmdevtools rpm-build redhat-rpm-config createrepo
git make gcc-c++ gcc-gfortran
mpich2-devel openmpi-devel fftw-devel libjpeg-devel

+ on OpenSuSE
yast2-online-update-frontend
vim-enhanced screen
build rpm-build git-core python createrepo
openmpi-devel libjpeg8-devel fftw3-devel gcc-fortran gcc-c++

Create user 'rpmbuild' and set password.
Log in and create ssh key pair and append the public key the .ssh/authorized_keys
file of the repository account for automatic file transfer
Setup a suitable $HOME/.rpmmacros file
Run rpmdev-setuptree

Edit $HOME/.bash_profile to set environment variables for depositing files
MYRPM_REPO_HOST MYRPM_REPO_USER MYRPM_REPO_DIR

Clone LAMMPS-ICMS tree via:
git clone git://git.icms.temple.edu/lammps-icms.git lammps-icms

Build and sync the RPMs to the repository with:
cd lammps-icms;
git pull
./tools/rpm/build-rpm-from-git.sh
./sync-to-repo.sh