Chapter 7. Managing software packages

Procedure

• To search for a package, use:

  # yum search term

  Replace term with a term related to the package.

  Note that yum search command returns term matches within the name and summary of the packages. This makes the search faster and enables you to search for packages you do not know the name of, but for which you know a related term.

• To include term matches within package descriptions, use:

  # yum search --all term

  Replace term with a term you want to search for in a package name, summary, or description.

  Note that yum search --all enables a more exhaustive but slower search.

Procedure

• To list information about all installed and available packages, use:

  # yum list --all

• To list all packages installed on your system, use:

  # yum list --installed

• To list all packages in all enabled repositories that are available to install, use:

  # yum list --available

Procedure

• To list all enabled repositories on your system, use:

  # yum repolist

• To list all disabled repositories on your system, use:

  # yum repolist --disabled

• To list both enabled and disabled repositories, use:

  # yum repolist --all

• To list additional information about the repositories, use:

  # yum repoinfo

Procedure

• To display information about one or more packages, use:

  # yum info package-name

  Replace package-name with the name of the package.

Procedure

• To view the number of installed and available groups, use:

  # yum group summary

• To list all installed and available groups, use:

  # yum group list

  Note that you can filter the results by appending command line options for the yum group list command (--hidden, --available). For more available options see the man pages.

• To list mandatory and optional packages contained in a particular group, use:

  # yum group info group-name

  Replace group-name with the name of the group.

Procedure

• To ensure global expressions are passed to yum as intended, use one of the following methods:

  • Double-quote or single-quote the entire global expression.

    # yum provides "*/file-name"

    Replace file-name with the name of the file.

  • Escape the wildcard characters by preceding them with a backslash (\) character.

    # yum provides \*/file-name

    Replace file-name with the name of the file.

• To install a package and all the package dependencies, use:

  # yum install package-name

  Replace package-name with the name of the package.

• To install multiple packages and their dependencies simultaneously, use:

  # yum install package-name-1 package-name-2

  Replace package-name-1 and package-name-2 with the names of the packages.

• When installing packages on a multilib system (AMD64, Intel 64 machine), you can specify the architecture of the package by appending it to the package name:

  # yum install package-name.arch

  Replace package-name.arch with the name and architecture of the package.

• If you know the name of the binary you want to install, but not the package name, you can use the path to the binary as an argument:

  # yum install /usr/sbin/binary-file

  Replace /usr/sbin/binary-file with a path to the binary file.

  yum searches through the package lists, finds the package which provides /usr/sbin/binary-file, and prompts you as to whether you want to install it.

• To install a previously-downloaded package from a local directory, use:

  # yum install /path/

  Replace /path/ with the path to the package.

Procedure

• To install a package group by a group name, use:

  # yum group install group-name

  Or

  # yum install @group-name

  Replace group-name with the full name of the group or environmental group.

• To install a package group by the groupID, use:

  # yum group install groupID

  Replace groupID with the ID of the group.

• To install a package using its exact name, use:

  # yum install-n name

  Replace name with the exact name of the package.

• To install a package using its exact name and architecture, use:

  # yum install-na name.architecture

  Replace name and architecture with the exact name and architecture of the package.

• To install a package using its exact name, epoch, version, release, and architecture, use:

  # yum install-nevra name-epoch:version-release.architecture

  Replace name, epoch, version, release, and architecture with the exact name, epoch, version, release, and architecture of the package.

Procedure

• To see which packages installed on your system have available updates, use:

  # yum check-update

  The output returns the list of packages and their dependencies that have an update available.

• To update a package, use:

  # yum update package-name

  Replace package-name with the name of the package.

Procedure

• To update a package group, use:

  # yum group update group-name

  Replace group-name with the name of the package group.

Procedure

• To update all packages and their dependencies, use:

  # yum update

Procedure

• To upgrade to the latest available packages that have security errata, use:

  # yum update --security

• To upgrade to the last security errata packages, use:

  # yum update-minimal --security

• Exit
• Download updated packages
• Download and apply the updates

Procedure

• To remove a particular package and all dependent packages, use:

  # yum remove package-name

  Replace package-name with the name of the package.

• To remove multiple packages and their dependencies simultaneously, use:

  # yum remove package-name-1 package-name-2

  Replace package-name-1 and package-name-2 with the names of the packages.

Procedure

• To remove a package group by the group name, use:

  # yum group remove group-name

  Or

  # yum remove @group-name

  Replace group-name with the full name of the group.

• To remove a package group by the groupID, use:

  # yum group remove groupID

  Replace groupID with the ID of the group.

• To install a package using its exact name, use:

  # yum install-n name

  Replace name with the exact name of the package.

• To install a package using its exact name and architecture, use:

  # yum install-na name.architecture

  Replace name and architecture with the exact name and architecture of the package.

• To install a package using its exact name, epoch, version, release, and architecture, use:

  # yum install-nevra name-epoch:version-release.architecture

  Replace name, epoch, version, release, and architecture with the exact name, epoch, version, release, and architecture of the package.

Procedure

• To view the number of installed and available groups, use:

  # yum group summary

• To list all installed and available groups, use:

  # yum group list

  Note that you can filter the results by appending command line options for the yum group list command (--hidden, --available). For more available options see the man pages.

• To list mandatory and optional packages contained in a particular group, use:

  # yum group info group-name

  Replace group-name with the name of the group.

Procedure

• To install a package group by a group name, use:

  # yum group install group-name

  Or

  # yum install @group-name

  Replace group-name with the full name of the group or environmental group.

• To install a package group by the groupID, use:

  # yum group install groupID

  Replace groupID with the ID of the group.

Procedure

• To remove a package group by the group name, use:

  # yum group remove group-name

  Or

  # yum remove @group-name

  Replace group-name with the full name of the group.

• To remove a package group by the groupID, use:

  # yum group remove groupID

  Replace groupID with the ID of the group.

Procedure

• To ensure global expressions are passed to yum as intended, use one of the following methods:

  • Double-quote or single-quote the entire global expression.

    # yum provides "*/file-name"

    Replace file-name with the name of the file.

  • Escape the wildcard characters by preceding them with a backslash (\) character.

    # yum provides \*/file-name

    Replace file-name with the name of the file.

Procedure

• To display a list of all the latest yum transactions, use:

  # yum history

• To display a list of all the latest operations for a selected package, use:

  # yum history list package-name

  Replace package-name with the name of the package. You can filter the command output by appending global expressions. See Specifying global expressions in yum input for more details.

• To examine a particular transaction, use:

  # yum history info transactionID

  Replace transactionID with the ID of the transaction.

Procedure

• To revert a particular transaction, use:

  # yum history undo transactionID

  Replace transactionID with the ID of the transaction.

• To revert the last transaction, use:

  # yum history undo last

Procedure

• To repeat a particular transaction, use:

  # yum history redo transactionID

  Replace transactionID with the ID of the transaction.

• To repeat the last transaction, use:

  # yum history redo last

Procedure

• To ensure global expressions are passed to yum as intended, use one of the following methods:

  • Double-quote or single-quote the entire global expression.

    # yum provides "*/file-name"

    Replace file-name with the name of the file.

  • Escape the wildcard characters by preceding them with a backslash (\) character.

    # yum provides \*/file-name

    Replace file-name with the name of the file.

• Add a [repository] section to the /etc/yum.conf file.

• Add a [repository] section to a .repo file in the /etc/yum.repos.d/ directory.

  yum repositories commonly provide their own .repo file.

• To add a repository to your system and enable it, use:

  # yum-config-manager --add-repo repository_URL

  Replace repository_url with URL pointing to the repository.

Procedure

• To enable a repository, use:

  # yum-config-manager --enable repositoryID

  Replace repositoryID with the unique repository ID.

  To list available repository IDs, see Listing packages with yum.

Procedure

• To disable a yum repository, use:

  # yum-config-manager --disable repositoryID

  Replace repositoryID with the unique repository ID.

  To list available repository IDs, see Listing packages with yum.

Procedure

• To display the current values of global yum options specified in the [main] section of the /etc/yum.conf file, use:

  # yum config-manager --dump