Chapter 9. Handling package management history


With the yum history command, you can review the following information:

  • Timeline of YUM transactions.
  • Dates and times the transactions occurred.
  • Number of packages affected by the transactions.
  • Whether the transactions succeeded or were aborted.
  • If the RPM database was changed between the transactions.

You can also use the yum history command to undo the transactions.

9.1. Listing transactions

You can use YUM to perform the following tasks:

  • List the latest transactions.
  • List the latest operations for a selected package.
  • Display details of a particular transaction.

Procedure

  • Depending on your scenario, use one of the following options to display transaction information:

    • To display a list of all the latest YUM transactions, enter:

      # yum history
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      The output contains the following information:

      • The Action(s) column displays which type of action was performed during a transaction, for example, Install (I), Upgrade (U), Remove (E), and other actions.
      • The Altered column displays the number of actions performed during the transaction. The number of actions can also be followed by the result of the transaction.

        For more information about the values of the Action(s) and Altered columns, see the yum(8) man page on your system.

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

      # yum history list <package_name>
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    • To display details of a particular transaction, enter:

      # yum history info <transaction_id>
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Note

You can filter the results by appending global expressions as arguments. For more details, see Specifying global expressions in yum input.

9.2. Reverting YUM transactions

Reverting a YUM transaction can be useful if you want to undo operations performed during the transaction. For example, if you installed several packages by using the yum install command, you can uninstall these packages at once by reverting an installation transaction.

You can revert YUM transactions the following ways:

  • Revert a single YUM transaction by using the yum history undo command.
  • Revert all YUM transactions performed between the specified transaction and the last transaction by using the yum history rollback command.
Important

Downgrading RHEL system packages to an older version by using the yum history undo and yum history rollback command is not supported. This concerns especially the selinux, selinux-policy-*, kernel, and glibc packages, and dependencies of glibc such as gcc. Therefore, downgrading a system to a minor version (for example, from RHEL 8.1 to RHEL 8.0) is not recommended because it might leave the system in an incorrect state.

9.2.1. Reverting a single YUM transaction

You can revert steps performed within a single transaction by using the yum history undo command:

  • If the transaction installed a new package, yum history undo uninstalls the package.
  • If the transaction uninstalled a package, yum history undo reinstalls the package.
  • The yum history undo command also attempts to downgrade all updated packages to their previous versions if the older packages are still available.
Note

If an older package version is not available, the downgrade by using the yum history undo command fails.

Procedure

  1. Identify the ID of a transaction you want to revert:

    # yum history
    ID | Command line     | Date and time     | Action(s)      | Altered
    --------------------------------------------------------------------
    13 | install zip      | 2022-11-03 10:49  | Install        |    1
    12 | install unzip    | 2022-11-03 10:49  | Install        |    1
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  2. Optional: Verify that this is the transaction you want to revert by displaying its details:

    # yum history info <transaction_id>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  3. Revert the transaction:

    # yum history undo <transaction_id>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    For example, if you want to uninstall the previously installed unzip package, enter:

    # yum history undo 12
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    If you want to revert the last transaction, enter:

    # yum history undo last
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9.2.2. Reverting multiple YUM transactions

You can revert all YUM transactions performed between a specified transaction and the last transaction by using the yum history rollback command. Note that the transaction specified by the transaction ID remains unchanged.

Procedure

  1. Identify the transaction ID of the state you want to revert to:

    # yum history
    ID | Command line     | Date and time     | Action(s)   | Altered
    ------------------------------------------------------------------
    14 | install wget     | 2022-11-03 10:49  | Install     |    1
    13 | install unzip    | 2022-11-03 10:49  | Install     |    1
    12 | install vim-X11  | 2022-11-03 10:20  | Install     |  171 EE
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  2. Revert specified transactions:

    # yum history rollback <transaction_id>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    For example, to revert to the state before the wget and unzip packages were installed, enter:

    # yum history rollback 12
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    Alternatively, to revert all transactions in the transaction history, use the transaction ID 1:

    # yum history rollback 1
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
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