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What is RPM Packages

What is RPM PackagesRPM Packages

RPM stands for Red Hat Package Manager. RPM is a powerful Package Manager for Red Hat, Suse and Fedora Linux. It can be used to build, install, query, verify, update, and remove/erase individual software packages. A Package consists of an archive of files, and package information, including name, version, and description.

  • Files end in the .rpm extension
  • RPM files are the preferred Linux installation files according to the LSB (Linux Standard Base)
  • Two different types of RPM files:
    • RPM – contains the compiled code
    • SRPM – contains the source code for a particular application
  • RPM package names are constructed like this:

name-version-release.architecture.rpm

openssh-5.3p1-52.el6_1.2.x86_64.rpm

  • Architecture comes in three types:
    • I386 for 32 bit system
    • x86_64 for 64 bit systems
    • noarch – platform independent software
  • RPM packages contain the following items:
    • SPEC file – A file that ends in the .spec file extension, contains the information necessary to create the RPM package
    • The application or libraries that are to be installed
    • Any documentation (such as man pages ) that come with the package
    • Any configuration files that come with the application
  • Package installation is stored in the RPM database. RPM database is located at: -/var/lib/rpm

RPM Commands

list of all installed packages

# rpm -qa

list of all recently installed packages

# rpm -qa –last

Query a particular Package

# rpm -qa packagename

Information about Package

# rpm -qi packagename

Documentation files of Package

# rpm -qd packagename

Dependencies a rpm file has

# rpm -qR packagename

list of configuration file for a Package

# rpm -qc packagename

list of all the Files in a Package

# rpm -qpl packagename.rpm

To Install the package

# rpm -ivh packagename.rpm

To Upgrade package

# rpm -Uvh packagename.rpm

Forcefully install package

# rpm -ivh –nodeps packagename.rpm

Uninstall package

# rpm -e packagename

Forcefully uninstall package

# rpm -e –nodeps package

Erase/remove/ an installed package

# rpm -ev package

Erase/remove/ an installed packagewithout checking for dependencies

# rpm -ev –nodeps package

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