How to Use the RPM Command in Linux

If you have been looking to learn how to use the RPM command in Linux OS, here’s everything you need to know. 

RPM command is a command line utility for installing packages in Red Hat-based systems. We will start with a brief overview of RPM. Then, we will discuss the steps for installation, upgrading, removing, querying, and verifying RPM packages.

To follow the article on how to use the RPM command in Linux, you should have a system with Linux OS installed. Then, you can open your terminal from the system menu and select terminal. You should have access to the root user or a user with sudo privileges.

Note: RPM is a low-level package management utility. Using YUM or DNF instead is recommended, as they automatically deal with dependencies.

What is RPM?

RPM is one of the most widely used utilities for installing software in Linux. An RPM package comprises an archive of files and metadata. The metadata includes the details of the dependencies and the install location. RPM has the following features:

• It is a command-line utility for managing packages in the Linux system.
• It can be used to install, update, query, or remove packages from the system.
• It is the default package manager for Red hat based systems. It is also used in CentOS and Fedora.
• It uses the file with the .RPM extension.

How to Use the RPM Command in Linux

The basic usage of an RPM command is as follows:

sudo RPM [option] [package_name]

To see the full list of RPM commands, type the following on your terminal:

sudo RPM --help

You should see the following screen:

Installing software in Linux using RPM

We will now briefly discuss how to use the RPM command in Linux to install a package. Follow the steps below to install an RPM package.

Log in as the root user

The first step is to log in as the root user. You can also use the su command to switch the user to root.

Download the package

The next step is to download the package you wish to install. The name of the package will be something like software.RPM

Install the package

After downloading the package, you can easily install it with the help of the following command:

$RPM –i software.RPM

Suppose, you want to install the MySQL package, then you can use the following command:

sudo RPM -ivh mysql80-community-release-el7-5.noarch.RPM

Here, the “i” stands for installation, “v” is for verbose, and “h” is for printing hash marks to show installation.

Upgrading a package

In case you are upgrading to an older version, you can run the RPM in upgrade mode as follows:

#npm –U software.RPM

For instance, you can upgrade the MySQL server with the help of the following command:

$sudo RPM -Uvh mysql80-community-release-el7-5.noarch.RPM

Note that if the newer version requires dependencies, they must be installed manually. After running the command, RPM will list the dependencies as output. To ignore the message and install the package without dependencies, you can use the following command:

$sudo RPM -Uvh --nodeps package_name

Here, the nodeps flag tells RPM to ignore the dependencies.

Installing an RPM package which is not previously been downloaded

You can install a package that is not previously downloaded with the help of the following command:

$sudo RPM -ivh package_URL

For instance, the MySQL package can be downloaded with the help of the following command:

$sudo RPM -ivh https://dev.mysql.com/get/mysql80-community-release-el7-5.noarch.RPM

Removing an RPM package

We will now discuss the process of removing an RPM package. In particular, the package can be removed with or without its dependencies, and both approaches are discussed below.

Removing an RPM package

To remove an RPM package, you can use the –e (–erase option) as follows:

$sudo RPM -e package_name

You can also use the –v option to see the verbose output.

$sudo RPM -ev package_name

Removing an RPM package without removing dependencies

To remove an RPM package without removing dependencies, use the following command:

$sudo RPM -ev --nodeps package_name

For instance, you can remove MySQL without removing any related dependencies as follows:

$sudo RPM -ev --nodeps mysql80-community-release-el7-5.noarch

Querying RPM packages

The –q option is used for querying RPM packages. The following paragraph briefly discusses how we can query RPM packages in various ways.

Querying if a package is installed or not

For instance, the following command can be used to query if JDK is installed on your system or not:

$sudo RPM -q java-11-openjdk-devel

Getting more information about the queried package

To get more information about the queried package, you can use the following command:

$sudo RPM -qi java-11-openjdk-devel

Getting the list of files installed for a package

To obtain information about the list of files installed for a package, use the following command:

$sudo RPM -ql package

Verifying RPM packages

Finally, we can also verify installed RPM packages. Follow the steps below to verify RPM packages in various ways.

Verifying an installed package

To verify an installed package, you can use the –V command:

$sudo RPM -V openldap-2.4.46-9.el8.x86_64

You may see the information if the verification has failed.

Verify all the installed RPM packages

To verify all the installed RPM packages, you can use the following command:

$sudo RPM –Va

In this article, we have discussed RPM and how to use the RPM command in Linux, along with upgrading, removing, querying, and verifying RPM packages. There are several flags we can use with RPM, such as:

–e for erase.
-h for hash.
-i for install.
-l for list.
-q for query.
-s for state.
-U for upgrade.
-v for verbose.
–V for verify. 

We have briefly discussed some of these options. For more details, you can refer to the manual.

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