Many of us using yum package manager to manage package installation, remove, update, search, etc, on RPM based system such as RHEL, CentOS, etc,.
Linux distributions gets most of its software from distribution official repositories. The official distribution repositories contain good amount of free and open source apps/software’s. It’s readily available to install and use.
RPM based distribution doesn’t offer some of the packages in their official distribution repository due to some limitation and proprietary issue. Also it won’t offer latest version of core packages due to stability.
To overcome this situation/issue, we need to install/enable the requires third party repository. There are many third party repositories are available for RPM based systems but only few of the repositories are advised to use because they didn’t replace large amount of base packages.
Suggested Read :
(#) YUM Command To Manage Packages on RHEL/CentOS Systems
(#) DNF (Fork of YUM) Command To Manage Packages on Fedora System
(#) List of Command line Package Manager & Usage
(#) A Graphical front-end tool for Linux Package Manager
This can be done on RPM based system such as RHEL, CentOS, OEL, Fedora, etc,.
- Fedora system uses “dnf config-manager [options] [section …]”
- Other RPM based system uses “yum-config-manager [options] [section …]”
How to list enabled Repositories
Just run the below command to check list of enabled repositories on your system.
For CentOS/RHEL/OLE systems
# yum repolist Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, security Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile repo id repo name status base CentOS-6 - Base 6,706 extras CentOS-6 - Extras 53 updates CentOS-6 - Updates 1,255 repolist: 8,014
For Fedora system
# dnf repolist
How to add a new Repository
Every repositories commonly provide their own .repo file. To add such a repository to your system, run the
following command as root user. In our case, we are going to add EPEL Repository and IUS Community Repo, see below.
There is no .repo files are available for these repositories. Hence, we are installing by using below methods.
For EPEL Repository, since it’s available from CentOS extra repository so, run the below command to install it.
# yum install epel-release -y
For IUS Community Repo, run the below bash script to install it.
# curl 'https://setup.ius.io/' -o setup-ius.sh # sh setup-ius.sh
If you have .repo file, simple run the following command to add a repository on RHEL/CentOS/OEL.
# yum-config-manager --add-repo http://www.example.com/example.repo Loaded plugins: product-id, refresh-packagekit, subscription-manager adding repo from: http://www.example.com/example.repo grabbing file http://www.example.com/example.repo to /etc/yum.repos.d/example.repo example.repo | 413 B 00:00 repo saved to /etc/yum.repos.d/example.repo
For Fedora system, run the below command to add a repository.
# dnf config-manager --add-repo http://www.example.com/example.repo adding repo from: http://www.example.com/example.repo
If you run yum repolist command after adding these repositories, you can able to see newly added repositories. Yes, i saw that.
Make a note: whenever you run “yum repolist” command, that automatically fetch updates from corresponding repository and save the caches in local system.
# yum repolist Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, security Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile epel/metalink | 6.1 kB 00:00 * epel: epel.mirror.constant.com * ius: ius.mirror.constant.com ius | 2.3 kB 00:00 repo id repo name status base CentOS-6 - Base 6,706 epel Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 6 - x86_64 12,505 extras CentOS-6 - Extras 53 ius IUS Community Packages for Enterprise Linux 6 - x86_64 390 updates CentOS-6 - Updates 1,255 repolist: 20,909
Each repository has multiple channels such as Testing, Dev, Archive. You can understand this better by navigating to repository files location.
# ls -lh /etc/yum.repos.d
total 64K
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.0K Apr 12 02:44 CentOS-Base.repo
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 647 Apr 12 02:44 CentOS-Debuginfo.repo
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 289 Apr 12 02:44 CentOS-fasttrack.repo
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 630 Apr 12 02:44 CentOS-Media.repo
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 916 May 18 11:07 CentOS-SCLo-scl.repo
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 892 May 18 10:36 CentOS-SCLo-scl-rh.repo
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6.2K Apr 12 02:44 CentOS-Vault.repo
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7.9K Apr 12 02:44 CentOS-Vault.repo.rpmnew
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 957 May 18 10:41 epel.repo
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.1K Nov 4 2012 epel-testing.repo
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.2K Feb 23 2017 ius-archive.repo
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.2K Feb 23 2017 ius-dev.repo
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.1K May 18 10:41 ius.repo
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.2K Feb 23 2017 ius-testing.repo
How to enable a repository in system
When you add a new repository by default it will be enabled the their stable repository that’s why we are getting the repository information when we ran “yum repolist” command. In some cases if you want to enable their Testing or Dev or Archive repo, use the following command. Also, we can enable any disabled repo using this command.
To validate this, we are going to enable epel-testing.repo by running the below command.
# yum-config-manager --enable epel-testing Loaded plugins: fastestmirror ==================================================================================== repo: epel-testing ===================================================================================== [epel-testing] bandwidth = 0 base_persistdir = /var/lib/yum/repos/x86_64/6 baseurl = cache = 0 cachedir = /var/cache/yum/x86_64/6/epel-testing cost = 1000 enabled = 1 enablegroups = True exclude = failovermethod = priority ftp_disable_epsv = False gpgcadir = /var/lib/yum/repos/x86_64/6/epel-testing/gpgcadir gpgcakey = gpgcheck = True gpgdir = /var/lib/yum/repos/x86_64/6/epel-testing/gpgdir gpgkey = file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-EPEL-6 hdrdir = /var/cache/yum/x86_64/6/epel-testing/headers http_caching = all includepkgs = keepalive = True mdpolicy = group:primary mediaid = metadata_expire = 21600 metalink = mirrorlist = https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/metalink?repo=testing-epel6&arch=x86_64 mirrorlist_expire = 86400 name = Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 6 - Testing - x86_64 old_base_cache_dir = password = persistdir = /var/lib/yum/repos/x86_64/6/epel-testing pkgdir = /var/cache/yum/x86_64/6/epel-testing/packages proxy = False proxy_dict = proxy_password = proxy_username = repo_gpgcheck = False retries = 10 skip_if_unavailable = False ssl_check_cert_permissions = True sslcacert = sslclientcert = sslclientkey = sslverify = True throttle = 0 timeout = 30.0 username =
Run the “yum repolist” command to check whether “epel-testing” is enabled or not. It’s enabled, I could able to see the repo.
# yum repolist
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, security
Determining fastest mirrors
epel/metalink | 18 kB 00:00
epel-testing/metalink | 17 kB 00:00
* epel: mirror.us.leaseweb.net
* epel-testing: mirror.us.leaseweb.net
* ius: mirror.team-cymru.com
base | 3.7 kB 00:00
centos-sclo-sclo | 2.9 kB 00:00
epel | 4.7 kB 00:00
epel/primary_db | 6.0 MB 00:00
epel-testing | 4.7 kB 00:00
epel-testing/primary_db | 368 kB 00:00
extras | 3.4 kB 00:00
ius | 2.3 kB 00:00
ius/primary_db | 216 kB 00:00
updates | 3.4 kB 00:00
updates/primary_db | 8.1 MB 00:00 ...
repo id repo name status
base CentOS-6 - Base 6,706
centos-sclo-sclo CentOS-6 - SCLo sclo 495
epel Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 6 - x86_64 12,509
epel-testing Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 6 - Testing - x86_64 809
extras CentOS-6 - Extras 53
ius IUS Community Packages for Enterprise Linux 6 - x86_64 390
updates CentOS-6 - Updates 1,288
repolist: 22,250
If you want to enable multiple repositories at once, use the below format. This command will enable epel, epel-testing, and ius repositories.
# yum-config-manager --enable epel epel-testing ius
For Fedora system, run the below command to enable a repository.
# dnf config-manager --set-enabled epel-testing
How to disable a repository in system
Whenever you add a new repository by default it enables their stable repository that’s why we are getting the repository information when we ran “yum repolist” command. If you don’t want to use the repository then disable that by running below command.
To validate this, we are going to disable epel-testing.repo & ius.repo by running below command.
# yum-config-manager --disable epel-testing ius Loaded plugins: fastestmirror ==================================================================================== repo: epel-testing ===================================================================================== [epel-testing] bandwidth = 0 base_persistdir = /var/lib/yum/repos/x86_64/6 baseurl = cache = 0 cachedir = /var/cache/yum/x86_64/6/epel-testing cost = 1000 enabled = 0 enablegroups = True exclude = failovermethod = priority ftp_disable_epsv = False gpgcadir = /var/lib/yum/repos/x86_64/6/epel-testing/gpgcadir gpgcakey = gpgcheck = True gpgdir = /var/lib/yum/repos/x86_64/6/epel-testing/gpgdir gpgkey = file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-EPEL-6 hdrdir = /var/cache/yum/x86_64/6/epel-testing/headers http_caching = all includepkgs = keepalive = True mdpolicy = group:primary mediaid = metadata_expire = 21600 metalink = mirrorlist = https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/metalink?repo=testing-epel6&arch=x86_64 mirrorlist_expire = 86400 name = Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 6 - Testing - x86_64 old_base_cache_dir = password = persistdir = /var/lib/yum/repos/x86_64/6/epel-testing pkgdir = /var/cache/yum/x86_64/6/epel-testing/packages proxy = False proxy_dict = proxy_password = proxy_username = repo_gpgcheck = False retries = 10 skip_if_unavailable = False ssl_check_cert_permissions = True sslcacert = sslclientcert = sslclientkey = sslverify = True throttle = 0 timeout = 30.0 username = ========================================================================================= repo: ius ========================================================================================= [ius] bandwidth = 0 base_persistdir = /var/lib/yum/repos/x86_64/6 baseurl = cache = 0 cachedir = /var/cache/yum/x86_64/6/ius cost = 1000 enabled = 0 enablegroups = True exclude = failovermethod = priority ftp_disable_epsv = False gpgcadir = /var/lib/yum/repos/x86_64/6/ius/gpgcadir gpgcakey = gpgcheck = True gpgdir = /var/lib/yum/repos/x86_64/6/ius/gpgdir gpgkey = file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/IUS-COMMUNITY-GPG-KEY hdrdir = /var/cache/yum/x86_64/6/ius/headers http_caching = all includepkgs = keepalive = True mdpolicy = group:primary mediaid = metadata_expire = 21600 metalink = mirrorlist = https://mirrors.iuscommunity.org/mirrorlist?repo=ius-centos6&arch=x86_64&protocol=http mirrorlist_expire = 86400 name = IUS Community Packages for Enterprise Linux 6 - x86_64 old_base_cache_dir = password = persistdir = /var/lib/yum/repos/x86_64/6/ius pkgdir = /var/cache/yum/x86_64/6/ius/packages proxy = False proxy_dict = proxy_password = proxy_username = repo_gpgcheck = False retries = 10 skip_if_unavailable = False ssl_check_cert_permissions = True sslcacert = sslclientcert = sslclientkey = sslverify = True throttle = 0 timeout = 30.0 username =
Run the “yum repolist” command to check whether “epel-testing” & “ius” repositories are disabled or not. It’s disabled, I’m not able to see those repo in the below list except “epel”.
# yum repolist
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, security
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
* epel: mirror.us.leaseweb.net
repo id repo name status
base CentOS-6 - Base 6,706
centos-sclo-sclo CentOS-6 - SCLo sclo 495
epel Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 6 - x86_64 12,505
extras CentOS-6 - Extras 53
updates CentOS-6 - Updates 1,288
repolist: 21,051
Alternatively, we can run the following command to see the details.
# yum repolist all | grep "epel*\|ius*"
* epel: mirror.steadfast.net
epel Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 6 enabled: 12,509
epel-debuginfo Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 6 disabled
epel-source Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 6 disabled
epel-testing Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 6 disabled
epel-testing-debuginfo Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 6 disabled
epel-testing-source Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 6 disabled
ius IUS Community Packages for Enterprise disabled
ius-archive IUS Community Packages for Enterprise disabled
ius-archive-debuginfo IUS Community Packages for Enterprise disabled
ius-archive-source IUS Community Packages for Enterprise disabled
ius-debuginfo IUS Community Packages for Enterprise disabled
ius-dev IUS Community Packages for Enterprise disabled
ius-dev-debuginfo IUS Community Packages for Enterprise disabled
ius-dev-source IUS Community Packages for Enterprise disabled
ius-source IUS Community Packages for Enterprise disabled
ius-testing IUS Community Packages for Enterprise disabled
ius-testing-debuginfo IUS Community Packages for Enterprise disabled
ius-testing-source IUS Community Packages for Enterprise disabled
For Fedora system, run the below command to enable a repository.
# dnf config-manager --set-disabled epel-testing
Alternatively this can be done by editing the appropriate repo file manually. To do, open the corresponding repo file and change the value from enabled=0
to enabled=1 (To enable the repo) or from enabled=1 to enabled=0 (To disable the repo).
From:
[epel]
name=Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 6 - $basearch
#baseurl=http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/$basearch
mirrorlist=https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/metalink?repo=epel-6&arch=$basearch
failovermethod=priority
enabled=0
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-EPEL-6
To:
[epel]
name=Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 6 - $basearch
#baseurl=http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/$basearch
mirrorlist=https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/metalink?repo=epel-6&arch=$basearch
failovermethod=priority
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-EPEL-6
