This is designed to be a companion to the AptHelp page for DebianLinux users. I am not very familiar with RedhatLinux and so I will document my experiences here as I learn the commands needed to make Redhat behave. :-)

I'm a newbie to Redhat and I'm writing this as I go, so if you see any mistakes or can see something that should be added, please do.

See also: RedhatLinux, UsingApt, UsingDpkg

Contents

Contents

  1. Contents
  2. Files and Directories
  3. Using The rpm Command
    1. Basics
    2. Advanced
  4. Building RPM's
    1. Rebuilding Source RPM's
    2. Building RPM's As Non Root
  5. Useful URLs
  6. Thanks To

Files and Directories

Using The rpm Command

Basics

rpm -q redhat-release
Tells you what version of Redhat you have installed.
rpm -i <package file>
Installs the package
rpm -e <package name>
Removes all the files associated with the package. It will only remove empty directories (so if you have config files in a directory that is associated with the package it will not remove them).
rpm -qa
Lists all of the packages installed on the system.
rpm -qi <package name>
Searches the installed packages list and displays the version and and description of the package installed (assuming it is installed).
rpm -ql <package name>
Lists the contents of an installed package.
rpm -F <package file>

Freshens the package. In other words, it upgrades the package ONLY if it's already installed with a lower versions. This is useful for rpm -F /path/to/updates/*rpm

rpm -U <package file>

Upgrade the package if it's already installed or not. The -U and -F flags can be confusing. Only use -U when you know you want the file installed.

rpm -qpi <package file>

Displays the description of a package file (eg. python-1.5.2-27.rpm). Good way of checking out a package before you install it. It can also take URLs instead of local file pointers (eg. rpm -qpi http://www.domain.com/download/python-1.5.2-27.rpm).

rpm -qpl <package file>
List the contents of a package file.
rpm -qpli <package file>
List the contents and description of a package file.

Advanced

APT clones for RedhatLinux

I haven't used this yet but it claims to be an apt clone for rpm. You can find it here.

  • Having now investigated this I'm not all that impressed. I gave up after a couple hours of waiting for "rpm-get update" to complete. It looks like it requires that it actually downloads each package which is a potential installation candidate to parse the depends information. Yukky. -- AdamShand

rpmwhich

A simple BashShell function which tells you which package a file belongs to (equivelent of "dpkg -S <filename>"). 

rpmwhich () { 
    for f in $*;
    do
        ff=$(which $f 2>/dev/null);
        if [ -n "$ff" ]; then
            printf "%s: " $ff;
            rpm -qf $ff;
        else
            printf "'%s' not found!\n" $f;
        fi;
    done
}

Building RPM's

Rebuilding Source RPM's

Sometimes you want to customize a Redhat RPM to tweak the config files or such. This is a step by step example for rebuilding the package for AutoMount version 4 (which still isn't included by default in RedhatLinux <grr>). RPM's are typically distributed as source RPM as well as a binary RPM to make such changes easier. Here are the steps to build the autofs4 source RPM (it must be done on a Redhat box):

Install the source RPM:

Go to the installed sources:

Now untar the source tarball to somewhere and make whatever changes you need to:

Now make whatever tweaks you want to the sources:

Tar your changes back up and replace the original tarball with the one you've created.

Now build the new binary RPM package:

Install the new binary RPM:

And you're done. If you have any problems with the build carefully read the error messages and it's possible you may need to make a change to the autofs.spec file.

Building RPM's As Non Root

Stolen from the CourierImap FAQ.

First you need to create a mirror image of the main /usr/src/redhat directories in your home directory:

Use sparc, or alpha, or whatever's appropriate. Finally:

That's it, now you can build your RPM's without being root:

Useful URLs

Thanks To

CategorySoftware CategoryUnix

UsingRpm (last edited 2005-03-16 19:11:41 by AdamShand)