Linux yum command man page

This page shows the contents of the Linux yum command man page. This yum command output was created on a CentOS Linux system.

You can see this same yum command man page output by entering this command on your own Linux system:

man yum

Linux yum command man page

yum(8)									yum(8)


NAME
       yum - Yellowdog Updater Modified

SYNOPSIS
       yum [options] [command] [package ...]

DESCRIPTION
       yum is an interactive, rpm based, package manager. It can automatically
       perform system updates, including dependancy analysis and obsolete pro-
       cessing	based  on "repository" metadata. It can also perform installa-
       tion of new packages, removal of old packages and  perform  queries  on
       the  installed and/or available packages among many other commands/ser-
       vices (see below). yum is similar to other high level package  managers
       like apt-get and smart.

       While  there  are  some	graphical interfaces directly to the yum code,
       more recent graphical interface development  is	happening  with	 Pack-
       ageKit and the gnome-packagekit application.

       command is one of:
	* install package1 [package2] [...]
	* update [package1] [package2] [...]
	* check-update
	* upgrade [package1] [package2] [...]
	* remove | erase package1 [package2] [...]
	* list [...]
	* info [...]
	* provides | whatprovides feature1 [feature2] [...]
	* clean [ packages | headers | metadata | dbcache | all ]
	* makecache
	* groupinstall group1 [group2] [...]
	* groupupdate group1 [group2] [...]
	* grouplist [hidden]
	* groupremove group1 [group2] [...]
	* groupinfo group1 [...]
	* search string1 [string2] [...]
	* shell [filename]
	* resolvedep dep1 [dep2] [...]
	* localinstall rpmfile1 [rpmfile2] [...]
	* localupdate rpmfile1 [rpmfile2] [...]
	* deplist package1 [package2] [...]
	* repolist [all|enabled|disabled]
	* help [command]

       Unless the --help or -h option is given, one of the above commands must
       be present.

       Repository configuration is honored in all operations.


       install
	      Is used to install the latest version of a package or  group  of
	      packages while ensuring that all dependencies are satisfied.  If
	      no package matches the given package name(s), they  are  assumed
	      to be a shell glob and any matches are then installed.


       update If  run without any packages, update will update every currently
	      installed package.  If one or more packages are  specified,  Yum
	      will  only update the listed packages.  While updating packages,
	      yum will ensure that all	dependencies  are  satisfied.	If  no
	      package  matches	the given package name(s), they are assumed to
	      be a shell glob and any matches are then installed.

	      If the --obsoletes flag is  present  yum	will  include  package
	      obsoletes	 in  its  calculations - this makes it better for dis-
	      tro-version changes, for example: upgrading from	somelinux  8.0
	      to somelinux 9.


       check-update
	      Implemented  so  you  could know if your machine had any updates
	      that needed to be	 applied  without  running  it	interactively.
	      Returns exit value of 100 if there are packages available for an
	      update. Also returns a list of the pkgs to be  updated  in  list
	      format.  Returns	0  if  no  packages  are available for update.
	      Returns 1 if an error occured.


       upgrade
	      Is the same as the update command with the --obsoletes flag set.
	      See update for more details.


       remove or erase
	      Are  used	 to  remove  the specified packages from the system as
	      well as removing any packages which depend on the package	 being
	      removed.


       list   Is  used	to  list various information about available packages;
	      more complete details are available in the List Options  section
	      below.


       provides or whatprovides
	      Is used to find out which package provides some feature or file.
	      Just use a specific name or a file-glob-syntax wildcards to list
	      the packages available or installed that provide that feature or
	      file.


       search Is used to find any packages matching a string in	 the  descrip-
	      tion,  summary  and  package  name  fields of an rpm. Useful for
	      finding a package you do not know by name but know by some  word
	      related to it.


       info   Is  used	to  list  a  description and summary information about
	      available packages; takes the same  arguments  as	 in  the  List
	      Options section below.


       clean  Is  used	to clean up various things which accumulate in the yum
	      cache directory over time.  More complete details can  be	 found
	      in the Clean Options section below.


       makecache
	      Is  used	to  download  and make usable all the metadata for the
	      currently enabled yum repos.


       groupinstall
	      Is used to install all of the individual packages in a group, of
	      the  specified types (this works as if you’d taken each of those
	      package names and put them  on  the  command  line  for  a  "yum
	      install" command).
	       The  group_package_types	 configuration	option specifies which
	      types will be installed.


       groupupdate
	      Is just an alias for groupinstall, which will do the right thing
	      because  "yum  install  X" and "yum update X" do the same thing,
	      when X is already installed.


       grouplist
	      Is used to list the available groups from all yum repos.	Groups
	      are   marked  as	"installed"  if	 all  mandatory	 packages  are
	      installed, or if a group doesn’t	have  any  mandatory  packages
	      then  it	is installed if any of the optional or default package
	      are installed.  The optional "hidden" argument  will  also  list
	      groups marked as not being "user visible".


       groupremove
	      Is  used	to  remove  all	 of  the  pacakges  in a group, unlike
	      "groupinstall"  this  will  remove  everything   regardless   of
	      group_package_types.  It is worth pointing out that packages can
	      be in more than one group, so "groupinstall  X  Y"  followed  by
	      "groupremove  Y"	does  not  do  give  you  the  same  result as
	      "groupinstall X".


       groupinfo
	      Is used to give the description and package list of a group (and
	      which  type those packages are marked as). Note that you can use
	      the yum-filter-data and yum-list-data  plugins  to  get/use  the
	      data  the	 other	way  around (Ie. what groups own packages need
	      updating).


       shell  Is used to enter the ’yum shell’, when a filename	 is  specified
	      the  contents  of	 that  file is executed in yum shell mode. See
	      yum-shell(8) for more info


       resolvedep
	      Is used to list packages providing the  specified	 dependencies,
	      at most one package is listed per dependency.


       localinstall
	      Is  used	to  install  a set of local rpm files. If required the
	      enabled repositories will be used to resolve dependencies.


       localupdate
	      Is used to update the system by specifying local rpm files. Only
	      the  specified  rpm  files  of which an older version is already
	      installed will be installed, the	remaining  specified  packages
	      will  be	ignored.  If required the enabled repositories will be
	      used to resolve dependencies.


       deplist
	      Produces a list of all dependencies and  what  packages  provide
	      those dependencies for the given packages.


       repolist
	      Produces	a  list	 of configured repositories. The default is to
	      list all enabled repositories.


       help   Produces help, either for all commands or	 if  given  a  command
	      name then the help for that particular command.


GENERAL OPTIONS
       Most  command  line  options can be set using the configuration file as
       well and the descriptions indicate the necessary	 configuration	option
       to set.


       -h, --help
	      Help; display a help message and then quit.

       -y     Assume  yes;  assume that the answer to any question which would
	      be asked is yes.
	      Configuration Option: assumeyes

       -c [config file]
	      Specifies the config file location - can take http, ftp urls and
	      local file paths.

       -q, --quiet
	      Run without output.  Note that you likely also want to use -y.

       -v, --verbose
	      Run with a lot of debugging output.

       -d [number]
	      Sets  the	 debugging  level  to  [number] - turns up or down the
	      amount of things that are printed. Practical range: 0 - 10
	      Configuration Option: debuglevel

       -e [number]
	      Sets the error level to [number] Practical range 0 - 10. 0 means
	      print only critical errors about which you must be told. 1 means
	      print all errors, even ones that are not	overly	important.  1+
	      means print more errors (if any) -e 0 is good for cron jobs.
	      Configuration Option: errorlevel

       -R [time in minutes]
	      Sets  the maximum amount of time yum will wait before performing
	      a command - it randomizes over the time.

       -C     Tells yum to run entirely from cache  -  does  not  download  or
	      update  any  headers  unless  it has to to perform the requested
	      action.

       --version
	      Reports the yum version number and exits.

       --showduplicates
	      Doesn’t limit packages to their latest  versions	in  the	 info,
	      list and search commands (will also affect plugins which use the
	      doPackageLists() API).

       --installroot=root
	      Specifies an alternative	installroot,  relative	to  which  all
	      packages will be installed.
	      Configuration Option: installroot

       --enablerepo=repoidglob
	      Enables  specific repositories by id or glob that have been dis-
	      abled in the configuration file using the enabled=0 option.
	      Configuration Option: enabled

       --disablerepo=repoidglob
	      Disables specific repositories by id or glob.
	      Configuration Option: enabled

       --obsoletes
	      This option only has affect for  an  update,  it	enables	 yum´s
	      obsoletes	 processing logic. For more information see the update
	      command above.
	      Configuration Option: obsoletes

       -x, --exclude=package
	      Exclude a specific package by name or glob from updates  on  all
	      repositories.  Configuration Option: exclude

       --disableexcludes=[all|main|repoid]
	      Disable  the excludes defined in your config files. Takes one of
	      three options:
	      all == disable all excludes
	      main == disable excludes defined in [main] in yum.conf
	      repoid == disable excludes defined for that repo

       --disableplugin=plugin
	      Run with one or more plugins disabled, the argument is  a	 comma
	      seperated list of wildcards to match against plugin names.

       --noplugins
	      Run with all plugins disabled.
	      Configuration Option: plugins

       --nogpgcheck
	      Run with gpg signature checking disabled.
	      Configuration Option: gpgcheck

       --skip-broken
	      Resolve  depsolve problems by removing packages that are causing
	      problems from the transaction.
	      Configuration Option: skip_broken


       -t, --tolerant
	      This option currently does nothing.

LIST OPTIONS
       The following are the ways which you can invoke yum in list mode.  Note
       that  all list commands include information on the version of the pack-
       age.


       yum list [all | glob_exp1] [glob_exp2] [...]
	      List all available and installed packages.

       yum list available [glob_exp1] [...]
	      List all packages	 in  the  yum  repositories  available	to  be
	      installed.


       yum list updates [glob_exp1] [...]
	      List  all	 packages  with updates available in the yum reposito-
	      ries.


       yum list installed [glob_exp1] [...]
	      List the packages specified by args.  If an  argument  does  not
	      match  the  name	of an available package, it is assumed to be a
	      shell-style glob and any matches are printed.


       yum list extras [glob_exp1] [...]
	      List the packages installed on the system that are not available
	      in any yum repository listed in the config file.


       yum list obsoletes [glob_exp1] [...]
	      List  the packages installed on the system that are obsoleted by
	      packages in any yum repository listed in the config file.


       yum list recent
	      List packages recently added into the repositories.


       Specifying package names
	      All the list options mentioned above take file-glob-syntax wild-
	      cards or package names as arguments, for example yum list avail-
	      able ’foo*’ will list all available packages that match  ’foo*’.
	      (The  single  quotes  will  keep	your  shell from expanding the
	      globs.)


CLEAN OPTIONS
       The following are the ways which you can invoke yum in clean mode. Note
       that  "all  files"  in the commands below means "all files in currently
       enabled repositories".  If you want to  also  clean  any	 (temporarily)
       disabled repositories you need to use --enablerepo=’*’ option.


       yum clean packages
	      Eliminate	 any cached packages from the system.  Note that pack-
	      ages are not automatically deleted after they are downloaded.


       yum clean headers
	      Eliminate all of the header files which yum uses for  dependency
	      resolution.


       yum clean metadata
	      Eliminate	 all  of  the  files  which  yum uses to determine the
	      remote availability of packages. Using this  option  will	 force
	      yum to download all the metadata the next time it is run.


       yum clean dbcache
	      Eliminate	 the  sqlite cache used for faster access to metadata.
	      Using this option will force yum to recreate the cache the  next
	      time it is run.


       yum clean all
	      Runs  yum	 clean packages and yum clean headers, yum clean meta-
	      data and yum clean dbcache as above.


MISC
       Specifying package names
	      A package can be referred to for install,update,list,remove  etc
	      with any of the following:

	      name
	      name.arch
	      name-ver
	      name-ver-rel
	      name-ver-rel.arch
	      name-epoch:ver-rel.arch
	      epoch:name-ver-rel.arch

	      For example: yum remove kernel-2.4.1-10.i686


PLUGINS
       Yum  can	 be  extended through the use of plugins. A plugin is a Python
       ".py" file which is installed in one of the  directories	 specified  by
       the  pluginpath option in yum.conf. For a plugin to work, the following
       conditions must be met:

       1. The plugin module file must be installed in the plugin path as  just
       described.

       2. The global plugins option in /etc/yum/yum.conf must be set to ‘1’.

       3.  A  configuration file for the plugin must exist in /etc/yum/plugin-
       conf.d/<plugin_name>.conf and the enabled setting in this file must set
       to ‘1’. The minimal content for such a configuration file is:

	      [main]
	      enabled = 1

       See  the	 yum.conf(5)  man  page for more information on plugin related
       configuration options.


FILES
       /etc/yum.conf
       /etc/yum.repos.d/
       /etc/yum/pluginconf.d/
       /var/cache/yum/


SEE ALSO
       pkcon (1)
       yum.conf (5)
       yum-updatesd (8)
       package-cleanup (1)
       repoquery (1)
       yum-complete-transaction (1)
       yumdownloader (1)
       yum-utils (1)
       http://linux.duke.edu/yum/
       http://wiki.linux.duke.edu/YumFaq
       yum search yum


Seth Vidal								yum(8)

This yum command man page is included here so we can reference it directly from other yum command tutorials.