1.4 Using Yum from the Command Line

The following table shows some examples of common tasks that you can perform using yum.

Command	Description
yum repolist	Lists all enabled repositories.
yum list	Lists all packages that are available in all enabled repositories and all packages that are installed on your system.
yum list installed	Lists all packages that are installed on your system.
yum list available	Lists all packages that are available to be installed in all enabled repositories.
yum search `string`	Searches the package descriptions for the specified string.
yum provides `feature`	Finds the name of the package to which the specified file or feature belongs. For example: yum provides /etc/sysconfig/atd
yum info `package`	Displays detailed information about a package. For example: yum info bind
yum install `package`	Installs the specified package, including packages on which it depends. For example: yum install ocfs2-tools
yum check-update	Checks whether updates exist for packages that are already installed on your system.
yum update `package`	Updates the specified package, including packages on which it depends. For example: yum upgrade nfs-utils
yum update	Updates all packages, including packages on which they depend.
yum remove `package`	Removes the specified package. For example: yum erase nfs-utils
yum erase `package`	Removes the specified package. This command has the same effect as the yum remove command.
yum update	Updates all packages, including packages on which they depend.
yum clean all	Removes all cached package downloads and cached headers that contain information about remote packages. Running this command can help to clear problems that can result from unfinished transactions or out-of-date headers.
yum help	Displays help about yum usage.
yum help `command`	Displays help about the specified yum command. For example: yum help upgrade
yum shell	Runs the yum interactive shell.

See the yum(8) manual page for more information.

To list the files in a package, use the repoquery utility, which is included in the yum-utils package. For example, the following command lists the files that the btrfs-progs package provides.

# repoquery -l btrfs-progs
/sbin/btrfs
/sbin/btrfs-convert
/sbin/btrfs-debug-tree
.
.
.

Note

yum makes no distinction between installing and upgrading a kernel package. yum always installs a new kernel regardless of whether you specify update or install.