Package Management (yum vs apt):¶

Redhat and Ubuntu OS families have different package management tools like yum and apt. As an Administrator, we need to have the commands ready for any package mgmt related work for both the OS families. We have outlined few commands which comes handy in such scenarios.

General Packaging System Information¶

	Redhat Family(yum)	Ubuntu(apt)
Package file extension	*.rpm	*.deb
Repository location configuration	/etc/yum.conf OR /etc/yum.repos.d/	/etc/apt/sources.list

Adding, Removing and Upgrading Package¶

Task	Redhat Family(yum)	Ubuntu(apt)
Refresh list of available packages	Yum refreshes each time it's used	apt-get update
Install a package from a repository	yum install package_name	apt-get install package_name
Install a package file	yum install package.rpm OR rpm -i package.rpm	dpkg --install package.deb
Remove a package	rpm -e package_name	apt-get remove package_name
Remove a package with configuration files	yum remove package_name	apt-get purge package_name
Check for package upgrades	yum check-update	apt-get -s upgrade OR apt-get -s dist-upgrade
Upgrade packages	yum update OR rpm -Uvh [args]	apt-get upgrade
Upgrade the entire system	yum upgrade	apt-get dist-upgrade

Package Information¶

Task	Redhat Family(yum)	Ubuntu(apt)
Get information about an available package	yum search package_name	apt-cache search package_name
Show available packages	yum list available	apt-cache dumpavail
List all installed packages	yum list installed OR rpm -qa	dpkg --list
Get information about a package	yum info package_name	apt-cache show package_name
Get information about an installed package	rpm -qi package_name	dpkg --status package_name
List files in an installed package	rpm -ql package_name	dpkg --listfiles package_name
List configuration files in an installed package	rpm -qc package_name	dpkg-query --show -f '${Conffiles}\n' package_name
Show the packages a given package depends on	rpm -qR package_name	apt-cache depends
Show other packages that depend on a given package (reverse dependency)	rpm -q --whatrequires [args]	apt-cache rdepends

Misc. Packaging System Tools¶

Task	Redhat Family(yum)	Ubuntu(apt)
Show stats about the package cache	-	apt-cache stats
Verify all installed packages	rpm -Va	debsums
Remove packages from the local cache directory	yum clean package	apt-get clean
Remove only obsolete packages from the local cache directory	-	apt-get autoclean
Remove header files from the local cache directory (forcing a new download of same on next use)	yum clean headers	apt-file purge

Package File Information¶

Task	Redhat Family(yum)	Ubuntu(apt)
Get information about a package file	rpm -qpi package.rpm	dpkg --info package.deb
List files in a package file	rpm -qpl package.rpm	dpkg --contents package.deb
List documentation files in a package file	rpm -qpd package.rpm	-
List configuration files in a package file	rpm -qpc package.rpm	-
Extract files in a package	rpm2cpio package.rpm	cpio -vid
Find package that installed a file	rpm -qf filename	dpkg --search filename
Find package that provides a particular file	yum provides filename	apt-file search filename

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