2. Software Management Concepts

2.1. About Packages

CentOS software and documentation is supplied in the form of files called RPM packages. Each package is a compressed archive containing product information, program files, icons, documentation and management scripts. Management applications use these files to safely locate, install, update and remove software. For example, the CentOS installation process uses the packages supplied with CentOS to build or upgrade a system to your requirements.

Packages also include a digital signature to prove their source. Software management utilities verify this digital signature by using a GPG public key. The yum and rpm utilities share a common keyring that stores all of the public keys for approved package sources. The system administrator configures these approved package sources.

2.2. About Repositories

A repository is a prepared directory or web site that contains software packages and index files. Software management utilities such as yum automatically locate and obtain the correct RPM packages from these repositories. This method frees you from having to manually find and install new applications or updates. You may use a single command to update all system software, or search for new software by specifying criteria.

The package management utilities in CentOS are already configured to use a network of servers that provide several repositories:

  • [base] (AKA [os]) - The packages that make up CentOS, as it is released on the ISOs. It is enabled by default.

  • [updates] - Updated packages to [base] released after the CentOS ISOs. This will be Security, BugFix, or Enhancements to the [base] software. It is enabled by default.

  • [addons] - Contains packages required in order to build the main Distribution or packages produced by SRPMS built in the main Distribution, but not included in the main Redhat package tree (mysql-server in CentOS-3.x falls into this category). Packages contained in the addons repository should be considered essentially a part of the core distribution, but may not be in the upstream Package tree. It is enabled by default.

  • [contrib] - Packages contributed by the CentOS Users, which do not overlap with any of the core Distribution packages. These packages have not been tested by the CentOS developers, and may not track upstream version releases very closely. It is disabled by default.

  • [centosplus] - Packages contributed by CentOS Developers and the Users. These packages might replace rpm's included in the core Distribution. You should understand the implications of enabling and using packages from this repository. It is diabled by default

  • [csgfs] - Packages that make up the Cluster Suite and Global File System. It is disabled by default.

  • [extras] - Packages built and maintained by the CentOS developers that add functionality to the core distribution. These packages have undergone some basic testing, should track upstream release versions fairly closely and will never replace any core distribution package. It is enabled by default.

  • [testing] - Packages that are being tested proir to release, you should not use this repository except for a specific reason. It is disabled by default.

[Note]All CentOS Packages are Open Source Software

All of the software provided by the CentOS Project is open source software. You may download and install software from the CentOS Project network of repositories on as many systems as desired.

Third-party software developers also provide repositories for their CentOS compatible packages. To learn how to configure your CentOS system to use third-party repositories, read Section 7, “Using Other Software Repositories”.

You may also use the package groups provided by the CentOS repositories to manage related packages as sets. Some third-party repositories add packages to these groups, or provide their packages as additional groups.

[Note]Available Package Groups

To view a list of all of the available package groups for your CentOS system, run the command su -c 'yum grouplist'.

Use repositories to ensure that you always receive current versions of software. If several versions of the same package are available, your management utility automatically selects the latest version.

[Caution]Installing Software not from a Repository

Install software using manual methods only when you are confident there is no repository which can currently provide it. You may have to manage that software with manual methods, instead of with CentOS software management utilities.

The yum commands shown in this document use repositories as package sources. Refer to Section 9, “Manually Installing Software” for details of using yum to install software from a package file.

2.3. About Dependencies

Some of the files installed on a CentOS distribution are libraries which may provide functions to multiple applications. When an application requires a specific library, the package which contains that library is a dependency. To properly install a package, CentOS must first satisfy its dependencies. The dependency information for a RPM package is stored within the RPM file.

The yum utility uses package dependency data to ensure that all of requirements for an application are met during installation. It automatically installs the packages for any dependencies not already present on your system. If a new application has requirements that conflict with existing software, yum aborts without making any changes to your system.

2.4. Understanding Package Names

Each package file has a long name that indicates several key pieces of information. This is the full name of the tsclient package supplied with CentOS:

tsclient-0.132-4.i386.rpm

Management utilities commonly refer to packages with one of three formats:

  • Package name: tsclient

  • Package name with version and release numbers: tsclient-0.132-4

  • Package name with hardware architecture: tsclient.i386

For clarity, yum lists packages in the format name.architecture. Repositories also commonly store packages in separate directories by architecture. In each case, the hardware architecture specified for the package is the minimum type of machine required to use the package.

i386

Suitable for any current Intel®-compatible computer

noarch

Compatible with all computer architectures

ppc

Suitable for PowerPC systems, such as Apple® Power Macintosh or IBM® PowerPC

ia64

Suitable for Intel® Itanium2 processors.

s390 or s390x

Suitable for IBM® S390 or S390x Processors.

alpha

Suitable for DEC® alpha Processors (now owned by Hewlitt Packard®).

sparc

Suitable for Sun Microsystems® sparc Processors.

x86_64

Suitable for 64-bit Intel-compatible processors, such as AMD® Opteron or Intel® Xeon Processors

Some software may be optimized for particular types of Intel-compatible machine. Separate packages may be provided for i386, i586, i686 and x86_64 computers. A machine with at least an Intel® Pentium, VIA® C3 or compatible CPU may use i586 packages. Computers with an Intel® Pentium Pro® and above, or a current model of AMD® chip, may use i686 packages.

Use the short name of the package for yum commands. This causes yum to automatically select the most recent package in the repositories that matches the hardware architecture of your computer.

Specify a package with other name formats to override the default behavior and force yum to use the package that matches that version or architecture. Only override yum when you know that the default package selection has a bug or other fault that makes it unsuitable for installation.

[Tip]Package Names

You may use any of the following formats to specify a package in a yum operation: name, name.architecture, name-version, name-version-release, name-version-release.architecture, and epoch:name-version-release.architecture.