Page 306
The version mode, invoked as
rpm --version
prints out a line containing version information, similar to this:
RPM version 2.3.11
The help mode out an extensive help message and is invoked as follows:
rpm --help
Because the message is long, it is handy to have a large xterm or to pipe the output to more. To get a shorter help message, just type
rpm
This prints out a usage message. The showrc mode
rpm --showrc
prints out a list of variables that can be set in the files /etc/rpmrc and $HOME/.rpmrc. The default values are adequate for most installations.
The rebuilddb option is used to rebuild the database that RPM uses to keep track of which packages are installed on a system. It is invoked as follows:
rpm --rebuilddb
The database files are usually stored in /var/lib/rpm/. In most cases the database files do not need to be rebuilt very often.
One of the major uses of RPM is to install software packages. The general syntax of an rpm install command is
rpm -i [options] [packages]
where options can be one of the common options given earlier or one of the install options covered in the following list, and packages is the name of one or more RPM package files. Some of the install options are as follows:
| -v | Prints out what RPM is doing. |
| -h or --hash | Prints out 50 hash marks (#) as the package is installed. |
| --percent | Prints out percentages as files are extracted from the package. |
| --test | Goes through a package install, but does not install anything; mainly used to catch conflicts. |
Page 307
| --excludedocs | Prevents the installation of files marked as documentation, such as man pages. |
| --includedocs | Forces files marked as documentation to be installed; this is the default. |
| --nodeps | No dependency checks are performed before installing a package. |
| --replacefiles | Allows for installed files to be replaced with files from the package being installed. |
| --replacepkgs | Allows for installed packages to be replaced with the packages being installed. |
| --oldpackage | Allows for a newer version of an installed package to be replaced with an older version. |
| --force | Forces a package to be installed. |
When giving options to RPM, regardless of the mode, all the single-letter options can be lumped together in one block. For example, the command
rpm -i -v -h kernel-2.0.30-3.i386.rpm
is equivalent to
rpm -ivh kernel-2.0.30-3.i386.rpm
All options starting with -- must be given separately, however.
Now let's look at a couple of examples of installing RPM packages. The first example installs vim (the improved version of vi) from the package:
vim-4.5-2.i386.rpm
This package follows the standard naming convention for RPM packages, which is
name-version-release.arch.rpm
where name is the package's name, version is the package's version, release is the package's release level, arch is the hardware architecture the package is for, and rpm is the default extension. This naming scheme is quite handy because some of the essential information about a particular package can be determined from just looking at its name.
For the vim package, say you are installing vim version 4.5, release 2 for a computer with
the i386 architecture. Let's go ahead and install this package. With the Red Hat CD-ROM on
/mnt/cdrom, the package you want is
/mnt/cdrom/RedHat/RPMS/vim-4.5-2.i386.rpm
First, cd into the appropriate directory; then to install it type the following at the prompt (#):
Page 308
# rpm -ivh vim-4.5-2.i386.rpm
As the package is installed, the output will look like the following:
vim ################
When the install is finished, 50 hash marks will be displayed.
In this example I used the hash character (#) to indicate the root prompt because only root can properly install packages for an entire system. If you try to install this package as a user other than root, an error similar to the following will be generated:
failed to open //var/lib/rpm/packages.rpm error: cannot open //var/lib/rpm/packages.rpm
Now to install the X11 version of vim from the package:
/mnt/cdrom/RedHat/RPMS/vim-X11-4.2-8.i386.rpm
If you try using
rpm -ivh vim-X11-4.2-8.i386.rpm
you will get the following error:
package vim-X11-4.2-8 is already installed error: vim-X11-4.2-8.i386.rpm cannot be installed
To install this package, use the --replacepkgs option:
rpm -ivh --replacepkgs vim-X11-4.5-2.i386.rpm
Occasionally, the files that one package installs conflicts with the files of a previously installed package. If you had vim version 4.2 installed, the following message would have been generated:
/bin/vim conflicts with file from vim-4.2-8 /usr/share/vim/vim_tips.txt conflicts with file from vim-4.2-8 error: vim-4.5-2.i386.rpm cannot be installed
If you wanted to install these files anyway, the --replacefiles option could be added to the command.
Another type of conflict that is sometimes encountered is a dependency conflict. This happens when a package that is being installed requires certain other packages to function correctly. For example, when I try to install the package
# rpm -ivh dosemu-0.66.2-1.i386.rpm
I get the following dependency errors:
failed dependencies: kernel >= 2.0.28 is needed by dosemu-0.66.2-1 dosemu = 0.64.1 is needed by xdosemu-0.64.1-1