Managing Software with yum

Modified Document Copyright © 2005 CentOS.org


1. Introduction

1.1. Purpose

This document presents basic concepts of software management on CentOS systems. It outlines the major functions of yum, the recommended software management tool for CentOS.

1.2. Audience

This document is intended for CentOS users of all levels of experience.

1.3. Using This Document

This document is a reference for using yum. You may wish to read some or all of the sections, depending upon your needs and level of experience. If you are a new user, read the Section 2, “Software Management Concepts” before using yum for the first time. Experienced Linux users should start with Section 4, “Managing Software with yum.

[Note]Previous Versions of CentOS

This document describes the configuration of yum on CentOS 4 systems. You must perform the additional step noted in Section 7.2, “Manually Authorizing Package Sources” to enable yum on CentOS 3.

Most of the examples in this document use the package tsclient, which is included with CentOS. The tsclient package provides an application for remote desktop access. If you install it successfully you may start the application by choosing Applications->Internet->Terminal Server Client. To use the examples, substitute the name of the relevant package for tsclient. The example commands for CentOS package groups use the MySQL Database group.

[Important]Avoid Logging in with the Root Account

You do not need to log in with the root account in order to manage your CentOS system. All of the commands shown in this tutorial that require root access will prompt you for the root password. The example terminal commands use su -c to provide this facility.

1.4. Additional Resources

The yum utility has features and options not discussed in this document. Read the man pages for yum(8) and yum.conf(5) to learn more, using the following commands:

man yum
man yum.conf

Other useful yum resources on the Internet include: