How to install or upgrade an RPM package?

Environment

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Issue

• How to install or upgrade an RPM package ?
• How to upgrade rpm package ?

Resolution

NOTE: Using yum command should be better than rpm command after Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, since it can update local yum database properly.
In order to install an RPM package you must first have the RPM package you are trying to install on your system. Many people will download RPM packages from a website and of course, Customer Portal provides all the RPM packages included in our distributions.
There are two main options of rpm command that are used to install or upgrade RPM packages:

• -i is used to install a new package. Always use this for kernel installations and upgrades just in case.
  
• -U is used to upgrade an RPM package but will also install a package if it does not exist in the RPM database.
  

Usage and additional options can be found in the RPM man page. Type man rpm from the command line. Here is some information about the -i and -U flags:

Raw

INSTALL AND UPGRADE OPTIONS
    The general form of an rpm install command is

    rpm {-i|--install} [install-options] PACKAGE_FILE ...

    This installs a new package.

    The general form of an rpm upgrade command is

    rpm {-U|--upgrade} [install-options] PACKAGE_FILE ...

    This install the package or upgrades the package currently installed  to  a  newer
    version.   This  is the same as install, except all other version(s) of
    the package are removed after the new package is installed.

Examples:
Note: These examples assume the packages are in a directory on your system. The below RPM commands are executed in the current working directory where the new RPM files reside.

• To install an RPM package, we use of the -i flag. As mentioned before, you use this flag when you are installing a kernel RPM. In this case, you will want to leave your old kernel in place, at least temporarily, in case the new kernel does not boot. In this example, we first check to see the names of the new RPM packages with the ls command. Then we query the RPM database to see which kernel packages are already installed. You do not need to include the version number in the query, but the usage is: rpm -q <package name>. We can install the RPM package with the following command: rpm -ivh <package name>. Note the -v option will show verbose output and the -h will show the hash marks, which represents action of the progress of the RPM upgrade. Lastly, we run another RPM query to verify the package will be available.

Raw

# ls
kernel-2.4.21-15.0.3.EL.i686.rpm
kernel-smp-2.4.21-15.0.3.EL.i686.rpm
# rpm -q kernel; rpm -q kernel-smp
kernel-2.4.21-4.0.1.EL
kernel-2.4.21-15.0.2.EL
kernel-smp-2.4.21-4.0.1.EL
kernel-smp-2.4.21-15.0.2.EL
# rpm -ivh kernel-2.4.21-15.0.3.EL.i686.rpm
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:kernel                 ########################################### [100%]
# rpm -ivh kernel-smp-2.4.21-15.0.3.EL.i686.rpm
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:kernel-smp             ########################################### [100%]
# rpm -q kernel; rpm -q kernel-smp
kernel-2.4.21-4.0.1.EL
kernel-2.4.21-15.0.2.EL
kernel-2.4.21-15.0.3.EL
kernel-smp-2.4.21-4.0.1.EL
kernel-smp-2.4.21-15.0.2.EL
kernel-smp-2.4.21-15.0.3.EL

• To upgrade an RPM package, we use of the -U flag. In this example, we verify the new package name with the ls command. Then we will run an RPM query to see if the package we want to install exists in the RPM database, rpm -q <package name>. Next, we execute the RPM installation with the following command: rpm -Uvh <package name>. Note the -v option will show verbose output and the -h will show the hash marks, which represents action of the progress of the RPM upgrade. Lastly, we run another RPM query to verify the package will be available.

Raw

# ls
httpd-2.0.46-32.ent.3.i386.rpm
mod_ssl-2.0.46-32.ent.3.i386.rpm
# rpm -q httpd; rpm -q mod_ssl
httpd-2.0.46-32.ent
mod_ssl-2.0.46-32.ent
# rpm -Uvh httpd-2.0.46-32.ent.3.i386.rpm mod_ssl-2.0.46-32.ent.3.i386.rpm
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:httpd                  ########################################### [ 50%]
   2:mod_ssl                ########################################### [100%]
# rpm -q httpd; rpm -q mod_ssl
httpd-2.0.46-32.ent.3
mod_ssl-2.0.46-32.ent.3

Note: The httpd and mod_ssl needed to be installed at the same time because of dependency issues. If you try to install one without the other, you would get an error similar to the following:

Raw

# rpm -Uvh httpd-2.0.46-32.ent.3.i386.rpm
error: Failed dependencies:
        httpd = 2.0.46-32.ent is needed by (installed) mod_ssl-2.0.46-32.ent

Note: Alternatively, if you have registered your machine via Customer Portal, you may refer How do I apply package updates from the Red Hat Network? to install/update packages.
Note: Red Hat Network (RHN) was integrated into Customer Portal, Welcome to the New
Red Hat Network!
Upgrades in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
Currently it is possible to find only errata updates for RHEL 4. The packages can be downloaded and installed manually but it is not possible to use the command up2date. Also, the downloads work only for the RHEL 4.9 version. Other updates than errata are not available as we are approaching the the RHEL 4 end of life.
For more information on the end of life of RHEL 4 follow this link:
When is the end of life (EOL) support on RHEL 4?

• Product(s)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux

• Component
• rpm
• yum

• Category
• Learn more

• Tags
• rhel_3
• rhel_4
• rhel_5
• rhel_6
• rpm
• upgrade

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