How to install and manage software on CentOS 7

First of all, connect to your CentOS VPS via SSH and check whether some of the installed packages on your system have available updates. You can do this by using the following command:

# yum check-update

The output of the command will show you the packages that have available updates and you should update them as soon as possible. You can update the packages one by one, and you can update all the packages at once using the command:

# yum update

The package manager will determine which packages need to be updated along with their dependencies and will calculate the total download size. You will be prompted to confirm the update of the packages which you can do by entering ‘y’ in the command prompt and then pressing Enter.

The yum package manager allows you to search for a package and retrieve more information about it before installing it on your system. The package manager will check the enabled repositories on your system and will search for the package in their databases. To check which repositories are enabled on your system you can run the command:

# yum repolist

To list all repositories including those which are disabled you can use the following command:

# yum repolist all

Now, to search for a package you can use the ‘yum search’ command. In our examples we will use the package named httpd. The package httpd provides the Apache HTTP Server. For example, to list all the packages that match the string httpd, you can run the following command:

# yum search httpd

The output should be similar to the one below:

# yum search httpd
=================== N/S matched: httpd ======================================
libmicrohttpd-doc.noarch : Documentation for libmicrohttpd
lighttpd-fastcgi.x86_64 : FastCGI module and spawning helper for lighttpd and PHP configuration
lighttpd-mod_geoip.x86_64 : GeoIP module for lighttpd to use for location lookups
lighttpd-mod_mysql_vhost.x86_64 : Virtual host module for lighttpd that uses a MySQL database
owncloud-httpd.noarch : Httpd integration for ownCloud
radicale-httpd.noarch : httpd config for Radicale
darkhttpd.x86_64 : A secure, lightweight, fast, single-threaded HTTP/1.1 server
httpd.x86_64 : Apache HTTP Server
httpd-devel.x86_64 : Development interfaces for the Apache HTTP server
httpd-itk.x86_64 : MPM Itk for Apache HTTP Server
httpd-manual.noarch : Documentation for the Apache HTTP server
httpd-tools.x86_64 : Tools for use with the Apache HTTP Server
libmicrohttpd.i686 : Lightweight library for embedding a webserver in applications
libmicrohttpd.x86_64 : Lightweight library for embedding a webserver in applications
lighttpd.x86_64 : Lightning fast webserver with light system requirements

  Name and summary matches only, use "search all" for everything.

To display information about a certain package you can use the command ‘yum info’. For information about the httpd package you can use the command:

# yum info httpd

The output should be similar to the following one:

# yum info httpd
Installed Packages
Name        : httpd
Arch        : x86_64
Version     : 2.4.6
Release     : 40.el7.centos
Size        : 9.4 M
Repo        : installed
From repo   : base
Summary     : Apache HTTP Server
URL         : http://httpd.apache.org/
Licence     : ASL 2.0
Description : The Apache HTTP Server is a powerful, efficient, and extensible
            : web server.

To install a package, you can use the ‘yum install’ command. For example, to install the httpd package on your CentOS VPS, you can use the command below:

# yum install httpd

To list all the installed packages on your system along with their version and their repository you can use the command:

# yum list installed

Finally, to remove a package from your system you can use the ‘yum remove’ command. For example, to remove the httpd package from your system you can run the command:

# yum remove httpd

The package manager will also remove the packages which depend on it.

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Of course you don’t have to do any of this if you use one of our Linux VPS hostingservices, in which case you can simply ask our expert Linux admins to install or remove a certain package for you. They are available 24×7 and will take care of your request immediately.

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