Red Hat®
binary compatible
enterprise Linux

Initial steps for network installation

• Start installation using Anaconda installer

• Select Network & Host Name

• Switch Ethernet ON

This will automatically configure Installation Source using HTTP.

• Select the Configure button

• Access the General tab

• Enable Connect automatically with priority

This will automatically connect network on startup.

Optional steps post installation

Enable EPEL (Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux) repo. Add -y to skip confirmation; add --nogpgcheck if needed.

$ dnf install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-8.noarch.rpm

Enable ELRepo repo (channels: elrepo, elrepo-extras, elrepo-testing, elrepo-kernel)

$ rpm --import https://www.elrepo.org/RPM-GPG-KEY-elrepo.org

$ dnf install https://www.elrepo.org/elrepo-release-8.el8.elrepo.noarch.rpm

Enable RPM Fusion free and nonfree repos.

$ dnf install https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/free/el/rpmfusion-free-release-8.noarch.rpm

$ dnf install https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/el/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-8.noarch.rpm

Enable RPM Fusion tainted repos.

$ dnf install rpmfusion-free-release-tainted

$ dnf install rpmfusion-nonfree-release-tainted

https://rpmfusion.org/Configuration
https://rpmfusion.org/Howto/Multimedia

Optimize dnf configuration

/etc/dnf/dnf.conf

defaultyes=True

fastestmirror=True

max_parallel_downloads=6

deltarpm=False

• Sets confirmation prompt default to Y

• Uses the fastest repo mirror dynamically generated by the server

• Sets maximum number of simultaneous package downloads (default=3, max=20)

• Disables DRPM packages (delta RPM files that rebuild to RPM locally at the cost of CPU and I/O)

$ systemctl disable dnf-makecache.timer

Disables dnf-makecache systemd timer. After that dnf search will not auto refresh cache anymore for non-root users but dnf repoquery still will. Cache can be explicitly refreshed with dnf makecache.

Package management basics

List all enabled and disabled repositories.

$ dnf repolist --all

Enable or disable a repository.

$ dnf config-manager --enable epel

$ dnf config-manager --disable google-chrome-unstable

Search and enable a user-published Copr repository, then install a package from it.

$ dnf copr search xcb-util-errors

$ dnf copr enable dziadu/xcb-util-errors

$ dnf install xcb-util-errors

List installed and not yet installed (available) packages in a repo.

$ dnf list --installed --repo rpmfusion-nonfree-tainted

$ dnf ls --available --repo rpmfusion-free-tainted

List package groups and then install a group.

$ dnf group list

$ dnf group install "Xfce Desktop"

$ dnf in @MATE

List packages by various criteria.

$ dnf list extras

$ dnf ls "*wayland*"

$ dnf repoquery "*wayland*"

$ dnf rq --installed

$ dnf rq --userinstalled

$ dnf rq --recent

$ dnf rq --duplicates

$ dnf rq --unneeded

$ dnf rq --unsatisfied

Search for a string in package name and summary.

$ dnf search wayland

Faster search from system cache without first refreshing metadata. (long and short form)

$ dnf --cacheonly search wayland

$ dnf -C se xdg-desktop-portal

List all files in a package. (remote repo DB vs local rpm DB)

$ dnf repoquery --list binutils

$ dnf rq -l gtk2

$ rpm -ql coreutils

List packages that own a file.

$ dnf repoquery --file /usr/bin/strings

$ dnf rq -f "*libdisplay-info.so*"

$ rpm -qf /usr/bin/true

Remove (erase) a package without removing its dependencies.

$ rpm -e --nodeps gtk2

Miscellaneous.

$ dnf --refresh upgrade

$ dnf --downloadonly upgrade

$ dnf upgrade --exclude foo bar baz

$ dnf downgrade foo

$ dnf download foo

$ dnf install foo

$ dnf reinstall foo

$ dnf remove foo

$ dnf swap foo bar

$ dnf history undo 3

$ dnf history redo 5

Bootloader and ramdisk

Update grub configuration after editing /etc/default/grub.

$ grub2-mkconfig –o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

Create a larger generic initramfs before moving to different hardware or VM host.

$ dracut --force --no-hostonly

...for all kernels:

$ dracut --force --no-hostonly --regenerate-all

Regenerate the smaller initramfs tailored to the current system (defaults to --hostonly).

$ dracut --force

Show initrd contents.

$ lsinitrd

Alternative RHEL binary compatible distros

CentOS  |  AlmaLinux  |  Rocky Linux  |  Oracle Linux  |  EuroLinux  |  [more]