DNF Command Reference

Synopsis

dnf [options] <command> [<args>...]

Description

DNF is an experimental replacement for Yum, a package manager for RPM Linux distributions. It aims to maintain CLI compatibility with Yum while improving on speed and defining strict API and plugin interface.

Available commands are:

• check-update
• clean
• dist-sync
• distribution-sync
• downgrade
• erase
• help
• history
• info
• install
• list
• makecache
• provides
• reinstall
• repolist
• search
• update
• update-to
• upgrade
• upgrade-to

See the reference for each command below.

Options

--assumeno

answer no for all questions

--best

Try the best available package versions in transactions.

-C, --cacheonly

Run entirely from system cache, don’t update cache

-c <config file>, --config=<config file>

config file location

-d <debug level>, --debuglevel=<debug level>

Debugging output level. This is an integer value between 0 (no additional information strings) and 10 (shows all debugging information, even that not understandable to the user), default is 2. Deprecated, use -v instead.

--disableexcludes=[all|main|<repoid>]

Disable the config file excludes. Takes one of three options:

• all, disables all config file excludes
• main, disables excludes defined in the [main] section
• repoid, disables excludes defined for the given repo

-e <error level>, --errorlevel=<error level>

Error output level. This is an integer value between 0 (no error output) and 10 (shows all error messages), default is 2. Deprecated, use -v instead.

-x <package-spec>, --exclude=<package-spec>

Exclude packages specified by a name or a glob from the operation.

-h, --help

Shows the help.

--installroot=<path>

set install root

--nogpgcheck

skip checking GPG signatures on packages

-q, --quiet

quiet operation

-R <minutes>, --randomwait=<minutes>

maximum command wait time

--releasever=<release>

configure DNF as if the distribution release was <release>. This can affect cache paths, values in configuration files and mirrorlist URLs. Using ‘/’ for this value makes DNF detect the release number from the running system.

--rpmverbosity=<debug level name>

debugging output level for rpm

--showduplicates

show duplicates, in repos, in list/search commands

-v, --verbose

verbose operation, show debug messages.

--version

show Yum version and exit

-y, --assumeyes

answer yes for all questions

Commands

For an explanation of <package-spec> and <package-name-spec> see Specifying Packages.

For an explanation of <package-nevr-spec> see Specifying Exact Versions of Packages.

For an explanation of <provide-spec> see Specifying Provides.

Check Update Command

dnf [options] check-update [<package-specs>...]

Non-interactively checks if updates of the specified packages are available. If no <package-specs> are given checks whether any updates at all are available for your system. DNF exit code will be 100 when there are updates available and a list of the updates will be printed, 0 if not and 1 if an error occurs.

Clean Command

Performs cleanup of temporary files for the currently enabled repositories.

dnf clean dbcache

Removes cache files generated from the repository metadata. This forces DNF to regenerate the cache files the next time it is run.

dnf clean expire-cache

Removes local cookie files saying when the metadata and mirrorlists were downloaded for each repo. DNF will re-validate the cache for each repo the next time it is used.

dnf clean metadata

Removes repository metadata. Those are the files which DNF uses to determine the remote availability of packages. Using this option will make DNF download all the metadata the next time it is run.

dnf clean packages

Removes any cached packages from the system. Note that packages are not automatically deleted after they are downloaded.

dnf clean plugins

Tells all enabled plugins to eliminate their cached data.

dnf clean all

Does all of the above.

Distro-sync command

dnf distro-sync

As necessary upgrades, downgrades or keeps all installed packages to match the latest version available from any enabled repository.

Distribution-synchronization command

dnf distribution-synchronization

Deprecated alias for the Distro-sync command.

Downgrade Command

dnf [options] downgrade <package-specs>...

Downgrades the specified packages to the highest of all known lower versions.

Erase Command

dnf [options] erase <package-specs>...

Removes the specified packages from the system along with any packages depending on the packages being removed. If clean_requirements_on_remove is enabled (the default) also removes any dependencies that are no longer needed.

Help Command

dnf help [<command>]

Displays the help text for all commands. If given a command name then only displays the help for that particular command.

History Command

The history command allows the user to view what has happened in past transactions (assuming the history_record configuration option is set).

dnf history [list]

The default history action is listing all known transaction information in a table.

dnf history info [<transaction_id>]

Describe the given transaction. When no ID is given describes what happened during the latest transaction.

Info Command

dnf [options] info <package-specs>...

Is used to list a description and summary information about available packages.

Install Command

dnf [options] install <package-specs>...

Installs the specified packages and their dependencies. After the transaction is finished all the specified packages are installed on the system.

List Command

Dumps lists of packages depending on the packages’ relation to the system. Generally packages are available (it is present in a repository we know about) or installed (present in the RPMDB). The list command can also limit the displayed packages according to other criteria, e.g. to only those that update an installed package.

All the forms take a [<package-specs>...] parameter to further limit the result to only those packages matching it.

dnf [options] list [all] [<package-name-specs>...]

Lists all packages known to us, present in the RPMDB, in a repo or in both.

dnf [options] list installed [<package-name-specs>...]

Lists installed packages.

dnf [options] list available [<package-name-specs>...]

Lists available packages.

dnf [options] list extras [<package-name-specs>...]

Lists extras, that is packages installed on the system that are not available in any known repository.

dnf [options] list obsoletes [<package-name-specs>...]

List the packages installed on the system that are obsoleted by packages in any known repository.

dnf [options] list upgrades [<package-name-specs>...]

List upgrades available for the installed packages.

Makecache Command

dnf [options] makecache

Downloads and caches in binary format metadata for all known repos. Tries to avoid downloading whenever possible (e.g. when the local metadata hasn’t expired yet or when the metadata timestamp hasn’t changed).

dnf [options] makecache timer

Like plain makecache but instructs DNF to be more resource-aware, meaning will not do anything if running on battery power and will terminate immediately if it’s too soon after the last successful makecache run (see dnf.conf(8), metadata_timer_sync).

Provides Command

dnf [options] provides <provide-spec>

Finds the packages providing the given <provide-spec>. This is useful when one knows a filename and wants to find what package (installed or not) provides this file.

Reinstall Command

dnf [options] reinstall <package-specs>...

Installs the specified packages, fails if some of the packages are either not installed or not available (i.e. there is no repository where to download the same RPM).

Repolist Command

dnf [options] repolist [enabled|disabled|all]

Depending on the exact command, lists enabled, disabled or all known repositories. Lists all enabled repositories by default. Provides more detailed information when -v option is used.

Search Command

dnf [options] search [all] <keywords>...

Search package metadata for the keywords. Keywords are matched as case-insensitive substrings, globbing is supported. By default the command will only look at package names and summaries, failing that (or whenever all was given as an argument) it will match against package descriptions and URLs. The result is sorted from the most relevant results to the least.

Update Command

dnf [options] update

Deprecated alias for the Upgrade Command.

Upgrade Command

dnf [options] upgrade

Updates each package to a highest version that is both available and resolvable.

dnf [options] upgrade <package-specs>...

Updates each specified package to the latest available version. Updates dependencies as necessary.

Update-To Command

dnf [options] update-to <package-nevr-specs>...

Deprecated alias for the Upgrade-To Command.

Upgrade-To Command

dnf [options] upgrade-to <package-nevr-specs>...

Upgrades packages to the specified versions.

Specifying Packages

Many commands take a <package-spec> parameter that selects a package for the operation. DNF looks for interpretations of the parameter from the most commonly used meanings to the least, that is it tries to see if the given spec fits one of the following patterns (in decreasing order of priority):

• name.arch
• name
• name-[epoch:]version-release.arch
• name-[epoch:]version-release
• name-[epoch:]version

Note that name can in general contain dashes (e.g. package-subpackage).

Failing to match the input argument to an existing package name based on the patterns above, DNF tries to see if the argument matches an existing provide.

If multiple versions of the selected package exist in the repo, the most recent version suitable for the given operation is used. The name specification is case-sensitive, globbing characters “?, * and [ are allowed and trigger shell-like glob matching.

<package-name-spec> is similar to <package-spec> except the provides matching is never attempted there.

Specifying Exact Versions of Packages

Commands accepting the <package-nevr-spec> parameter need not only the name of the package, but also its version, release and optionally the architecture. Further, the version part can be preceded by an epoch when it is relevant (i.e. the epoch is non-zero).

Specifying Provides

<provide-spec> in command descriptions means the command operates on packages providing the given spec. This can either be an explicit provide, an implicit provide (i.e. name of the package) or a file provide. The selection is case-sensitive and globbing is supported.

See Also

• dnf.conf(8), DNF Configuration Reference
• DNF project homepage (https://github.com/akozumpl/dnf/)
• Yum project homepage (http://yum.baseurl.org/)