The –i option with an rpm query command tells the rpm command to output descriptive information about the package. You can also use the longer option, --info, in place of –i. The basic syntax is:

rpm -qi package

Warning

The order of the command-line options is very important. Remember that the rpm command has the following general syntax:

rpm –MajorOperation –extra_options packages_or_files

The rpm –i command installs packages. The rpm –q command queries packages. The rpm –qi command outputs the descriptive information on packages. If you make a mistake and place the i in front of the q, you are telling the rpm command to perform a different operation.

When you run this command, being very careful with the order of the options, you’ll see output like the following, which describes the tcsh shell package.

# rpm -qi tcsh-6.10-6

Name : tcsh Relocations: (not relocateable)

Version : 6.10 Vendor: Red Hat, Inc.

Release : 6 Build Date: Sun 24 Jun 2001 10:45:29

PM CDT

Install date: Fri 14 Dec 2001 10:45:39 AM CST Build

Host: porky.devel.redhat.com

Group : System Environment/Shells Source RPM: tcsh-6.10-6.src.rpm

Size : 764000 License: distributable

Packager : Red Hat, Inc. <http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla>

URL : http://www.primate.wisc.edu/software/csh-tcsh-book/

Summary : An enhanced version of csh, the C shell.

Description :

Tcsh is an enhanced but completely compatible version of csh, the C

shell. Tcsh is a command language interpreter which can be used both

as an interactive login shell and as a shell script command processor.

Tcsh includes a command line editor, programmable word completion,

spelling correction, a history mechanism, job control and a C language

like syntax.

From this description, you can find out a lot about a package, such as where it comes from. Note how the description also names the source RPM used to build the package programs.

Cross Reference

The sections on custom queries following in this chapter show how you can query for any information stored in a package header, including all of the information shown with the rpm –qi command, as well as any other header tag.

RPM packages can be placed into groups, merely arbitrary names for a set of packages. The rpm –qi command, shown previously, lists the group for a package, if there is one. For the tcsh package shown in the previous example, the package is System Environment/Shells.

The –g option to the rpm –q command tells the rpm command to list all the packages in a given group. You can also use the longer option, --group, in place of –g. The basic syntax follows:

rpm –qg group_name

For example:

# rpm -qg "System Environment/Shells"

bash-2.05b-5

sh-utils-2.0.12-3

ash-0.3.8-5

tcsh-6.12-2

Note

This group has a space in its name, so you need quotation marks to pass the group name as one parameter to the rpm command.

The –l (ell) option queries all the files in a package. You can also use the longer option, --list, in place of –l. The basic syntax is:

rpm –ql package

For example, to query the files in the tcsh package, you’ll see the following:

# rpm -ql tcsh

/bin/csh

/bin/tcsh

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/FAQ

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/Fixes

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/NewThings

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/complete.tcsh

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/eight-bit.txt

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/header.html

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/index.php

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/lists.html

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/tcsh.man

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/tcsh.man2html

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/top.html

/usr/share/locale/de/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

/usr/share/locale/el/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

/usr/share/locale/es/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

/usr/share/locale/fr/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

/usr/share/locale/it/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

/usr/share/locale/ja/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

/usr/share/man/man1/tcsh.1.gz

Note

You can pass more than one package name to this option, but it won’t tell you which package owns which file. Use the --filesbypkg option to list files by package (see the related sidebar).

Listing Files By Package

The --filesbypkg option outputs the files by package, so you can make some sense of a list of files from more than one package.

For example:

# rpm -q --filesbypkg file openssh-clients

file /usr/bin/file

file /usr/share/magic

file /usr/share/magic.mgc

file /usr/share/magic.mime

file /usr/share/man/man1/file.1.gz

file /usr/share/man/man5/magic.5.gz

openssh-clients /etc/ssh/ssh_config

openssh-clients /usr/bin/sftp

openssh-clients /usr/bin/slogin

openssh-clients /usr/bin/ssh

openssh-clients /usr/bin/ssh-add

openssh-clients /usr/bin/ssh-agent

openssh-clients /usr/bin/ssh-keyscan

openssh-clients /usr/share/man/man1/sftp.1.gz

openssh-clients /usr/share/man/man1/slogin.1.gz

openssh-clients /usr/share/man/man1/ssh-add.1.gz

openssh-clients /usr/share/man/man1/ssh-agent.1.gz

openssh-clients /usr/share/man/man1/ssh-keyscan.1.gz

openssh-clients /usr/share/man/man1/ssh.1.gz

Use this option without –l, because the –l option will also list the files alone, without any package name.

The –v (verbose) option can give you more information on the files when used with the various query options. For example:

# rpm -qlv tcsh

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 Jun 24 2001 /bin/csh -> tcsh

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 288604 Jun 24 2001 /bin/tcsh

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8306 Aug 25 2000 /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/FAQ

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 64761 Nov 19 2000 /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/Fixes

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6518 Oct 2 1998 /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/NewThings

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 41328 Nov 19 2000 /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/complete.tcsh

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4668 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/eight-bit.txt

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 124 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/header.html

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/index.php -> top.html

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 911 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/lists.html

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/tcsh.man

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 22542 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/tcsh.man2html

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 693 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/top.html

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 45861 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/locale/de/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 47566 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/locale/el/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 47413 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/locale/es/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 47156 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/locale/fr/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 48264 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/locale/it/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 18682 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/locale/ja/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 62399 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/man/man1/tcsh.1.gz

This information is the same as a long listing on the files.

As you can see, the –l option results in quite a lot of output. In some cases, though, you aren’t interested in documentation and other miscellaneous files in the package. It’s the commands and libraries that cause the most package-related problems. To help with this, you can use a series of rpm options to list only certain types of files.

The –c option tells the rpm –q command to list the configuration files for a package. You can also use the longer option, --configfiles, in place of –c. The basic syntax is:

rpm –qc package_name

For example:

# rpm -qc bash

/etc/skel/.bash_logout

/etc/skel/.bash_profile

/etc/skel/.bashrc

This command lists the configuration files for the bash package.

Some packages don’t have configuration files, as shown following:

# rpm -qc python

#

In this case, the rpm command provides no output. Other packages have a lot of configuration files, such as the sendmail mail transfer agent, as shown following:

# rpm -qc sendmail

/etc/aliases

/etc/mail/Makefile

/etc/mail/access

/etc/mail/domaintable

/etc/mail/helpfile

/etc/mail/local-host-names

/etc/mail/mailertable

/etc/mail/sendmail.mc

/etc/mail/statistics

/etc/mail/trusted-users

/etc/mail/virtusertable

/etc/rc.d/init.d/sendmail

/etc/sendmail.cf

/etc/sysconfig/sendmail

/usr/lib/sasl/Sendmail.conf

As with the –l option, the –v option provides more information on each file, as shown following:

#rpm -qcv bash

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 24 Jul 9 2001 /etc/skel/.bash_logout

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 191 Jul 9 2001 /etc/skel/.bash_profile

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 124 Jul 9 2001 /etc/skel/.bashrc

Similarly to the –c option, the –d option tells the rpm –q command to list just the documentation files for a package. The basic syntax is:

rpm –qd package_name

For example:

# rpm -qd tcsh

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/FAQ

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/Fixes

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/NewThings

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/complete.tcsh

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/eight-bit.txt

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/header.html

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/index.php

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/lists.html

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/tcsh.man

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/tcsh.man2html

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/top.html

/usr/share/man/man1/tcsh.1.gz

Note

You can add the –v option to all of the file-listing options to get more information.

You can also use the longer option, --docfiles, in place of –d.

The –s option to the rpm –q command lists the state of each file in a package. The basic syntax follows.

rpm –qs package_name

For example:

# rpm -qs tcsh

normal /bin/csh

normal /bin/tcsh

normal /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10

normal /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/FAQ

normal /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/Fixes

normal /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/NewThings

normal /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/complete.tcsh

normal /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/eight-bit.txt

normal /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html

normal /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/header.html

normal /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/index.php

normal /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/lists.html

normal /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/tcsh.man

normal /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/tcsh.man2html

normal /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/top.html

not installed /usr/share/locale/de/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

not installed /usr/share/locale/el/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

not installed /usr/share/locale/es/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

not installed /usr/share/locale/fr/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

not installed /usr/share/locale/it/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

not installed /usr/share/locale/ja/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

normal /usr/share/man/man1/tcsh.1.gz

You can also use the longer option, --state, in place of –s.

You can combine the –s option with other file filters, such as –d, for listing only the documentation files for a package.

Table 5-2 lists the states that the rpm command supports.

Table 5-2 RPM File States

Sometimes files in a package may have been skipped during installation with options such as --excludedocs. This can lead to non-normal states. You may have also modified files installed from a given package.

Cross Reference

See Chapter 4 for more on installing RPMs.

RPM packages can have preinstallation, postinstallation, preuninstallation, and postuninstallation scripts. These are scripts that the rpm command will execute before and after installing a package, as well as before and after removing the package. The --scripts option to the rpm –q command lists the scripts associated with a package. The basic syntax follows:

rpm -q --scripts package_name

For example:

# rpm -q --scripts tcsh

postinstall scriptlet (through /bin/sh):

if [ ! -f /etc/shells ]; then

echo "/bin/tcsh" >> /etc/shells

echo "/bin/csh" >> /etc/shells

else

grep '^/bin/tcsh$' /etc/shells > /dev/null || echo "/bin/tcsh" >> /etc/shell

s

grep '^/bin/csh$' /etc/shells > /dev/null || echo "/bin/csh" >> /etc/shells

fi

postuninstall scriptlet (through /bin/sh):

if [ ! -x /bin/tcsh ]; then

grep -v '^/bin/tcsh$' /etc/shells | grep -v '^/bin/csh$'> /etc/shells.rpm

mv /etc/shells.rpm /etc/shells

fi

PRODUCTION: NOTE THE “fi” on a line by itself at the end of this listing. Thanks, -Eric

The simple scripts shown here add an entry to the /etc/shells file and clean up the entry when uninstalled.

Cross Reference

Cleaning up any changes your package makes on uninstallation is a very good idea. See the chapters in Part II, Creating RPMs, for details on making your own well-behaved packages.

Other packages have more complex scripts, as shown following:

# rpm -q --scripts sendmail

preinstall scriptlet (through /bin/sh):

/usr/sbin/useradd -u 47 -d /var/spool/mqueue -r -s /dev/null mailnull >/dev/null

2>&1 || :

postinstall scriptlet (through /bin/sh):

#

# Convert old format to new

#

if [ -f /etc/mail/deny ] ; then

cat /etc/mail/deny | \

awk 'BEGIN{ print "# Entries from obsoleted /etc/mail/deny"} \

{print $1" REJECT"}' >> /etc/mail/access

cp /etc/mail/deny /etc/mail/deny.rpmorig

fi

for oldfile in relay_allow ip_allow name_allow ; do

if [ -f /etc/mail/$oldfile ] ; then

cat /etc/mail/$oldfile | \

awk "BEGIN { print \"# Entries from obsoleted /etc/mail/$oldfile

\" ;} \

{ print \$1\" RELAY\" }" >> /etc/mail/access

cp /etc/mail/$oldfile /etc/mail/$oldfile.rpmorig

fi

done

#

# Oops, these files moved

#

if [ -f /etc/sendmail.cw ] ; then

cat /etc/sendmail.cw | \

awk 'BEGIN { print "# Entries from obsoleted /etc/sendmail.cw" ;} \

{ print $1 }' >> /etc/mail/local-host-names

cp /etc/sendmail.cw /etc/sendmail.cw.rpmorig

fi

#

# Rebuild maps (next reboot will rebuild also)

#

{ /usr/bin/newaliases

for map in virtusertable access domaintable mailertable

do

if [ -f /etc/mail/${map} ] ; then

/usr/bin/makemap hash /etc/mail/${map} < /etc/mail/${map}

sleep 1

fi

done

} > /dev/null 2>&1

/sbin/chkconfig --add sendmail

preuninstall scriptlet (through /bin/sh):

if [ $1 = 0 ]; then

/etc/rc.d/init.d/sendmail stop >/dev/null 2>&1

/sbin/chkconfig --del sendmail

fi

postuninstall scriptlet (through /bin/sh):

if [ "$1" -ge "1" ]; then

/etc/rc.d/init.d/sendmail condrestart >/dev/null 2>&1

fi

exit 0

In this case, the main script is the post-install script, which tries to convert old-format data into the new format, thereby helping users upgrade to the newer release.

The --changelog option lists what has changed, as described in a file that logs changes, from previous versions of a given package. The change log is just a convention, so not all packages will sport this nifty feature. In addition, the change log for many packages documents the changes in the RPM packaging, not the changes in the underlying application. If a change log is available, however, this can prove a very good way to help determine whether you want to upgrade to a new version of a package.

For example, a network server application may have been updated to fix some security problems. In that case, you likely want to upgrade. Other changes may not affect your site, leading you to decide not to upgrade.

The basic format of the command is:

rpm –q --changelog package_name

For example, the following shows the beginning of the log-change log for the bash package, with names and e-mail addresses changed to protect the innocent:

# rpm -q --changelog bash

* Fri Aug 23 2002 Bob Marley <bob@marley.com.>

- re-bzip the docs, something was corrupted

* Thu Aug 22 2002 Peter Tosh <peter@tosh.com> 2.05b-4

- Fix history substitution modifiers in UTF-8 (bug #70294, bug #71186).

- Fix ADVANCE_CHAR at end of string (bug #70819).

- docs: CWRU/POSIX.NOTES no longer exists, but ship POSIX.

* Wed Aug 07 2002 Jimmy Cliff <jimmy@cliff.com> 2.05b-3

- Fixed out of memory problem with readline.

* Tue Jul 23 2002 Jimmy Cliff <jimmy@cliff.com> 2.05b-2

- Added symlink for sh.1 in man1 section so that man sh works (#44039).

The rpm command is very flexible in allowing you to combine queries. Just start the command with rpm –q and add the various options either on their own, such as –q with –s and –f, or together, such as –qsf.

The following sections show a few handy combinations of the options you can use for real-world package-management tasks.

The --qf or --queryformat option allows you to create custom queries with the rpm command, although in a rather difficult manner. You need to pass a query format string, the syntax of which originates with the C printf function and requires precision.

The basic syntax of the query format is %{tag_name}. (The percent sign is about the only part that comes from the C printf function.) You can combine tag names to display more than one item per package. You can also add formatting options following C language conventions.

For example, to list all package names, use a command like the following:

# rpm -qa --qf "%{NAME}"

redhat-menusglibccracklibgdbmgmplibacllibjpeglincpcreshadow-

utilslibtermcapfreetypeinfofileutilspsmiscntpmountcracklib-dictskrb5-libscyrus-

saslusermodeXftlibpnglibxmllibbonobopythonpygtk2pyxf86configredhat-config-

usersredhat-config-keyboardrpm404-pythongnome-vfs2libgnomeuiashbind-utilscyrus-

sasl-plaindos2unixethtoolfingergroffautofskbdconfiglesslibtool-

libslockdevmailcapMAKEDEVmouseconfignetpbmntsysvORBitpartedppppsutilsrdaterhnlibrp

mrshsetuptoolstatserialtarlilopciutilstimeconfigunzipkernel-pcmcia-

csanacronXFree86

This command used the simplest format, which is just the value of the tag in the package headers, in this case the package names. Because we used no other formatting, this command outputs all the package names smashed together. To deal with this problem in the output, you can place a \n, the C language convention for a newline character, at the end of the format string. This fixes the output considerably.

For example (showing just the first few entries):

# rpm -qa --qf "%{NAME}\n"

redhat-menus

glibc

cracklib

gdbm

gmp

libacl

libjpeg

linc

pcre

shadow-utils

libtermcap

freetype

info

fileutils

psmisc

ntp

mount

cracklib-dicts

krb5-libs

cyrus-sasl

usermode

Xft

This command provides a custom query that is essentially the same as the rpm -qa command. You’ll likely not use this command in favor of the simpler rpm option, but you can use this example as a guide for creating your own custom queries.

Cross Reference

A great many of the command-line options to the rpm command are defined as popt aliases. These popt aliases define the rpm command-line options in terms of longer query format strings. See Chapter 21 for more information on popt.

You can add items to the query string and use C language conventions for formatting and controlling the amount of space provided for each item output.

For example, the following command prints the name and platform for all packages, showing the first few entries, formatted with 20 characters for each item:

rpm -qa --qf "%-20{NAME} %-20{PLATFORM}\n"

redhat-menus noarch-redhat-linux-gnu

glibc i686-redhat-linux-gnu

cracklib i386-redhat-linux

gdbm i386-redhat-linux-gnu

gmp i386-redhat-linux-gnu

libacl i386-redhat-linux-gnu

libjpeg i386-redhat-linux

linc i386-redhat-linux-gnu

pcre i386-redhat-linux

shadow-utils i386-redhat-linux-gnu

libtermcap i386-redhat-linux

freetype i386-redhat-linux-gnu

info i386-redhat-linux-gnu

fileutils i386-redhat-linux-gnu

psmisc i386-redhat-linux

ntp i386-redhat-linux-gnu

mount i386-redhat-linux-gnu

cracklib-dicts i386-redhat-linux

krb5-libs i386-redhat-linux-gnu

cyrus-sasl i386-redhat-linux-gnu

usermode i386-redhat-linux-gnu

Xft i386-redhat-linux-gnu

If what you’ve seen so far isn’t enough, the rpm command supports a number of extra queries, mostly of use to developers at Red Hat.

Table 5-7 summarizes these extra queries.

Table 5-7 Extra Queries