RPM is a useful tool for both managing your
system and diagnosing and fixing problems. The best way to make sense of
all of its options is to look at some examples.
Perhaps you have deleted some files by accident, but you are not
sure what you deleted. If you want to verify your entire system and
see what might be missing, you could try the following command:
If some files are missing or appear to have been corrupted, you
should probably either re-install the package or uninstall, then
re-install the package.
At some point, you might see a file that you do not recognize. To
find out which package owns it, you would enter:
rpm -qf /usr/X11R6/bin/ghostview |
The output would look like the following:
We can combine the above two examples in the following scenario.
Say you are having problems with
/usr/bin/paste. You would like to verify the
package that owns that program, but you do not know which package
owns paste. Simply enter the following command:
and the appropriate package will be verified.
Do you want to find out more information about a particular program?
You can try the following command to locate the documentation which
came with the package that owns that program:
The output would be like the following:
/usr/share/doc/textutils-2.0a/NEWS
/usr/share/doc/textutils-2.0a/README
/usr/info/textutils.info.gz
/usr/man/man1/cat.1.gz
/usr/man/man1/cksum.1.gz
/usr/man/man1/comm.1.gz
/usr/man/man1/csplit.1.gz
/usr/man/man1/cut.1.gz
/usr/man/man1/expand.1.gz
/usr/man/man1/fmt.1.gz
/usr/man/man1/fold.1.gz
/usr/man/man1/head.1.gz
/usr/man/man1/join.1.gz
/usr/man/man1/md5sum.1.gz
/usr/man/man1/nl.1.gz
/usr/man/man1/od.1.gz
/usr/man/man1/paste.1.gz
/usr/man/man1/pr.1.gz
/usr/man/man1/ptx.1.gz
/usr/man/man1/sort.1.gz
/usr/man/man1/split.1.gz
/usr/man/man1/sum.1.gz
/usr/man/man1/tac.1.gz
/usr/man/man1/tail.1.gz
/usr/man/man1/tr.1.gz
/usr/man/man1/tsort.1.gz
/usr/man/man1/unexpand.1.gz
/usr/man/man1/uniq.1.gz
/usr/man/man1/wc.1.gz |
You may find a new RPM, but you do not
know what it does. To find information about it, use the following
command:
rpm -qip sndconfig-0.68-3.i386.rpm |
The output would look like the following:
Name : sndconfig Relocations: (not relocateable)
Version : 0.68 Vendor: Red Hat
Release : 3 Build Date: Sun 23 Jun 2002 08:22:52 PM EDT
Install date: Mon 01 Jul 2002 08:40:06 AM EDT Build Host: perf90.perf.redhat.com
Group : Applications/Multimedia Source RPM: sndconfig-0.68-3.src.rpm
Size : 619097 License: GPL
Packager : Red Hat <http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla>
Summary : The Red Hat Linux sound configuration tool.
Description :
Sndconfig is a text based tool that sets up the configuration files
you will need to use a sound card with a Red Hat Linux system.
Sndconfig can be used to set the proper sound type for programs that
use the /dev/dsp, /dev/audio, and /dev/mixer devices. The sound
settings are saved by the aumix and sysV runlevel scripts. |
Perhaps you now want to see what files the
sndconfig RPM
installs. You would enter the following:
rpm -qlp sndconfig-0.68-3.i386.rpm |
The output will look like the following:
/sbin/sndconfig
/usr/sbin/sndconfig
/usr/share/locale/bs/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/cs/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/da/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/de/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/es/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/eu_ES/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/fi/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/fr/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/gl/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/hu/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/id/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/is/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/it/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/ja/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/ko/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/no/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/pl/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/pt/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/pt_BR/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/ro/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/ru/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/sk/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/sl/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/sr/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/sv/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/tr/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/uk/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/wa/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/zh/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/zh_CN.GB2312/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/zh_TW.Big5/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/zh_TW/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/man/man8/sndconfig.8.gz
/usr/share/sndconfig
/usr/share/sndconfig/sample.au
/usr/share/sndconfig/sample.midi
/usr/share/sndconfig/sample2.au |
These are just a few examples. As you use it, you will find many more
uses for RPM.
