Everything You Need to Know About the DNF Package Manager

Dandified Yum (DNF) is a powerful package management front-end for RPM-based Linux distros. Here we show you everything that you need to know about the DNF package manager and the various DNF commands you can use to manage your packages.

Why Use DNF Package Manager?

Many Linux distros, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS Stream, and Fedora Linux have their own repositories that use RPM Package Manager (RPM) files to distribute programs, documentation, and libraries. It’s a compressed archive format that can run scripts, verify its internal content, and store package metadata.

One downside of RPM is that it can’t install a package unless its prerequisites are in the system. DNF bridges this gap by fetching the required dependencies for your package and resolving any software conflicts during installation.

Aside from that, DNF also provides additional tools for installing and managing packages in your system. It includes the ability to add external repos, search for remote content, as well as proper system cleanup and rollback support.

Good to know: learn more about other RPM-based Linux distros by looking at AlmaLinux vs. Rocky Linux.

Installing Packages using DNF

Installing packages is the fundamental function of every package manager. To install a remote package in DNF, run dnf install followed by the package name:

sudo dnf install nano

The install subcommand has a number of flags that allow you to change its default behavior. For instance, you can include the --setopt=install_weak_deps=False to skip “Weak Dependencies” when installing a program.

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Fetching and Installing RPM Files with DNF

DNF can also fetch bare .rpm packages from your upstream repo. This can be useful if you’re setting up an offline machine and you want to sideload RPM packages to it.

sudo dnf download emacs

You can even use the install subcommand on your .rpm file to install it to your machine. Doing this will give you the benefit of dependency resolution for your non-repo packages.

sudo dnf install ~/your-package.rpm

Reinstalling Existing Packages

Further, DNF can force reinstall programs in your current machine. This can be useful if you’re having an issue with an existing package and you want to make sure that you’ve installed it properly.

sudo dnf reinstall nano

The reinstall subcommand also takes a number of optional flags which modify its behavior. For example, the --allowerasing flag will remove any potential dependency conflict as soon as you reinstall your program.

Tip: learn how you can fix broken package installs in Linux.

Handling Package Groups in DNF

Package groups are a unique DNF feature for installing programs around a theme or tool. This can be useful if you want to set up a consistent desktop build or manage collections of software.

To look at the available package groups for your system, run the following command:

dnf group list

You can check the content of a package group by running the info argument after the group subcommand. For instance, running dnf groups info Editors will print a short description of the group and the packages it will install.

Installing and Removing Package Groups

The group subcommand also handles its own installation process. Run the group subcommand with the install argument, then provide the name of the group that you want for your system:

sudo dnf group install Editors

To remove an entire package group, replace the install argument with remove followed by the name of the group that you want to remove:

sudo dnf group remove Editors

Searching for Available Packages

One important feature of every package manager is its ability to look through remote repos for available programs. To do this in DNF, use the search subcommand:

dnf search nano

By default, DNF matches your search query to both the remote package’s name and its brief summary. You can change this behavior to include all the available metadata fields by adding the --all flag:

dnf search --all nano

Advanced Package Search in DNF

In addition to “search,” DNF also comes with the repoquery subcommand which allows you to look for packages and print them in “NEVRA” format. This is useful if you’re creating a script that will install specific packages using DNF and RPM.

The following command prints all the available “emacs” packages for Fedora 40 in NEVRA format:

dnf repoquery emacs

Aside from that, the repoquery subcommand takes additional filter flags which you can use to refine your package searches. For example, the --installed flag will only show packages on your machine and the --depends will print that package’s dependencies:

dnf repoquery --installed --depends emacs

Fetching Package Lists in DNF

The list subcommand is a flexible way of trowelling through the available DNF packages from your local machine and remote repos. For instance, the following command lists all the installed packages in your system.

dnf list --installed

Similar to repoquery, the list subcommand can take additional filter flags, such as --recent, that will print the most recent packages available on your remote repos.

dnf list --recent

Further, the list subcommand can also be a handy tool to quickly check on the available upgrades for your system:

dnf list --upgrades

This feature also extends to DNF’s maintenance-oriented subcommands. For example, the --autoremove flag lists all the hanging dependencies on the system:

dnf list --autoremove

Upgrading System Packages

With DNF, you can upgrade all installed packages with one subcommand: upgrade. This means that upgrading the system always meant that you’ll get the latest available version of your packages:

sudo dnf upgrade

If you just want to check for updates, use the check-update subcommand instead:

sudo dnf check-update

Running Minimal System Upgrades

Aside from that, DNF can do “conservative upgrades” where it will only install security and bug fixes for existing programs. This is useful when you’re running a critical service, and you don’t want to introduce breaking changes to the machine:

sudo dnf upgrade-minimal

FYI: learn how to protect your data from malicious actors by installing some of the best Linux-libre distros today.

Upgrading and Downgrading Individual Packages

That said, you can upgrade individual packages by providing their name after the upgrade subcommand. For instance, the following updates GNU Emacs to version 29.3 in Fedora 40:

sudo dnf upgrade emacs-1:29.3-6.fc40.x86_64

On the other hand, DNF also supports downgrading packages provided that a lower version exists in a currently active remote repo:

sudo dnf downgrade emacs

Note: Running the downgrade subcommand will lower the version number of any package that is a hard dependency to your program.

Using Security Advisories to Upgrade Packages

Security advisories are a vital part of keeping up to date with the latest software vulnerabilities. To this end, DNF provides the --advisory and --cve flags which accepts Fedora Security Advisory codes and CVE ID numbers.

For example, the following command upgrades the xz library in a Fedora 40 system to address a severe security exploit:

sudo dnf upgrade --refresh --advisory=FEDORA-2024-d02c7bb266

Uninstalling System Packages using DNF

To uninstall packages, the remove subcommand will remove packages from your system:

sudo dnf remove nano

Similar to Debian and Ubuntu, DNF provides a subcommand for removing “hanging” dependency files. To remove these unnecessary packages from your machine, run the following:

sudo dnf autoremove

Removing Package and Repository Metadata

Apart from hanging dependencies, DNF also creates additional metadata and cache files when you install or modify a package. This can be an issue if you want to save space on a storage-limited machine.

To fix this, run the clean subcommand followed by “all”:

sudo dnf clean all

The clean subcommand can also remove specific cache files instead of removing everything at once. For example, you can run dnf clean with the “packages” argument to remove all cached package files without deleting any metadata:

sudo dnf clean packages

In addition to “all” and “packages,” dnf clean accepts “dbcache,” “expire-cache,” and “metadata.” The first clears the cached metadata, the second forces a cache validation check, and the third deletes the metadata entirely.

Good to know: learn some of the best ways to securely delete files in Linux.

Rolling Back System Changes in DNF

Another key feature of DNF is its ability to go through its own package manager history and undo the changes that it did to the system. This can be useful if you’ve made a mistake while configuring your machine and you want to go back to a previous clean state.

To start, print the current history log for your system:

dnf history

Find a point in your system where you want to roll back to. In my case, I will select roll back my system to just before I installed Emacs.

Get the ID number of your transaction point, then run the following command to start the roll back:

sudo dnf history rollback ID-NUMBER

Confirm that DNF has rolled your system back to your transaction point by running: dnf history.

You can also remove individual transactions by using the “undo” argument. For example, the following command removes Emacs on my system but doesn’t touch my later NodeJS installation:

sudo dnf history undo ID-NUMBER

Note: The undo argument does the opposite of the transaction command in dnf history. This means that you can run dnf history undo on a dnf remove command to reinstall an old package.

Analyzing Existing System Packages

The DNF package manager also provides tools and flags to analyze RPM packages on both local and remote repos. For instance, the dnf info command displays a detailed summary of any RPM file:

dnf info nano

Aside from reading a package’s details, you can also use DNF to check where a particular config file or binary came from. To do this, run the provides subcommand followed by the absolute path of the file that you’re checking:

dnf provides /usr/bin/less

Managing Repositories in DNF

Repositories are the lifeblood of the every package manager. They serve as your machine’s source of new packages and updates. To this end, DNF also provides a wealth of tools to handle repo management including the ability to add, remove, and toggle them at will.

To add a new repository for DNF, run the config-manager subcommand with the --add-repo flag followed by the URL of your third-party repo. For example, the following command will add the Tailscale repository to your Fedora system:

sudo dnf config-manager --add-repo=https://pkgs.tailscale.com/stable/fedora/tailscale.repo

You can list all the active repositories as well as their repo ID in your system by running: dnf repolist --enabled.

To disable an active repository, run config-manager with the --disable flag followed by the ID of the repo that you want to disable:

sudo dnf config-manager --disable tailscale-stable

Note: You can re-enable a disabled repository by using the --enable flag along with the disabled repo’s ID.

Removing an Active Repository in DNF

Start by running the following command to list all the available repos in the system along with their file paths:

grep -E "^\[.*]" /etc/yum.repos.d/*

Find the repo that you want to remove from the list, then copy it to your clipboard. In my case, I will remove the Tailscale DNF repository from my machine.

Delete the .repo file from your system by running sudo rm followed by the file path in your clipboard.

Run sudo dnf check-update to refresh your machine’s repository listings.

Learning the basics of DNF is just the first step in understanding the intricate world of package managers in Linux. Explore more of this diverse ecosystem by looking at our comprehensive Linux package manager cheatsheet.

Image credit: Joan Gamell via Unsplash and Wikimedia Commons. All alterations and screenshots by Ramces Red.

Ramces Red - Staff Writer

Ramces is a technology writer that lived with computers all his life. A prolific reader and a student of Anthropology, he is an eccentric character that writes articles about Linux and anything *nix.