Package Management

• Biggest advantage of Linux enterprise systems. Features for package management:
  • Automation: No need for manual installs and upgrades
  • Scalability: Install packages on one system, or 10,000 systems
  • Repeatability and predictability
  • Security and auditing
• What does package management do?
  • Gather and compress associated software files into a single package
  • Allow for easy software installation or removal
  • Can verify file integrity via an internal database
  • Can authenticate the origin of packages
  • Facilitate upgrades
  • Group packages by logical features
  • Manage dependencies between packages
• Package types:
  • Binary Packages: contain files ready for deployment, including executable files and libraries. These are architecture-dependent.
  • Source Packages: used to generate binary packages; one should always be able to rebuild a binary package from the source package. One source package can be used for multiple architectures.
  • Architecture-Independent Packages: contain files and scripts that run under script interpreters, documentation, and configuration files.
  • Meta-Packages: groups of associated packages that collect everything needed to install a relatively large subsystem, such as a desktop environment, or an office suite, etc.
• Red Hat Package Manager(RPM): Used by Red Hat derived distributions like RHEL, Fedora, CentOS, SUSE.
• dnf: Front end to RPM, but also has capabilities to retrieve packages from one or more remote repositories.
• Debian Package(dpkg): Used by all Debian derived distributions.
• APT(Advanced Packaging Tool): a set of programs provide a higher level of intelligent services for using the underlying dpkg program, and plays the same role as dnf on Red Hat-based systems.