RPM is a very useful tool for both managing your system and diagnosing
and fixing problems. The best way to make sense of all the options is to
look at some examples.
Let's say you delete some files by accident, but you aren't sure
what you deleted. If you want to verify your entire system and see
what might be missing, you would enter:
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.
Let's say you run across a file that you don't recognize. To find
out which package owns it, you would enter:
rpm -qf /usr/X11R6/bin/ghostview
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The output would look like:
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 don't know which package that
is. Simply enter:
and the appropriate package will be verified.
Want to find more about a particular program? You can find out by
entering the following to locate the documentation which came with
the package that "owns" that program (in this case
ispell):
The output would be:
/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
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Let's say you find a new sndconfig RPM, but
you don't know what it is. To find out some information on it,
enter:
rpm -qip sndconfig-0.48-1.i386.rpm
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The output would be:
Name : sndconfig Relocations: (not relocateable)
Version : 0.48 Vendor: Red Hat
Release : 1 Build Date: Mon 10 Jul 2025 02:25:40
Install date: (none) Build Host: porky.devel.redhat.com
Group : Applications/Multimedia Source RPM: sndconfig-0.48-1.src.rpm
Size : 461734 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 which sets up the configuration files
you'll need to use a sound card with a Red Hat Linux system.
Sndconfig can be used to set the proper sound type for programs which
use the /dev/dsp, /dev/audio and /dev/mixer devices. The sound
settings are saved by the aumix and sysV runlevel scripts.
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Now you want to see what files the koules
RPM installs. You would enter:
rpm -qlp sndconfig-0.48-1.i386.rpm
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The output is:
/usr/sbin/pnpprobe
/usr/sbin/sndconfig
/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/fr/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/ko/LC_MESSAGES/sndconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale/no/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/man/man8/pnpprobe.8.gz
/usr/share/man/man8/sndconfig.8.gz
/usr/share/sndconfig/sample.au
/usr/share/sndconfig/sample.midi
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These are just several examples. As you use the system you will find
many more uses for RPM.
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