Sometimes you know you need a package, but when you try to install it with yum you’ll get a message like “No matches found”. Yet you’re sure the package exists because you’ve used it before.
This can happen if the package in question is part of a set which installs multiple packages. The net-tools package springs to mind.
yum has a great option called whatprovides with which you can query what package you need to install to use a command. Let’s try it out!
Say I wanted to install mkfs.vfat which is not installed by default in CentOS. Simply trying to install it won’t work:
yum install mkfs.vfat Loaded plugins: fastestmirror Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile * base: mirrors.advancedhosters.com * extras: centos.mirrors.tds.net * updates: centos.mirrors.tds.net No package mkfs.vfat available. Error: Nothing to do
Of course it won’t. But I can ask yum what provides this package:
yum whatprovides mkfs.vfat
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
* base: mirrors.advancedhosters.com
* extras: ftp.usf.edu
* updates: centos.mirrors.tds.net
dosfstools-3.0.20-9.el7.x86_64 : Utilities for making and checking MS-DOS FAT
: filesystems on Linux
Repo : base
Matched from:
Filename : /usr/sbin/mkfs.vfat
dosfstools-3.0.20-9.el7.x86_64 : Utilities for making and checking MS-DOS FAT
: filesystems on Linux
Repo : @base
Matched from:
Filename : /usr/sbin/mkfs.vfat
Well fantastic! The package I’m looking for is called dosfstools. Knowing that, I can simply use yum install dosfstools, and a few moments later mkfs.vfat will work as expected.
Thanks, yum!