How to Enable EPEL Repository on CentOS 8 and RHEL 8 Server

EPEL Stands for Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux, it is a free and opensource additional packages repository available for CentOS and RHEL servers. As the name suggests, EPEL repository provides extra and additional packages which are not available in the default package repositories of CentOS 8 and RHEL 8.

In this article we will demonstrate how to enable and use epel repository on CentOS 8 and RHEL 8 Server.

Prerequisites of EPEL Repository

• Minimal CentOS 8 and RHEL 8 Server
• Root or sudo admin privileges
• Internet Connection

Install and Enable EPEL Repository on RHEL 8.x Server

Login or ssh to your RHEL 8.x server and execute the following dnf command to install EPEL rpm package,

[[email protected] ~]# dnf install\
 https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-8.noarch.rpm -y

Output of above command would be something like below,

Once epel rpm package is installed successfully then it will automatically enable and configure its yum / dnf repository.  Run following dnf or yum command to verify whether EPEL repository is enabled or not,

[[email protected] ~]# dnf repolist epel
Or
[[email protected] ~]# dnf repolist epel -v

Install and Enable EPEL Repository on CentOS 8.x Server

Login or ssh to your CentOS 8 server and execute following dnf or yum command to install ‘epel-release‘ rpm package. In CentOS 8 server, epel rpm package is available in its default package repository.

[[email protected] ~]# dnf install epel-release -y
Or
[[email protected] ~]# yum install epel-release -y

Execute the following commands to verify the status of epel repository on CentOS 8 server,

 [[email protected] ~]# dnf repolist epel
Last metadata expiration check: 0:00:03 ago on Sun 13 Oct 2019 04:18:05 AM BST.
repo id              repo name                                          status
*epel                Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64     1,977
[[email protected] ~]#
[[email protected] ~]# dnf repolist epel -v
……………………
Repo-id      : epel
Repo-name    : Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64
Repo-status  : enabled
Repo-revision: 1570844166
Repo-updated : Sat 12 Oct 2019 02:36:32 AM BST
Repo-pkgs    : 1,977
Repo-size    : 2.1 G
Repo-metalink: https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/metalink?repo=epel-8&arch=x86_64
  Updated    : Sun 13 Oct 2019 04:28:24 AM BST
Repo-baseurl : rsync://repos.del.extreme-ix.org/epel/8/Everything/x86_64/
Repo-expire  : 172,800 second(s) (last: Sun 13 Oct 2019 04:28:24 AM BST)
Repo-filename: /etc/yum.repos.d/epel.repo
Total packages: 1,977
[[email protected] ~]#

Above command’s output confirms that we have successfully enabled epel repo. Let’s perform some basic operations on EPEL repo.

List all available packages from epel repository

If you want to list all the packages from epel repository then run the following dnf command,

[[email protected] ~]# dnf repository-packages epel list
……………
Last metadata expiration check: 0:38:18 ago on Sun 13 Oct 2019 04:28:24 AM BST.
Installed Packages
epel-release.noarch                   8-6.el8                @epel
Available Packages
BackupPC.x86_64                       4.3.1-2.el8            epel
BackupPC-XS.x86_64                    0.59-3.el8             epel
CGSI-gSOAP.x86_64                     1.3.11-7.el8           epel
CGSI-gSOAP-devel.x86_64               1.3.11-7.el8           epel
Field3D.x86_64                        1.7.2-16.el8           epel
Field3D-devel.x86_64                  1.7.2-16.el8           epel
GraphicsMagick.x86_64                 1.3.33-1.el8           epel
GraphicsMagick-c++.x86_64             1.3.33-1.el8           epel
…………………………
zabbix40-web-mysql.noarch             4.0.12-1.el8           epel
zabbix40-web-pgsql.noarch             4.0.12-1.el8           epel
zerofree.x86_64                       1.1.1-3.el8            epel
zimg.x86_64                           2.8-4.el8              epel
zimg-devel.x86_64                     2.8-4.el8              epel
zstd.x86_64                           1.4.2-1.el8            epel
zvbi.x86_64                           0.2.35-9.el8           epel
zvbi-devel.x86_64                     0.2.35-9.el8           epel
zvbi-fonts.noarch                     0.2.35-9.el8           epel
[[email protected] ~]#

Search a package from epel repository

Let’s assume if we want to search Zabbix package in epel repository, execute the following dnf command,

[[email protected] ~]# dnf repository-packages epel list | grep -i zabbix

Output of above command would be something like below,

Install a package from epel repository

Let’s assume we want to install htop package from epel repo, then issue the following dnf command,

Syntax:

# dnf –enablerepo=」epel」 install <pkg_name>

[[email protected] ~]# dnf --enablerepo="epel" install htop -y

Note: If we don’t specify the 「–enablerepo=epel」 in above command then it will look for htop package in all available package repositories.

That’s all from this article, I hope above steps helps you to enable and configure EPEL repository on CentOS 8 and RHEL 8 Server, please don’t hesitate to share your comments and feedback in below comments section.