What is EPEL repo?
EPEL(Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux) is a repo developed by Fedora project to ensure that there is a quality 3rd party packages available for enterprise users such as people who are using RHEL, Cent OS, Oracle Linux and Scientific Linux. These are highly used enterprise Linux OS which are shipped with default, thoroughly checked and officially conformed packages so that there will be less bugs in the installed software in enterprise environment. But there are situations where a 3rd party software which is of great use in enterprise world is not in the official list. For example Puppet is a great configuration tool which is not in default repo. The solution to this is enable EPEL repo on enterprise Linux box.
Some of the well known packages which are not included in official CentOS, Red-hat, Oracle and Scientific Linux repos are as follows
ansible - SSH-based configuration management, deployment, and task execution system
cfengine - A systems administration tool for networks
nagios - Nagios monitors hosts and services and yells if something breaks
puppet - A network tool for managing many disparate systems
rsnapshot - Local and remote file system snapshot utility
p7zip - Very high compression ratio file archiver
clamav - Anti-virus software
wine - A compatibility layer for windows applications
ncftp - Improved console FTP client
hddtemp - Hard disk temperature tool
openvpn - A full-featured SSL VPN solution
Pound - Reverse proxy and load balancer
fail2ban - Ban IPs that make too many password failures
To know about available software in this repo you can go to below link.
http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/i386/repoview/
How to install EPEL repo in RHEL?
If you are using any RHEL based Linux such as Centos, Oracle and Scientific Linux we have to follow below process to install it. This same for versions 4.x, 5.x, 6.x and 7.x. Just replace 6 with your respective version number.
On Rhel 6.8 32 bit version:
rpm -ivh http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/i386/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm
For RHEL 6.8 64 bit version:
rpm -ivh http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/x86_64/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm
For RHEL 6.8 PPC64:
rpm -ivh http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/ppc64/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm
Example:
[root@diskstuff ~]# rpm -ivh http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/i386/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm
Retrieving http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/i386/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm
warning: /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.mk9iVg: Header V3 RSA/SHA256 Signature, key ID 0608b895: NOKEY
Preparing... ########################################### [100%]
1:epel-release ########################################### [100%]
[root@diskstuff ~]#
Note: We no need to use wget or some other software to download this package, we can just directly point http link to rpm command, which will install directly from the specified location.
Check if you can install any package which are listed above.
[root@diskstuff ~]# yum install fail2ban
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, refresh-packagekit
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
epel/metalink | 3.7 kB 00:00
* base: mirror.web24.net.au
* epel: mirror.web24.net.au
* extras: mirror.web24.net.au
* updates: mirror.web24.net.au
epel | 4.4 kB 00:00
epel/primary_db | 5.1 MB 00:03
Setting up Install Process
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package fail2ban.noarch 0:0.8.11-2.el6 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: python-inotify for package: fail2ban-0.8.11-2.el6.noarch
--> Running transaction check
---> Package python-inotify.noarch 0:0.9.1-1.el6 set to be updated
--> Finished Dependency Resolution Dependencies Resolved ===============================================================================================================================================
Package Arch Version Repository Size
===============================================================================================================================================
Installing:
fail2ban noarch 0.8.11-2.el6 epel 221 k
Installing for dependencies:
python-inotify noarch 0.9.1-1.el6 epel 50 k Transaction Summary
===============================================================================================================================================
Install 2 Package(s)
Upgrade 0 Package(s) Total download size: 271 k
Installed size: 1.0 M
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Downloading Packages:
(1/2): fail2ban-0.8.11-2.el6.noarch.rpm | 221 kB 00:00
(2/2): python-inotify-0.9.1-1.el6.noarch.rpm | 50 kB 00:00
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total 139 kB/s | 271 kB 00:01
warning: rpmts_HdrFromFdno: Header V3 RSA/SHA256 Signature, key ID 0608b895: NOKEY
epel/gpgkey | 3.2 kB 00:00 ...
Importing GPG key 0x0608B895 "EPEL (6) <epel@fedoraproject.org>" from /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-EPEL-6
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Running rpm_check_debug
Running Transaction Test
Transaction Test Succeeded
Running Transaction
Warning: RPMDB altered outside of yum.
Installing : python-inotify-0.9.1-1.el6.noarch 1/2
Installing : fail2ban-0.8.11-2.el6.noarch 2/2 Installed:
fail2ban.noarch 0:0.8.11-2.el6 Dependency Installed:
python-inotify.noarch 0:0.9.1-1.el6 Complete!
[root@diskstuff ~]#
If you are unable to install or you find that epel is not enable check if EPEL repo is enabled or not
[root@diskstuff ~]# cat /etc/yum.repos.d/epel.repo
[epel]
name=Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 6 - $basearch
#baseurl=http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/$basearch
mirrorlist=https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/metalink?repo=epel-6&arch=$basearch
failovermethod=priority
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-EPEL-6
Once you made enabled=1 and refresh the repo by using yum clean all, you can install all the software in the EPEL repo.
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