RPM
also: Red Hat Package Manager, .rpm
RPM (Red Hat Package Manager) is a package management system for installing, updating, and removing software on Linux distributions like Red Hat, CentOS, and Fedora. It handles dependencies and maintains a database of installed packages.
RPM is both a package format (files ending in .rpm) and a command-line tool for managing software. Each RPM file contains the compiled binary, configuration files, documentation, and metadata needed to install a complete application.
The RPM system tracks all installed packages in a local database, allowing you to query what's installed, verify file integrity, and manage dependencies automatically. For example, rpm -i package.rpm installs a package, while rpm -q bash checks if bash is installed.
Modern distributions use higher-level tools like yum or dnf built on top of RPM, which automatically download and resolve package dependencies from repositories. However, the underlying RPM format and database remain central to these systems.