Mastering Software Installation on CentOS: Tarball, RPM, and Yum Walkthrough

The article explains three primary software management methods on CentOS: source tarball compilation, RPM packages, and yum repository installation. It begins by defining key terms such as open source, compilation, gcc, executable files, and dynamic/static libraries, accompanied by illustrative diagrams.

Tarball Installation (Redis Example)

Basic steps include downloading the source to /usr/local/src, reviewing INSTALL and README, creating a Makefile via ./configure, compiling with make, and installing with make install. Common commands like make clean are described, and each stage is illustrated with screenshots.

RPM and SRPM Basics

RPM (RedHat Package Manager) stores metadata about dependencies, version, and required environment. The article contrasts RPM with SRPM, shows package naming conventions, and outlines typical commands: rpm -ivh package.rpm for installation, -i (install), -v (verbose), -h (progress). It also covers upgrade, query, verification flags (S, M, 5, D, L, U, G, T, P) and how to rebuild the RPM database with rpm --rebuilddb.

Practical RPM Installation (RabbitMQ)

To install RabbitMQ, first obtain the Erlang runtime. The guide shows downloading the Erlang RPM, handling missing dependencies, and installing required libraries via yum install epel-release and

yum install unixODBC unixODBC-devel wxBase wxGTK SDL wxGTK-gl

. After resolving dependencies, Erlang is installed with rpm -ivh esl-erlang_19.2~centos~7_amd64.rpm, followed by RabbitMQ server installation using rpm -ivh rabbitmq-server-3.6.6-1.el7.noarch.rpm.

Starting and Managing RabbitMQ

RabbitMQ binaries are located in bin/. Start the broker with ./rabbitmq-server (foreground) or ./rabbitmq-server -detached (background). Stop it using ./rabbitmqctl stop. The article also shows how to open firewall ports (15672, 25672, 5672, 4369, 5671) by editing /etc/sysconfig/iptables and adding appropriate -A INPUT -p tcp --dport rules.

Enabling Management Plugin

Enable the web management UI with ./rabbitmq-plugins enable rabbitmq_management. Access the UI at http://<em>server_ip</em>:15672 using the default guest account (note: remote access may require additional configuration).

Yum Installation (Nginx Example)

The article briefly mentions using yum install nginx for online installation, noting that yum automatically resolves dependencies. It points to the yum configuration files ( /etc/yum.conf and /etc/yum.repos.d/) for further customization.

Overall, the guide provides a comprehensive, hands‑on reference for developers and system administrators needing to install and manage software on CentOS using different package methods.