5.15.3. Installing and Removing Groups

Each yum software group contains a list of mandatory, optional and default packages. By applying the command to install the yum group, you will have to specify which of these packages will be installed. The default for this parameter is "default, mandatory", ie the components to be installed are those labeled as mandatory and as default. The configuration directive in yum.conf is group_package_types:

[main]
cachedir=/var/cache/yum
keepcache=0
debuglevel=2
logfile=/var/log/yum.log
...
# Setting to install every package from a group
group_package_types=default, mandatory, optional

Specifying which packages from the desired group can be installed, an example of group installation, in this case Clustering.

# yum groupinstall "Clustering" ...
Dependencies Resolved
=============================================================================================================================
 Package                        Arch                Version                                       Repository            Size
=============================================================================================================================
Installing:
 cluster-cim                    x86_64              0.18.1-1.fc14                                 fedora               110 k
 cluster-snmp                   x86_64              0.18.1-1.fc14                                 fedora               126 k
 heartbeat                      x86_64              3.0.0-0.7.0daab7da36a8.hg.fc14                fedora               172 k
 ipvsadm                        x86_64              1.25-5.fc14                                   fedora                39 k
 modcluster                     x86_64              0.18.1-1.fc14                                 fedora               195 k
 pacemaker                      x86_64              1.1.4-4.fc14                                  updates              583 k
 rgmanager                      x86_64              3.1.0-2.fc14                                  updates              155 k
 ricci                          x86_64              0.18.1-2.fc14                                 updates              639 k
Installing for dependencies:
 OpenIPMI-libs                  x86_64              2.0.18-4.fc14                                 fedora               477 k
 cifs-utils                     x86_64              4.7-1.fc14                                    updates               39 k
 cluster-glue                   x86_64              1.0.6-1.fc14                                  fedora               238 k
...
 resource-agents                x86_64              3.1.0-1.fc14                                  updates              394 k
 sg3_utils                      x86_64              1.29-1.fc14                                   fedora               475 k
 tog-pegasus                    x86_64              2:2.9.0-11.fc14                               fedora               4.1 M

Transaction Summary
=============================================================================================================================
Install      33 Package(s)

Total download size: 10 M
Installed size: 51 M
Is this ok [y/N]:

Obviously, finding out each and every one of the package names and install them one by one, even with its dependencies computed by yum it would have been a headache, demonstrating the usefulness of the yum groups in software management.

You may also update a previously installed group with, for example:

# yum groupupdate "MySQL Database"

For removal, you must give the groupremove, for example, to uninstall all the GNOME desktop with only one command:

# yum groupremove "GNOME Desktop Environment"

Unlike the procedure made by groupinstall, the groupremove option will remove all packages regardless of their type, ie without taking into account value of group_package_types configuration option. It is important to note that a given package can be in more than one group at a time, so the sequence groupinstall X Y followed by groupremove Y is not necessarily the same to only groupinstall X .