yum – Manages packages with the yum package manager

Synopsis

  • Installs, upgrade, downgrades, removes, and lists packages and groups with the yum package manager.

  • This module only works on Python 2. If you require Python 3 support see the dnf module.

Requirements

The below requirements are needed on the host that executes this module.

  • yum

Parameters

Parameter Choices/Defaults Comments
allow_downgrade
boolean
added in 2.4
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
Specify if the named package and version is allowed to downgrade a maybe already installed higher version of that package. Note that setting allow_downgrade=True can make this module behave in a non-idempotent way. The task could end up with a set of packages that does not match the complete list of specified packages to install (because dependencies between the downgraded package and others can cause changes to the packages which were in the earlier transaction).
autoremove
boolean
added in 2.7
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
If yes, removes all "leaf" packages from the system that were originally installed as dependencies of user-installed packages but which are no longer required by any such package. Should be used alone or when state is absent
NOTE: This feature requires yum >= 3.4.3 (RHEL/CentOS 7+)
bugfix
-
added in 2.6
Default:
"no"
If set to yes, and state=latest then only installs updates that have been marked bugfix related.
conf_file
-
The remote yum configuration file to use for the transaction.
disable_excludes
-
added in 2.7
Disable the excludes defined in YUM config files.
If set to all, disables all excludes.
If set to main, disable excludes defined in [main] in yum.conf.
If set to repoid, disable excludes defined for given repo id.
disable_gpg_check
boolean
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
Whether to disable the GPG checking of signatures of packages being installed. Has an effect only if state is present or latest.
disable_plugin
-
added in 2.5
Plugin name to disable for the install/update operation. The disabled plugins will not persist beyond the transaction.
disablerepo
-
Repoid of repositories to disable for the install/update operation. These repos will not persist beyond the transaction. When specifying multiple repos, separate them with a ",".
As of Ansible 2.7, this can alternatively be a list instead of "," separated string
download_dir
string
added in 2.8
Specifies an alternate directory to store packages.
Has an effect only if download_only is specified.
download_only
boolean
added in 2.7
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
Only download the packages, do not install them.
enable_plugin
-
added in 2.5
Plugin name to enable for the install/update operation. The enabled plugin will not persist beyond the transaction.
enablerepo
-
Repoid of repositories to enable for the install/update operation. These repos will not persist beyond the transaction. When specifying multiple repos, separate them with a ",".
As of Ansible 2.7, this can alternatively be a list instead of "," separated string
exclude
-
Package name(s) to exclude when state=present, or latest
install_weak_deps
boolean
added in 2.8
    Choices:
  • no
  • yes ←
Will also install all packages linked by a weak dependency relation.
NOTE: This feature requires yum >= 4 (RHEL/CentOS 8+)
installroot
-
Default:
"/"
Specifies an alternative installroot, relative to which all packages will be installed.
list
-
Package name to run the equivalent of yum list --show-duplicates <package> against. In addition to listing packages, use can also list the following: installed, updates, available and repos.
This parameter is mutually exclusive with name.
lock_timeout
integer
added in 2.8
Default:
30
Amount of time to wait for the yum lockfile to be freed.
name
list / elements=string
A package name or package specifier with version, like name-1.0.
If a previous version is specified, the task also needs to turn allow_downgrade on. See the allow_downgrade documentation for caveats with downgrading packages.
When using state=latest, this can be '*' which means run yum -y update.
You can also pass a url or a local path to a rpm file (using state=present). To operate on several packages this can accept a comma separated string of packages or (as of 2.0) a list of packages.

aliases: pkg
releasever
-
added in 2.7
Specifies an alternative release from which all packages will be installed.
security
boolean
added in 2.4
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
If set to yes, and state=latest then only installs updates that have been marked security related.
skip_broken
boolean
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
Skip packages with broken dependencies(devsolve) and are causing problems.
state
-
    Choices:
  • absent
  • installed
  • latest
  • present
  • removed
Whether to install (present or installed, latest), or remove (absent or removed) a package.
present and installed will simply ensure that a desired package is installed.
latest will update the specified package if it's not of the latest available version.
absent and removed will remove the specified package.
Default is None, however in effect the default action is present unless the autoremove option is enabled for this module, then absent is inferred.
update_cache
boolean
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
Force yum to check if cache is out of date and redownload if needed. Has an effect only if state is present or latest.

aliases: expire-cache
update_only
boolean
added in 2.5
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
When using latest, only update installed packages. Do not install packages.
Has an effect only if state is latest
use_backend
-
added in 2.7
    Choices:
  • auto ←
  • yum
  • yum4
  • dnf
This module supports yum (as it always has), this is known as yum3/YUM3/yum-deprecated by upstream yum developers. As of Ansible 2.7+, this module also supports YUM4, which is the "new yum" and it has an dnf backend.
By default, this module will select the backend based on the ansible_pkg_mgr fact.
validate_certs
boolean
    Choices:
  • no
  • yes ←
This only applies if using a https url as the source of the rpm. e.g. for localinstall. If set to no, the SSL certificates will not be validated.
This should only set to no used on personally controlled sites using self-signed certificates as it avoids verifying the source site.
Prior to 2.1 the code worked as if this was set to yes.

Notes

Note

  • When used with a loop: each package will be processed individually, it is much more efficient to pass the list directly to the name option.

  • In versions prior to 1.9.2 this module installed and removed each package given to the yum module separately. This caused problems when packages specified by filename or url had to be installed or removed together. In 1.9.2 this was fixed so that packages are installed in one yum transaction. However, if one of the packages adds a new yum repository that the other packages come from (such as epel-release) then that package needs to be installed in a separate task. This mimics yum’s command line behaviour.

  • Yum itself has two types of groups. “Package groups” are specified in the rpm itself while “environment groups” are specified in a separate file (usually by the distribution). Unfortunately, this division becomes apparent to ansible users because ansible needs to operate on the group of packages in a single transaction and yum requires groups to be specified in different ways when used in that way. Package groups are specified as “@development-tools” and environment groups are “@^gnome-desktop-environment”. Use the “yum group list hidden ids” command to see which category of group the group you want to install falls into.

  • The yum module does not support clearing yum cache in an idempotent way, so it was decided not to implement it, the only method is to use command and call the yum command directly, namely “command: yum clean all” https://github.com/ansible/ansible/pull/31450#issuecomment-352889579

Examples

- name: install the latest version of Apache
  yum:
    name: httpd
    state: latest

- name: ensure a list of packages installed
  yum:
    name: "{{ packages }}"
  vars:
    packages:
    - httpd
    - httpd-tools

- name: remove the Apache package
  yum:
    name: httpd
    state: absent

- name: install the latest version of Apache from the testing repo
  yum:
    name: httpd
    enablerepo: testing
    state: present

- name: install one specific version of Apache
  yum:
    name: httpd-2.2.29-1.4.amzn1
    state: present

- name: upgrade all packages
  yum:
    name: '*'
    state: latest

- name: upgrade all packages, excluding kernel & foo related packages
  yum:
    name: '*'
    state: latest
    exclude: kernel*,foo*

- name: install the nginx rpm from a remote repo
  yum:
    name: http://nginx.org/packages/centos/6/noarch/RPMS/nginx-release-centos-6-0.el6.ngx.noarch.rpm
    state: present

- name: install nginx rpm from a local file
  yum:
    name: /usr/local/src/nginx-release-centos-6-0.el6.ngx.noarch.rpm
    state: present

- name: install the 'Development tools' package group
  yum:
    name: "@Development tools"
    state: present

- name: install the 'Gnome desktop' environment group
  yum:
    name: "@^gnome-desktop-environment"
    state: present

- name: List ansible packages and register result to print with debug later.
  yum:
    list: ansible
  register: result

- name: Install package with multiple repos enabled
  yum:
    name: sos
    enablerepo: "epel,ol7_latest"

- name: Install package with multiple repos disabled
  yum:
    name: sos
    disablerepo: "epel,ol7_latest"

- name: Install a list of packages
  yum:
    name:
      - nginx
      - postgresql
      - postgresql-server
    state: present

- name: Download the nginx package but do not install it
  yum:
    name:
      - nginx
    state: latest
    download_only: true

Status

Red Hat Support

More information about Red Hat’s support of this module is available from this Red Hat Knowledge Base article.

Authors

  • Ansible Core Team

  • Seth Vidal (@skvidal)

  • Eduard Snesarev (@verm666)

  • Berend De Schouwer (@berenddeschouwer)

  • Abhijeet Kasurde (@Akasurde)

  • Adam Miller (@maxamillion)

Hint

If you notice any issues in this documentation, you can edit this document to improve it.