┌─ FILE ANALYSIS ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── ┐
│ DEVELOPER : Red Hat
│ CATEGORY : Executable
│ MIME TYPE : application/x-rpm
│ MAGIC BYTES : EDABEEDB
└ ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── ┘
What is an RPM file?
RPM (Red Hat Package Manager) is the default package format for Red Hat-based Linux distributions including RHEL, Fedora, CentOS, openSUSE, and Amazon Linux. RPM files contain compiled software, metadata, dependencies, and installation scripts. The rpm and dnf/yum tools manage RPM packages.
How to open RPM files
- dnf (Linux) —
sudo dnf install package.rpm - rpm (Linux) —
sudo rpm -i package.rpm - yum (Linux) —
sudo yum localinstall package.rpm - 7-Zip (Windows) — Extract and inspect
Technical specifications
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Format | cpio archive with RPM header |
| Compression | gzip, bzip2, xz, zstd |
| Metadata | Name, version, release, arch |
| Scripts | %pre, %post, %preun, %postun |
| Package Managers | dnf, yum, rpm, zypper |
Common use cases
- Enterprise Linux: RHEL and CentOS server software.
- Fedora desktop: Application installation.
- System updates: dnf/yum repository updates.
- RPM spec files: Building custom packages with rpmbuild.