🐧 Fedora DNF Cheat Sheet

📦 Installing & Removing

sudo dnf install <pkg>       # install package
sudo dnf remove <pkg>        # uninstall package
  • -y → auto-confirm yes
sudo dnf install -y <pkg>

🔄 Updating

sudo dnf upgrade             # upgrade all packages
sudo dnf upgrade <pkg>       # upgrade single package
  • --refresh → ignore old cache, fetch fresh repo data

🔎 Searching & Info

dnf search <keyword>         # search packages
dnf info <pkg>               # details about package

🗂 Repositories

dnf repolist                 # list enabled repos
dnf repolist all             # list all repos

Manage repos with config-manager (from dnf-plugins-core):

sudo dnf config-manager --add-repo <url>    # add new repo
sudo dnf config-manager --set-enabled <repoid>
sudo dnf config-manager --set-disabled <repoid>

📝 Example

Let’s say you want to add the Docker CE repo (so you can install Docker directly from Docker’s official packages).

  1. Add the repo:

    sudo dnf config-manager --add-repo https://download.docker.com/linux/fedora/docker-ce.repo

  2. Then install Docker:

    sudo dnf install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io

👉 Different vendors (like Oracle, Microsoft, Google) give you a similar .repo URL or a .repo file to place in /etc/yum.repos.d/. Once added, you can install their packages with normal dnf install.

🧹 Cleaning Cache

sudo dnf clean all     # clear ALL cached metadata & packages
sudo dnf makecache     # rebuild cache with fresh repo metadata
  • Use clean all if cache is outdated/corrupted or you want to free space.
  • Use makecache to pre-load fresh repo info for faster installs/search.

🕵️ Useful Extras

dnf list installed     # show installed packages
dnf list available     # show available packages
dnf list updates       # show upgradable packages

dnf provides /path/to/file   # find which package owns a file

🛠 If Package is Missing

  1. Flatpak (universal packages):

    flatpak install flathub <app-id>

    Example:

    flatpak install flathub com.mysql.Workbench

  2. Vendor repo: add vendor’s .repo (with config-manager or manual file in /etc/yum.repos.d/), then install via dnf install.

✅ Quick Survival Rules

  • Try dnf first (Fedora repos).
  • If not there → use Flatpak (Flathub).
  • Still missing → add vendor repo.
  • If things act weird → sudo dnf clean all && sudo dnf makecache.

📚 Understanding dnf config-manager

🔧 What is dnf config-manager?

  • config-manager is a subcommand (plugin) of dnf.
  • It’s not installed by default on minimal Fedora systems, but it comes with the package dnf-plugins-core. If you don’t have it, install it:
sudo dnf install dnf-plugins-core

Once installed, you get extra commands like dnf config-manager.

🏷️ What does it do?

It’s used to manage DNF/YUM repo configurations. Think of it as a helper to enable, disable, or add new repositories without manually editing files.

🚩 Common Flags (Options)

  • --add-repo <url> → Add a new repository (from a .repo file or repo URL).
  • --set-enabled <repoid> → Enable a repo that exists but is disabled.
  • --set-disabled <repoid> → Disable a repo temporarily or permanently.

Example:

Enable the fedora-modular repo:

sudo dnf config-manager --set-enabled fedora-modular

Disable it:

sudo dnf config-manager --set-disabled fedora-modular

🗂 Manual Alternative

Without config-manager, you could manually place .repo files into:

/etc/yum.repos.d/

Each .repo file is just a config text file telling DNF where to fetch packages. Example file /etc/yum.repos.d/docker.repo:

[docker-ce-stable]
name=Docker CE Stable - $basearch
baseurl=https://download.docker.com/linux/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/stable
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://download.docker.com/linux/fedora/gpg

✅ Summary:

  • dnf config-manager = a helper command from dnf-plugins-core.
  • --add-repo = quick way to add new repos.
  • Other useful flags: --set-enabled, --set-disabled.
  • If you don’t want to use it, you can always just drop a .repo file into /etc/yum.repos.d/.