15.2.6. Querying

Use the rpm -q command to query the database of installed packages. The rpm -q foo command displays the package name, version, and release number of the installed package foo:
foo-2.0-1

Note

To query a package, replace foo with the actual package name.
Instead of specifying the package name, use the following options with -q to specify the package(s) you want to query. These are called Package Selection Options.
  • -a queries all currently installed packages.
  • -f <file> queries the package which owns <file>. When specifying a file, you must specify the full path of the file (for example, /bin/ls).
  • -p <packagefile> queries the package <packagefile>.
There are a number of ways to specify what information to display about queried packages. The following options are used to select the type of information for which you are searching. These are called Information Query Options.
  • -i displays package information including name, description, release, size, build date, install date, vendor, and other miscellaneous information.
  • -l displays the list of files that the package contains.
  • -s displays the state of all the files in the package.
  • -d displays a list of files marked as documentation (man pages, info pages, READMEs, etc.).
  • -c displays a list of files marked as configuration files. These are the files you change after installation to adapt the package to your system (for example, sendmail.cf, passwd, inittab, etc.).
For the options that display lists of files, add -v to the command to display the lists in a familiar ls -l format.