83

I am trying to install a 3rd-party RPM package on RHEL5 which depends on version 3.4 of sqlite. According to Yum I already have 3.3.6 installed.

Is there a way to list the installed packages that depend on sqlite 3.3.6?

6 Answers 6

82

Answer

repoquery -q --installed --whatrequires sqlite

Explanations

There is another command, rpm -q --whatrequires sqlite, but it doesn't really work since it only reports dependencies on package names.

On the contrary, repoquery also looks for non-explicit dependencies. Excerpt from manpage:

   --alldeps
          When used with --whatrequires, look for non-explicit dependencies in addition to explicit ones (e.g. files and Provides  in  addition  to  package  names).
          This is the default.

Example

Let's take package libdb.

# rpm -q --whatrequires libdb
no package requires libdb

If we trust rpm, no package depends on libdb so we should be able to remove it smoothly. However...

# yum remove -y libdb
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package libdb.x86_64 0:5.3.21-19.el7 will be erased
--> Processing Dependency: libdb(x86-64) = 5.3.21-19.el7 for package: libdb-utils-5.3.21-19.el7.x86_64
--> Processing Dependency: libdb-5.3.so()(64bit) for package: pam-1.1.8-12.el7_1.1.x86_64
--> Processing Dependency: libdb-5.3.so()(64bit) for package: rpm-4.11.3-17.el7.x86_64
--> Processing Dependency: libdb-5.3.so()(64bit) for package: rpm-libs-4.11.3-17.el7.x86_64
--> Processing Dependency: libdb-5.3.so()(64bit) for package: libdb-utils-5.3.21-19.el7.x86_64
--> Processing Dependency: libdb-5.3.so()(64bit) for package: cyrus-sasl-lib-2.1.26-20.el7_2.x86_64
--> Processing Dependency: libdb-5.3.so()(64bit) for package: rpm-python-4.11.3-17.el7.x86_64
--> Processing Dependency: libdb-5.3.so()(64bit) for package: python-libs-2.7.5-39.el7_2.x86_64
--> Processing Dependency: libdb-5.3.so()(64bit) for package: rpm-devel-4.11.3-17.el7.x86_64
--> Processing Dependency: libdb-5.3.so()(64bit) for package: 2:postfix-2.10.1-6.el7.x86_64
--> Processing Dependency: libdb-5.3.so()(64bit) for package: rpm-build-libs-4.11.3-17.el7.x86_64
--> Processing Dependency: libdb-5.3.so()(64bit) for package: iproute-3.10.0-54.el7_2.1.x86_64
--> Running transaction check
. . .
. . .
. . .
Error: Trying to remove "systemd", which is protected
Error: Trying to remove "yum", which is protected

As you can see some other packages were depending not directly on package libdb, but on file libdb-5.3.so()(64bit) provided by it.

Finally, when using repoquery we get the real list of packages depending on libdb:

# repoquery -q --installed --whatrequires libdb
cyrus-sasl-lib-0:2.1.26-20.el7_2.x86_64
iproute-0:3.10.0-54.el7_2.1.x86_64
libdb-utils-0:5.3.21-19.el7.x86_64
pam-0:1.1.8-12.el7_1.1.x86_64
postfix-2:2.10.1-6.el7.x86_64
python-libs-0:2.7.5-39.el7_2.x86_64
rpm-0:4.11.3-17.el7.x86_64
rpm-build-libs-0:4.11.3-17.el7.x86_64
rpm-devel-0:4.11.3-17.el7.x86_64
rpm-libs-0:4.11.3-17.el7.x86_64
rpm-python-0:4.11.3-17.el7.x86_64
2
  • 3
    This answer is better than the accepted answer
    – Pancho
    Aug 23, 2018 at 20:55
  • If repoquery command doesn't exist try yum install yum-utils
    – sparrowt
    Apr 12, 2022 at 9:52
77

The rpm option you want is:

rpm -q --whatrequires sqlite

Edited: added --installed per discussion in other answers/comments

Edited: removed --installed as it is an invalid option for rpm

4
  • 4
    Further, repoquery can be used to generate a nice tree like structure of all packages that require a particular package, for example: repoquery --pkgnarrow=installed --tree-whatrequires sqlite
    – pdp
    Oct 23, 2017 at 17:17
  • 4
    I don't agree that this answer is reliable - certainly not on CentOS 7.x . To test, install ImageMagick. OpenEXR-libs will also be installed as ImageMagick depends on it. Now run rpm -q --whatrequires OpenEXR-libs and the return is "no package requires OpenEXR-libs" which is INCORRECT. Now run "repoquery -q --installed --whatrequires OpenEXR-libs" and it correctly returns "ImageMagick-0:6.7.8.9-15.el7_2.x86_64". @just a random guy's answer below should be the correct answer here.
    – Pancho
    Aug 23, 2018 at 20:53
  • 6
    --installed is an option for repoquery but is invalid for rpm.
    – Dan Rice
    Sep 10, 2018 at 16:25
  • 1
    I think that rpm -q only reports package dependencies and not library (*.so) dependencies. Jun 9, 2021 at 11:02
19

For dnf (new version of yum) you may try with repoquery wrapper command:

dnf repoquery --whatrequires sqlite

If it is not available you may install it with command:

dnf -y install dnf-plugins-core
1
  • 2
    You need --installed --recursive at the end so it only returns what's actually installed and doesn't pull from the repositories
    – Hashbrown
    Dec 17, 2018 at 23:49
7

You could also try this command out.

repoquery --whatrequires sqlite

I got this command from ServerFault and also from The Fedora Forums.

2
  • 1
    This returned packages I didn't have installed.
    – 2rs2ts
    Apr 5, 2016 at 22:35
  • 1
    As @Hashbrown mentioned, add --installed at the end. Sep 30, 2020 at 14:55
3

I think what you really want to know is "what are the packages which require sqlite-3.3.6, but won't be happy with sqlite-3.4.z" ... and the only good way of finding that out, is to try it. Like:

echo | yum upgrade sqlite
1

As Wes Hardaker said, a good built-in method is by using rpm -q --whatrequires <package>. The thing is, rpm operates on capabilities for dependency resolution, not just simply on packages, as e.g. dpkg does in the Debian/Ubuntu family of Linux distributions. As others have noted, simply doing rpm -q --whatrequires sqlite doesn't tell the whole story, hence why some suggested using repoquery. repoquery, however, isn't installed by default in RHEL/CentOS 7 minimal (maybe desktop too?), so it may not be available for everyone.

A user can do rpm -q --provides <pkgname> to see all the capabilities a package provides, then use rpm -q --whatrequires <capability> to see what installed packages require that capability. This info can be succinctly queried using a BASH one-liner (separated here into two lines for length):

capabilities=($(rpm -q --provides sqlite | awk -F= '{print $1}'));
for c in "${capabilities[@]}"; do rpm -q --whatrequires "$c"; done

This only uses options built-in to rpm itself, and so it doesn't require installing any additional packages (e.g. yum-utils in CentOS 7, which is the package that contains repoquery).

1
  • 1
    Was using this a while ago, and came across a specific instance - installed docker-compose (via epel) in Centos7 - using the above to figure out what depends on python3-pip, and it only included python3 (which was expected). However, further recursion on python3 (now answer, "what is removed if you remove python3-pip"), and everything that relied on python was also included (due to python(abi) = 3.6 line, I think). So take the results with a grain of salt :) Things get weird when you get to "base" capabilities (like python)
    – Jon V
    Nov 24, 2021 at 14:50

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .