On RHEL 6 I seem to have EPEL installed, but it does not appear in yum. How can I activate it?

Question

On RHEL 6 I seem to have the EPEL repository installed but it does not appear in yum.

I tested that I have EPEL installed by installing it again from the downloaded rpm:
```
rpm -ivh epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm
```
This gives me the message: package epel-release-6-8.noarch is already installed
When I list all repositories available to yum via the command
```
yum repolist
```
however, I do not get EPEL in the output. Also when I search for packages provided by EPEl, they are not found (aspell dictionaries for example)
I tried to enable EPEL explicitly via the command-line switch --enablerepo=epel, but that returns a repository not found error.

So, how can I install, enable or 'activate' the EPEL repository for use with yum?

if you have epel rpm downloaded. then simply do force install via yum. or rpm -e epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm. — AReddy, Sep 6, 2017 at 5:33
@Mongrel Mmmmh, issuing rpm -e epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm I get "error: package epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm is not installed". — halloleo, Sep 6, 2017 at 6:07
@Mongrel Yes: yum install force epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm returns the message epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm: does not update installed package. Error: Nothing to do — halloleo, Sep 6, 2017 at 6:16
@Mongrel Cool, that's it! The reinstall command (with epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm) does the trick! Do you write it up as an answer, please? — halloleo, Sep 6, 2017 at 6:25

halloleo · Accepted Answer · 2017-09-06 06:55:22Z

4

You can try the command below which will reinstall the rpm.

yum reinstall epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm

halloleo

5297 silver badges22 bronze badges

answered Sep 6, 2017 at 6:43

AReddy

3,1225 gold badges35 silver badges75 bronze badges

Add a comment |

1 Answer 1