Changes between DNF and DNF5

This chapter describes the differences between DNF5 and DNF.

Changes on the CLI

Options

Global options scoping

Options that cannot be applied to all commands or may be applicable but have no effect are removed from general options and implemented only for related commands.

Examples: --best, --no-best are only relevant to several transaction commands.

Options renaming

Renaming boolean options to the following formats:

  • --<option> and --no-<option>

  • --enable-<option> and --disable-<option>

The options with original names are retained for now as compatibility aliases.

Examples: --best and --no-best.

Strict behavior

  • Options --disable-repo=REPO_ID and --setopt=[REPO_ID.]OPTION=VALUE now consistently result in an error when provided with an invalid REPO_ID.

  • The behavior is now aligned with the --repo=REPO_ID and --enable-repo=REPO_ID.

  • The strict configuration option is no longer considered, see the strict option deprecation for more information.

No value separator after short options

Short options do not have a separator between the option name and the option value. E.g. dnf -x package is equivalent to dnf --exclude package and dnf --exclude=package long forms. But dnf -x=package means dnf --exclude =package.

Changes to individual options

-4/-6

  • Dropped. Now only the ip_resolve configuration option is available.

--disableexcludes and --disableexcludepkgs

  • Dropped. Now only the disable_excludes configuration option is available.

--disable, --enable

  • Dropped along with the previously existing alternatives --set-disabled and --set-enabled.

  • Currently, this can only be achieved through the config-manager plugin.

    • For example, to disable the fedora repository: dnf config-manager setopt fedora.enabled=0.

--downloaddir

  • Dropped. Now only the --destdir is used for the download command.

  • When downloading packages using the system-upgrade or offline command, the target path construction now utilizes the configured installroot and cachedir options.

-e, --errorlevel

  • Both the --errorlevel option and errorlevel configuration option are dropped.

--help-cmd

  • Dropped. Now only the -h or --help options are available.

--installroot

  • New behavior introduced to define from which place the configuration and variables are loaded.

  • See the installroot documentation for more information.

--noautoremove

  • Applicable only for the remove command now. As a workaround for other commands, you can use --setopt=clean_requirements_on_remove=False.

--obsoletes

  • Dropped. Now only the obsoletes configuration option is available.

-R, --randomwait

  • Dropped.

--rpmverbosity

  • Dropped. Now only the rpmverbosity configuration option is available.

--sec-severity

  • Renamed to --advisory-severities.

-v, --verbose

  • Not implemented at present. May be added for specific commands in the future.

--version

  • Behavior is different now. See the main man page for more details.

Newly introduced options

--allow-downgrade

  • Along with --no-allow-downgrade, these options enable/disable the downgrade of dependencies when resolving transactions.

  • New respective configuration options have also been created.

  • Applicable to install, upgrade, and related commands.

--dump-main-config

  • Along with related --dump-repo-config=REPO_ID, these are new options to print configuration values on the standard output.

--offline

  • Store the transaction to be performed offline.

  • Applicable to all relevant transactional commands.

  • See the Offline command for more information.

--show-new-leaves

  • Show newly installed leaf packages and packages that became leaves after a transaction.

--skip-unavailable

  • Allow skipping packages that are not available in repositories.

  • Not to be confused with the skip_if_unavailable configuration option.

  • Applicable to install, upgrade, and related commands.

  • See also the strict option deprecation for more information.

--use-host-config

Commands

Optional subcommands

Commands cannot have optional subcommands. Optional subcommands were ambiguous, making it unclear whether the input was intended as a command argument or a subcommand. Subcommands are now mandatory if present.

Examples:

  • Before: dnf history <transaction ID> Now: dnf history info <transaction ID>

  • Before: dnf updateinfo Now: dnf updateinfo summary

Changes to individual commands

alias
automatic

  • Now a DNF5 plugin.

  • The specific systemd units, dnf-automatic-download, dnf-automatic-install, and dnf-automatic-notifyonly, have been dropped. Only one dnf5-automatic timer is shipped.

  • The emitters.send_error_messages config option has been dropped. DNF5 automatic always informs the user about failed operations using configured emitters.

  • See the Automatic command for more information.

autoremove

  • Dropped the <spec> positional argument since the use case is sufficiently covered by the remove command.

  • Specific variants of the command, autoremove-n, autoremove-na, and autoremove-nevra, are not supported anymore.

builddep

  • The --spec and --srpm options only apply to arguments that follow them. This allows for use cases that combine spec files and source RPMs (e.g., dnf5 builddep --spec pkg1.spec.in --srpm pkg2.src.rpm). However, the previously supported syntax dnf builddep pkg1.spec.in --spec no longer has any effect.

config-manager

  • New behavior introduced.

  • Parameters are replaced by subcommands.

    • Examples:

      • Before: --add-repo Now: addrepo

      • Before: --save --setopt Now: setopt

  • Existing repository files are not modified; drop-in override files are created instead.

  • Dropped the --dump option:

    • To dump main configuration options use dnf5 --dump-main-config command.

    • To dump a repository configuration use dnf5 --dump-repo-config=REPO_ID command.

  • Dropped the --dump-variables option, use dnf5 --dump-variables command instead.

  • See the config-manager documentation for more information.

debuginfo-install

  • Now does not support autoupdate functionality. The permanent enablement of debug repositories can be achieved using config-manager command.

distro-sync

  • Now when any argument doesn’t match an installed package, DNF5 fails. The behavior can be modified by the --skip-unavailable option.

  • Dropped distrosync and distribution-synchronization aliases.

downgrade

  • Now when any argument doesn’t match an installed package, DNF5 fails. The behavior can be modified by the --skip-unavailable option.

download

  • Option --source was renamed to --srpm.

  • Dropped --downloaddir argument, only --destdir is supported now.

group

  • New option --contains-pkgs to filter only groups containing specific packages.

  • Dropped --ids argument as group ids are always in the output now.

  • Dropped group mark install and group mark remove subcommands in favor of the new --no-packages option for the install and remove commands.

    • E.g. to mark a group as installed without touching any packages, dnf5 group install --no-packages <group_id> command can be used.

  • Dropped groupinstall alias. It is replaced by dnf group install.

  • Dropped groupinfo alias. It is replaced by dnf group info.

  • Dropped grouplist alias. It is replaced by dnf group list.

  • Dropped grouperase alias. It is replaced by dnf group remove.

  • Dropped groupremove alias. It is replaced by dnf group remove.

  • Dropped groupupdate alias. It is replaced by dnf group upgrade.

  • Dropped groups alias. It is replaced by dnf group.

help

  • Dropped. The functionality is replaced by the --help option.

history

  • Subcommands are now mandatory: dnf history has to be now dnf5 history list.

  • The history commands now only accept transaction ID arguments; to filter by packages, use the --contains-pkgs=PACKAGE_NAME,... option, available for list and info.

  • undo subcommand now accepts --ignore-extras and --ignore-installed like original history replay command.

  • userinstalled subcommand was dropped. It is replaced by dnf repoquery --userinstalled.

  • store subcommand now creates a directory with transaction JSON file instead of a single transaction JSON file directly.

  • store subcommand’s --output option now accepts a directory path instead of a file. The default is ./transaction.

  • replay subcommand was moved to a standalone replay command, that now accepts a path to a directory instead of a file path. The directory can be created with --store option and in addition to the JSON transaction, it can contain packages, group and environments used in the transaction.

  • info subcommand now prints a separate section for each selected transaction. It no longer merges all selected transactions into a single transaction section.

info

  • Dropped --all option since this behavior is the default one.

  • Dropped --updates option, only --upgrades is available now.

install

  • Dropped install-n, install-na and install-nevra command variants.

list

  • Dropped --all option since this behavior is the default one.

  • Changed the behavior of the --available option.

    • In DNF4, only packages not installed or with higher versions were listed. This behavior remains unchanged when the option is not used, reducing duplications in the “Installed Packages” section.

    • When using the --available option, DNF5 considers all versions available in enabled repositories, irrespective of the installed version.

  • For installed packages print from which repository was the package installed and if the information is not available print <unknown>. This differs to DNF4 which if the information wasn’t available printed @System.

makecache

  • Metadata is now stored in different directories, see the cachedir configuration option changes for more details.

  • The --timer option has been dropped in favor of the systemd OnUnitInactiveSec setting in dnf5-makecache.timer and the ConditionACPower setting in dnf5-makecache.service.

  • Now tries to avoid downloading whenever possible (e.g. when the local metadata hasn’t expired yet or when the metadata timestamp hasn’t changed). Pass --refresh to force refreshing of metadata. This was the intended behavior in DNF4 also, but dnf4 makecache always refreshed repositories due to a bug.

mark

  • Renaming subcommands to be more intuitive: install -> user, remove -> dependency.

  • New weak subcommand to mark a package as a weak dependency.

  • Now when any argument doesn’t match an installed package, DNF5 fails. The behavior can be modified by the --skip-unavailable option.

module

  • Dropped --all option since this behavior is the default one.

needs-restarting

  • Command no longer scans for open files to determine outdated files still in use. The default behavior now aligns with DNF 4’s --reboothint, suggesting a system reboot depending on updated packages since the last boot.

  • Reboot recommendations are now triggered if any package with a reboot_suggested advisory has been installed or updated.

  • The -s, --services option no longer scans for open files. Instead, restarting a service is recommended if any dependency of the service-providing package or the package itself has been updated since the service started.

  • Dropped -r, --reboothint option since this behavior is now the default one.

  • Dropped -u, --useronly option.

offline-distrosync

  • Now it’s an alias of dnf5 distro-sync --offline.

offline-upgrade

  • Now it’s an alias of dnf5 upgrade --offline.

remove

  • Command no longer removes packages according to provides, but only based on NEVRA or file provide match.

  • Dropped commands remove-n, remove-na, remove-nevra.

  • Specific variants of the command, remove-n, remove-na, and remove-nevra, are not supported anymore.

    • Dropped also the related aliases, erase, erase-n, erase-na and erase-nevra.

repoclosure

  • Dropped --pkg option. Positional arguments can now be used to specify packages to check closure for.

reposync

  • Dropped --downloadcomps option. Consider using --download-metadata option which downloads all available repository metadata, not only comps groups.

repolist

  • The repolist and repoinfo commands are now subcommands of the repo command: repo list and repo info.

    • Original commands still exist as compatibility aliases.

  • Options -v and --verbose have been removed. The functionality is replaced by the repo info command (already in DNF4 as repoinfo).

  • When no repositories are configured, empty output is now provided instead of displaying “No repositories available”.

repoquery

  • Dropped: -a/--all, --alldeps, --nevra options. Their behavior is and has been the default for both DNF4 and DNF5, so the options are no longer needed.

  • Dropped: --envra, --nvr, --unsatisfied options. They are no longer supported.

  • Dropped: repoquery-n, repoquery-na and repoquery-nevra command variants.

  • Dropped: --archlist alias for --arch.

  • Dropped: -f alias for --file. Also, the arguments to --file are separated by commas instead of spaces.

  • Moved --groupmember option to the info and list subcommands of the group and advisory commands, renaming it to --contains-pkgs.

  • --queryformat, --qf no longer prints an additional newline at the end of each formatted string, bringing it closer to the behavior of rpm --query. To get the newline, use an explicit \n sequence in the formatting string.

  • --queryformat no longer supports size tag because it was printing install size for installed packages and download size for not-installed packages, which could be confusing.

  • Option --source was renamed to --sourcerpm, and it now matches queryformat’s sourcerpm tag.

  • Option --resolve was changed to --providers-of=PACKAGE_ATTRIBUTE. It no longer interacts with the formatting options such as --requires, --provides, --suggests, etc. Instead, it takes the PACKAGE_ATTRIBUTE value directly.

    • For example, dnf rq --resolve --requires glibc is now dnf rq --providers-of=requires glibc.

  • See the Repoquery command for more information.

system-upgrade

  • Moved from a plugin to a built-in command.

upgrade

  • New option --minimal.

    • upgrade-minimal still exists as a compatibility alias for upgrade --minimal.

  • Now when any argument doesn’t match an installed package, DNF5 fails. The behavior can be modified by the --skip-unavailable option.

  • Dropped upgrade-to and localupdate aliases.

  • Dropped --skip-broken option, as it was already available in DNF4 only for compatibility reasons with YUM, but has no effect.

    • Instead, decisions about package selection and handling dependency issues are based on the best or no-best options.

updateinfo

  • Renamed the command to advisory

    • updateinfo still exists as a compatibility alias.

  • Subcommands are now mandatory: dnf updateinfo is now dnf5 advisory summary.

  • Options --summary, --list and --info have been changed to subcommands. See dnf5 advisory --help.

  • Option --sec-severity has been renamed to --advisory-severities=ADVISORY_SEVERITY,....

  • The advisory commands now only accept advisory IDs; to filter by packages, use the --contains-pkgs=PACKAGE_NAME,... option.

  • Dropped deprecated aliases: list-updateinfo, list-security, list-sec, info-updateinfo, info-security, info-sec, summary-updateinfo.

  • Dropped upif alias.

versionlock

Changes on the API

PackageSet::operator[]

It was removed due to insufficient O(n^2) performance. Use PackageSet iterator to access the data instead.

Package::get_epoch()

The return type was changed from unsigned long to std::string.

DNF: Package.size, libdnf: dnf_package_get_size()

The return value was ambiguous, returning either package or install size. Use Package::get_download_size() and Package::get_install_size() instead.

dnf_sack_set_installonly, dnf_sack_get_installonly, dnf_sack_set_installonly_limit, dnf_sack_get_installonly_limit

The functions were dropped as unneeded. The installonly packages are taken directly from main Conf in Base.

Query::filter() - HY_PKG_UPGRADES_BY_PRIORITY, HY_PKG_OBSOLETES_BY_PRIORITY, HY_PKG_LATEST_PER_ARCH_BY_PRIORITY

The priority filter was separated into a standalone method. Combine query.filter_priority() with query.filter_latest_evr() or another filter to achieve the original functionality.

Query::filter() - HY_PKG_LATEST

The filter was replaced with filter_latest_evr() which has the same behavior as HY_PKG_LATEST_PER_ARCH

ConfigMain::proxy_auth_method() and ConfigRepo::proxy_auth_method()

The return types were changed. OptionEnum<std::string> was replaced by OptionStringSet. A combination of several authentication methods (for example “basic” and “digest”) can now be used. This allows using a list of authentication methods in configuration files and the DNF5 command line “–setopt=proxy_auth_method=”.

Changes to configuration

Deprecation of the strict option

strict configuration option is now deprecated due to its dual functionality:

  1. It allows the solver to skip uninstallable packages to resolve dependency problems.

  2. It permits DNF to skip unavailable packages (mostly for the install command).

To address this, the functionality has been split into two configuration options:

  • skip_broken for uninstallable packages.

  • skip_unavailable for packages not present in repositories.

Additionally, corresponding command-line options --skip-broken and --skip-unavailable have been introduced for commands where applicable.

Deprecation of the metadata_timer_sync option

The metadata_timer_sync configuration option is now obsoleted by the dnf5-makecache.timer systemd timer settings.

Deprecation of the retries option

The retries configuration option is now deprecated. In dnf4, despite being documented as the number of retries for downloading packages, it was only used to limit the number of package re-downloads due to deltarpm errors. Deltarpm support is currently not planned for DNF5.

Deprecation of the deltarpm and deltarpm_percentage options

Support for delta RPMs is not planned for DNF5.

Changes to individual options

best

  • Default value is changed to true.

  • The new default value ensures that important updates will not be skipped and issues in distribution will be reported earlier.

cachedir

  • The default user cached dir is now at ~/.cache/libdnf5.

  • The default root cache directory, configured by the system_cachedir option, is now /var/cache/libdnf5.

  • Users no longer access the root’s cache directly; instead, metadata is copied to the user’s location if it’s empty or invalid.

  • For additional information, refer to the Caching man page.

cacheonly

  • The option was changed from bool to enum with options all, metadata and none.

    • This enables users to specify whether to use the cache exclusively for metadata or for both metadata and packages.

disable_excludes

  • To disable all configuration file excludes, the * glob character is used now instead of the all to unify the behavior with query objects on the API.

keepcache

  • The behavior has been slightly modified, see the Caching man page for more information.

optional_metadata_types

  • Default value is now: comps,updateinfo.

  • Supported values are now extended to the following list: comps, filelists, other, presto, updateinfo.

Newly introduced configuration options

allow_downgrade

  • New option used to enable or disable downgrade of dependencies when resolving transaction.

skip_broken, skip_unavailable, strict

  • New options skip_broken, skip_unavailable were added due to deprecation of strict option.

  • See the strict deprecation above.

Dropped configuration options

arch and basearch

  • It is no longer possible to change the detected architecute in configuration files.

  • See the dnf5-forcearch(7), Forcearch parameter for overriding architecture.

errorlevel

  • The option was deprecated in dnf < 5 and is dropped now.