In this tutorial, we will walk you through the steps to manually install the EPEL (Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux) repository on CentOS. The EPEL repository provides additional packages that are not available in the default CentOS repositories, enhancing your CentOS system’s functionality.

Determine the CentOS Version

First, determine the CentOS version you are using by running the following command:

cat /etc/centos-release

Take note of the CentOS version, as you will need it in the following steps.

Download the EPEL Repository RPM Package

Download the EPEL repository RPM package using the wget command. Replace the X in the URL with your CentOS version number:

For CentOS 7:

wget https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm

For CentOS 8:

wget https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-8.noarch.rpm

Install the EPEL Repository

Once the RPM package is downloaded, install the EPEL repository by running the following command:

For CentOS 7:

sudo rpm -ivh epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm

For CentOS 8:

sudo rpm -ivh epel-release-latest-8.noarch.rpm

Verify the EPEL Repository Installation

Verify that the EPEL repository has been installed and enabled by running the following command:

yum repolist

You should see the EPEL repository listed in the output.

Now, the EPEL repository has been manually installed and enabled on your CentOS system, and you can use it to install additional packages not available in the default CentOS repositories.