In this tutorial we will know, how to test rpm package before installation .You may have seen while installing the rpm package file by using rpm -i command, some problem may occur. It can be issue with dependency,GPG signature or corrupt rpm package etc.

As a Linux System Engineer,this command is very useful and should be in regular practice.
Mostly I use this command,it helps me to know before if there is any issue in rpm package installation.

Note: rpm command available in Red Hat based operating system.

How to test rpm package

To test the rpm package before installation we will use the --test option with rpm command.
The command will not install rpm package but it only test the rpm package.

Syntax:
Replace the PACKAGE-NAME.rpm with actual rpm package name in your system.

rpm -ivh --test PACKAGE-NAME.rpm

Example: In this example, we are testing epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm file. But here it will not install this file.
By using rpm -qa|grep epel , we are verifying if epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm is installed.Blank output shows ,epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm is not installed.

As well as,you can see there is no error message is shown.Hence, we can install epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm

[root@localhost ~]# rpm -ivh --test epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm 
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
[root@localhost ~]# 
[root@localhost ~]# rpm -qa|grep epel
[root@localhost ~]# 
[root@localhost ~]#