How do I enable the EPEL repository for my Amazon EC2 instance running CentOS, RHEL, or Amazon Linux?

Last updated: 2022-07-25

I have an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance running CentOS, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), or Amazon Linux. How do I enable access to the Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) repository to allow installation of packages that aren't available in standard repositories?

Short description

Standard repositories might not provide all the packages that can be installed on CentOS, RHEL, or Amazon Linux-based distributions. Enabling the EPEL repository provides additional options for package installation.

Resolution

Follow these steps to download, install, and enable the EPEL repository on RHEL, CentOS, or Amazon Linux-based distributions.

To verify the distribution, run the following command:

cat /etc/os-release

Amazon Linux

Amazon Linux 2:

Install the EPEL release package for RHEL 7 and enable the EPEL repository:

sudo amazon-linux-extras install epel -y

RHEL

RHEL 8:

Install the EPEL release package for RHEL 8. Enable both the EPEL and CodeReady Builder repositories. The CodeReady Builder repository contains development tools required by many EPEL packages:

sudo dnf install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-8.noarch.rpm -y
sudo /usr/bin/crb enable

RHEL 7:

Install and enable the EPEL release package for RHEL 7:

sudo yum -y install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm

CentOS

CentOS 8:

Install the EPEL release package for RHEL 8. Enable both the EPEL and PowerTools repositories. The PowerTools repository contains development tools required by many EPEL packages:

sudo sed -i 's/mirrorlist/#mirrorlist/g' /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-*
sudo sed -i 's|#baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org|baseurl=http://vault.centos.org|g' /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-*
sudo dnf install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-8.noarch.rpm -y
sudo dnf config-manager --set-enabled PowerTools

CentOS 7:

Install and enable the EPEL release package. CentOS 7 includes the epel-release package in the base repositories: