Default Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and CentOS installations include only core system packages. To install modern software stacks, development tools, and updated dependencies, administrators frequently configure trusted third-party repositories.
Here are the most common repositories and how to enable them on CentOS / RHEL:
1. EPEL (Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux)
Maintained by the Fedora Special Interest Group, EPEL provides a massive collection of high-quality supplemental packages:
sudo yum install epel-release -y
2. IUS (Inline with Upstream Stable)
Provides up-to-date versions of key software (such as Python and Git) for Enterprise Linux:
sudo rpm -ivh https://repo.ius.io/ius-release-el7.rpm
3. Remi Repository
Maintained by Remi Collet, this is the standard repository for recent PHP releases and associated web tooling:
sudo rpm -ivh http://rpms.famillecollet.com/enterprise/remi-release-7.rpm
4. Repoforge (RPMforge)
(Archived reference): Formerly used for additional multimedia and utility tools:
sudo rpm -ivh http://pkgs.repoforge.org/rpmforge-release/rpmforge-release-0.5.3-1.el7.rf.x86_64.rpm
After installing your desired repository RPMs, clean and rebuild your YUM cache:
sudo yum clean all
sudo yum makecache