• Introduction
• Examples
• Cheat sheet

Introduction

Zypper is a replacement for for extremely bad (unusable and unreliable) rug. This is huge improvement as zypper is a usable tool.

This is what you will probably use most frequently.

zypper                 # to print the list of available global options and commands
zypper help search     # to print help for the search command

zypper lr              # list repositories
zypper lp              # to see what patch updates are needed
zypper patch           # to apply the needed patches
zypper se sqlite       # to search for sqlite
zypper rm sqlite2      # to remove sqlite2

zypper in sqlite3                        # to install sqlite3
zypper --non-interactive in sqlite3      # to install sqlite3 in non inteeractive mode 

zypper in yast*        # to install all packages matching 'yast*'
zypper up              # to update all installed packages with newer versions, where possible

At the same time this is nothing, but an attempt to match YUM (aka reinventing the bicycle )

 zypper [--global-options]  [--command-options] [arguments]

        --help, -h              Help.
        --version, -V           Output the version number.
        --promptids             Output a list of zypper's user prompts.
        --config, -c      Use specified config file instead of the default.
        --quiet, -q             Suppress normal output, print only error
                                messages.
        --verbose, -v           Increase verbosity.
        --no-abbrev, -A         Do not abbreviate text in tables.
        --table-style, -s       Table style (integer).
        --rug-compatible, -r    Turn on rug compatibility.
        --non-interactive, -n   Do not ask anything, use default answers
                                automatically.
        --non-interactive-include-reboot-patches
                                Do not treat patches as interactive, which have
                                the rebootSuggested-flag set.
        --xmlout, -x            Switch to XML output.

        --reposd-dir, -D <dir>  Use alternative repository definition file
                                directory.
        --cache-dir, -C <dir>   Use alternative directory for all caches.
        --raw-cache-dir <dir>   Use alternative raw meta-data cache directory.
        --solv-cache-dir <dir>  Use alternative solv file cache directory.
        --pkg-cache-dir <dir>   Use alternative package cache directory.

        --no-gpg-checks         Ignore GPG check failures and continue.
        --gpg-auto-import-keys  Automatically trust and import new repository
                                signing keys.
        --plus-repo, -p    Use an additional repository.
        --disable-repositories  Do not read meta-data from repositories.
        --no-refresh            Do not refresh the repositories.
        --no-cd                 Ignore CD/DVD repositories.
        --no-remote             Ignore remote repositories.

        --root, -R <dir>        Operate on a different root directory.
        --disable-system-resolvables
                                Do not read installed packages.

        help, ?                 Print help.
        shell, sh               Accept multiple commands at once.

        repos, lr               List all defined repositories.
        addrepo, ar             Add a new repository.
        removerepo, rr          Remove specified repository.
        renamerepo, nr          Rename specified repository.
        modifyrepo, mr          Modify specified repository.
        refresh, ref            Refresh all repositories.
        clean                   Clean local caches.

        services, ls            List all defined services.
        addservice, as          Add a new service.
        modifyservice, ms       Modify specified service.
        removeservice, rs       Remove specified service.
        refresh-services, refs  Refresh all services.

        install, in             Install packages.
        remove, rm              Remove packages.
        verify, ve              Verify integrity of package dependencies.
        source-install, si      Install source packages and their build
                                dependencies.
        install-new-recommends, inr
                                Install newly added packages recommended
                                by installed packages.

        update, up              Update installed packages with newer versions.
        list-updates, lu        List available updates.
        patch                   Install needed patches.
        list-patches, lp        List needed patches.
        dist-upgrade, dup       Perform a distribution upgrade.
        patch-check, pchk       Check for patches.

        search, se              Search for packages matching a pattern.
        info, if                Show full information for specified packages.
        patch-info              Show full information for specified patches.
        pattern-info            Show full information for specified patterns.
        product-info            Show full information for specified products.
        patches, pch            List all available patches.
        packages, pa            List all available packages.
        patterns, pt            List all available patterns.
        products, pd            List all available products.
        what-provides, wp       List packages providing specified capability.

        addlock, al             Add a package lock.
        removelock, rl          Remove a package lock.
        locks, ll               List current package locks.
        cleanlocks, cl          Remove unused locks.

        versioncmp, vcmp        Compare two version strings.
        targetos, tos           Print the target operating system ID string.
        licenses                Print report about licenses and EULAs of

Examples

This is what you will probably use most frequently.

zypper                 # to print the list of available global options and commands
zypper help search     # to print help for the search command

zypper lr              # list repositories
zypper lp              # to see what patch updates are needed
zypper patch           # to apply the needed patches
zypper se sqlite       # to search for sqlite
zypper rm sqlite2      # to remove sqlite2

zypper in sqlite3                        # to install sqlite3
zypper --non-interactive in sqlite3      # to install sqlite3 in non inteeractive mode 

zypper in yast*        # to install all packages matching 'yast*'
zypper up              # to update all installed packages with newer versions, where possible

 Cheat sheet

Here you can find cheatsheet here Zypper-Usage-11.2 - openSUSE

and en.opensuse.org

 includes a few references taken from the man pages. It is recommended for use after you have analyzed the info displayed here. 

General usage

The general syntax of zypper is:

# zypper [global-options] command [command-options] [arguments] ... 

The components enclosed in brackets are not required, thus the simplest way to execute zypper is to type its name followed by a command. For example, to apply needed patches to the system type:

# zypper patch

Additionally, you can choose from one or more global options by typing them just before the command: (run the command, but don't ask me anything, decide on your own)

# zypper --non-interactive patch

To use the options specific to particular command, type them right after the command: (apply needed patches to the system but don't ask me to confirm any licenses, i've read them all before)

# zypper patch --auto-agree-with-licenses

Some of the commands require one or more arguments: (install or update mplayer package)

# zypper install mplayer

Some of the options also require an argument: (search for patterns)

# zypper search -t pattern

All of the above combined: (install mplayer and amarok by using the factory repository only, be verbose)

# zypper -v install --repo factory mplayer amarok

User prompts

Whenever zypper needs some input from you, it lists possible answers in brackets next to the prompt text. To choose the default answer, just press <enter> (the default answer is printed in capitals (with the exception of non-ascii characters)). Some prompts also have help available, in which case there is a question mark '?' listed as a possible answer. To make zypper use the default answers without user interaction, use the --non-interactive global option.

Vocabulary

• repository - local or remote directory containing packages and various package information (package metadata). Repositories were formerly known as installation sources , services or catalogs).
• alias - repository alias is a short version of repository name for use in repository handling commands and options as removerepo or --repo.
• package - software package (RPM package, source package). Patches, patterns, and products are also commonly referred to as different types of packages.
• patch - represents a package or a group of packages needed to install an update (a bug fix mostly).
• pattern - represents a group of packages. For example an Http Server pattern would have the dependencies defined so that all packages needed to run and manage an http server would have been triggered for installation when upon installing the pattern.
• product - represents the whole product (e.g. 'openSUSE 11.1').

Commands

zypper provides a number of commands which can be grouped into the following categories:

• repository management
  refresh, repos, addrepo, removerepo, modifyrepo, namerepo
  refresh-services, services, addservice, removeservice, modifyservice
• example
  • /usr/bin/zypper --no-refresh --quiet --non-interactive modifyservice --ar-to-enable SMT-http_usanlx_pc_corp_com:SLES11-SP2-pool SMT-http_usanlx_pc_corp_com
• package management
  install, remove, source-install
• update management
  patch, list-patches, patch-check, patches, update, list-updates, dist-upgrade
• querying
  search, info, what-provides, list-updates, patch-check, patches, packages, patterns, products
• locking
  locks, addlock, removelock, cleanlocks
• utilities
  verify, install-new-recommends
• other
  help, licenses, versioncmp, targetos

Printing help

First, it is good to know how to get help. To print general help (list of commands and global options), just type zypper without any option or arguments. To print help for specific command, use:

zypper help [command]

zypper [command] --help

Repository management

You can specify existing repositories by

• their number in the list produced by zypper lr,
• alias,
• URI.

When using the numbers, make sure you always check zypper lr first, as the numbers may change after you made some changes to the repositories.

Listing defined repositories

repos or lr

Example output:

# | Alias                 | Name                  | Enabled | Refresh
--+-----------------------+-----------------------+---------+--------
1 | packman               | Packman 11.1          | Yes     | No
2 | fate                  | fate                  | No      | No
3 | openSUSE-11.1-Updates | Updates for 11.1      | Yes     | Yes
4 | repo-oss              | openSUSE-11.1-Oss     | Yes     | No
5 | repo-non-oss          | openSUSE-11.1-Non-Oss | Yes     | No
6 | repo-debug            | openSUSE-11.1-Debug   | No      | No

# zypper lr 5 4
Alias          : openSUSE-11.3-Non-Oss
Name           : openSUSE-11.3-Non-Oss
URI            : http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.3/repo/non-oss/
Enabled        : Yes
Priority       : 99
Auto-refresh   : Off
Keep Packages  : Off
Type           : yast2                                                      
GPG Check      : On
GPG Key URI    :
Path Prefix    : /
Parent Service :
MD Cache Path  : /var/cache/zypp/raw/openSUSE-11.3-Non-Oss

Alias          : openSUSE-11.3-Oss
Name           : openSUSE-11.3-Oss
URI            : http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.3/repo/oss/
Enabled        : Yes
Priority       : 99
Auto-refresh   : Off
Keep Packages  : Off
Type           : yast2
GPG Check      : On
GPG Key URI    :  
Path Prefix    : /
Parent Service :
MD Cache Path  : /var/cache/zypp/raw/openSUSE-11.3-Oss

Other examples:

zypper lr -u       # to include also repo URI in the table
zypper lr -d       # to include several other repo properties in the table
zypper lr -P       # to include also repo priority and sort the list by it
zypper lr -e my    # export all repository definitions into file named 'my.repo'

Adding repositories

addrepo or ar

Before any packages can be installed at least one repository must be defined. To add a repository, use the addrepo command:

Example output:

# zypper ar http://download.videolan.org/pub/vlc/SuSE/11.1 vlc

Adding repository 'vlc' [done]
Repository 'vlc' successfully added
Enabled: Yes
Autorefresh: No
URI: http://download.videolan.org/pub/vlc/SuSE/11.1

Other examples:

zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XGL/openSUSE_11.1/X11:XGL.repo  # via .repo file
zypper ar -c ftp://some.download.site myalias   # probe the repository upon adding
zypper ar my/dir/with/rpms local                # add your local directory with rpm files as repository

See also Libzypp for the list of supported media types and URIs.

Refreshing repositories

refresh or ref

After adding of a repository or when a repository becomes out of date, it needs to be refreshed. This mean downloading package metadata from it and preprocessing the data into .solv cache for quick reading.

Downloading repository 'Packman 11.1' metadata [done]
Building repository 'Packman 11.1' cache [done]
Downloading repository 'Updates for 11.1' metadata [done]
Building repository 'Updates for 11.1' cache [done]
Repository 'openSUSE-11.1-Oss' is up to date.
All repositories have been refreshed.

If autorefresh is enabled for a repository, you don't need to worry about refreshing, it happens automatically when needed. However, some people prefer to be in control when the refresh takes place (e.g. to avoid waiting for the refresh to complete when you only wanted to see 'zypper info krusader'), so they disable autorefresh. See man zypper for more details.

Other examples:

zypper ref packman main  # you can also specify which repositories to refresh
zypper ref -f upd        # force refresh of the 'upd' repository

Removing repositories

removerepo or rr

Repository 23 not found by alias, number or URI.
Repository foo not found by alias, number or URI.
Removing repository 'repo-debug' [done]
Repository 'repo-debug' has been removed.
Removing repository 'vlc' [done]
Repository 'vlc' has been removed.

Modifying repositories

modifyrepo or mr

Disable repository #6:

Repository 'repo-non-oss' has been sucessfully disabled.

Enable autorefresh and rpm files caching for 'packman' repository and set its priority to 70:

Autorefresh has been enabled for repository 'packman'.
RPM files caching has been enabled for repository 'packman'.
Repository 'packman' priority has been set to 70.

Disable RPM files caching for all repositories:

Nothing to change for repository 'local'.
RPM files caching has been disabled for repository 'packman'.
Nothing to change for repository 'fate'.
Nothing to change for repository 'upd'.
Nothing to change for repository 'repo-oss'.
Nothing to change for repository 'repo-non-oss'.

Enable RPM files caching for all repositories:

RPM files caching has been enabled for repository 'repo-non-oss'.
RPM files caching has been enabled for repository 'Main Repository (OSS)'.
RPM files caching has been enabled for repository 'Main Repository (NON-OSS)'.
RPM files caching has been enabled for repository 'openSUSE-11.1-Updates'.

Renaming repositories

renamerepo or nr

Repository 'openSUSE-11.1-Updates' renamed to 'upd'.

This command is currently only able to change the alias of the repository. If you wish to change the displayed name of the repository, take a look at the mr command.

Keep the aliases short and simple for an easy use as arguments of commands and --repo options. Using an alias is safer than using repo number (since that may change and you can easily make a mistake) and easier than using URI (since they are long, leaving you with copy-and-paste).

Export/Import repositories

repos --export or lr -e

You can export your complete repository list to a file and import it later or on another machine.

# zypper ar backups/repos/foo.repo

Service management

<to be added>

Package management

Selecting packages

There are several ways in which you can choose packages for installation or removal.

• by capability name
  zypper in eclipse
  zypper in qt
• by capability name and/or architecture and/or version
  zypper in 'zypper<0.12.10'
  zypper in zypper.i586=0.12.11
• by exact package name (--name)
  zypper in -n ftp
• by exact package name and repository (implies --name)
  zypper in factory:zypper
• by package name using wildcards
  zypper in yast*ftp*
• by specifying an .rpm package file to install

Installing packages

install or in

You can install packages by name...

Reading installed packages...

The following NEW packages are going to be installed:
  subversion-perl sqlite3 perl-DBD-SQLite git-svn git-cvs git


Overall download size: 1.1 M. After the operation, additional 4.6 M will be used.
Continue? [YES/no]:
Downloading package subversion-perl-1.5.0-96.1.x86_64 (1/6), 950.0 K (4.1 M unpacked)
Downloading: subversion-perl-1.5.0-96.1.x86_64.rpm [done]
Installing: subversion-perl-1.5.0-96.1 [done]
Downloading package sqlite3-3.5.7-17.1.x86_64 (2/6), 30.0 K (40.0 K unpacked)
Downloading: sqlite3-3.5.7-17.1.x86_64.rpm [done]
Installing: sqlite3-3.5.7-17.1 [done]
Downloading package perl-DBD-SQLite-1.14-41.1.x86_64 (3/6), 44.0 K (103.0 K unpacked)
Downloading: perl-DBD-SQLite-1.14-41.1.x86_64.rpm [done]
Installing: perl-DBD-SQLite-1.14-41.1 [done]
Downloading package git-svn-1.5.4.5-26.1.x86_64 (4/6), 66.0 K (195.0 K unpacked)
Downloading: git-svn-1.5.4.5-26.1.x86_64.rpm [done]
Installing: git-svn-1.5.4.5-26.1 [done]
Downloading package git-cvs-1.5.4.5-26.1.x86_64 (5/6), 63.0 K (205.0 K unpacked)
Downloading: git-cvs-1.5.4.5-26.1.x86_64.rpm [done]
Installing: git-cvs-1.5.4.5-26.1 [done]
Downloading package git-1.5.4.5-26.1.x86_64 (6/6), 10.0 K (3.0 K unpacked)
Downloading: git-1.5.4.5-26.1.x86_64.rpm [done]
Installing: git-1.5.4.5-26.1 [done]

...or by capability they provide:

Reading installed packages...
'MozillaFirefox' providing 'MozillaFirefox<3' is already installed.
Nothing to do.

Reading installed packages...

The following packages are going to be upgraded:
  mozilla-xulrunner190-translations MozillaFirefox mozilla-xulrunner190-gnomevfs
mozilla-xulrunner190 MozillaFirefox-translations


The following package is going to be REMOVED:
  mozilla-xulrunner190-lang


Overall download size: 11.0 M. After the operation, 12.9 M will be freed.
Continue? [Y/n/p/?]:

Reading installed packages...
'libqt4-x11' providing 'libqtiff.so()(64bit)' is already installed.
Nothing to do.

Other examples:

zypper in yast*                     # install all yast modules
zypper in -t pattern lamp_server    # install lamp_server pattern (packages needed for a LAMP server)
zypper in emacs pattern:lamp_server # install the emacs package and lamp_server pattern
zypper in vim -emacs                # install vim and remove emacs in one go
zypper in amarok packman:libxine1   # install libxine1 from packman and amarok from any repo
zypper in bitchx-1.1-81.x86_64.rpm  # install bitchx rpm from local directory
zypper in -f subversion             # force reinstallation of subversion

Removing packages

remove or rm

The remove command is very much like the install command, except that the effect is the opposite :O)

Reading installed packages...

The following packages are going to be REMOVED:
  sqlite3 perl-DBD-SQLite git-cvs git


After the operation, 351.0 K will be freed.
Continue? [YES/no]: n

Source packages and build dependencies

source-install or si

Reading installed packages...

The following NEW packages are going to be installed:
  libzypp-devel libsatsolver-devel


The following source package is going to be installed:
  zypper


Overall download size: 1.5 M. After the operation, additional 6.7 M will be used.
Continue? [YES/no]:

You can also install only the build deps or only the source package:

zypper si -D zypper    # only the source packages (no build deps)
zypper si -d zypper    # only the build deps (no source package)

Updating packages

update or up

The following commands update packages with their newer available versions. See also Update Management for more information.

zypper up                           # update all installed packages with newer version as far as possible
zypper up libzypp zypper            # update libzypp and zypper
zypper in sqlite3                   # update sqlite3 or install it if not yet installed

Querying

Searching packages

search or se

By default, the search command looks for packages of any type, status or repository, having names containing specified string (compares case-insensitively):

Reading installed packages...

S | Name                     | Summary                                                        | Type
--+--------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------+--------
  | libapr-util1-dbd-sqlite3 | DBD driver for SQLite 3                                        | package
i | libgda-3_0-sqlite        | Sqlite Provider for GNU Data Access (GDA)                      | package
  | libqt4-sql-sqlite        | Qt 4 sqlite plugin                                             | package
i | libsqlite3-0             | Shared libraries for the Embeddable SQL Database Engine        | package
  | libsqlite3-0-32bit       | Shared libraries for the Embeddable SQL Database Engine        | package
  | mediatomb-sqlite         | UPnP AV MediaServer                                            | package
i | mono-data-sqlite         | Database connectivity for Mono                                 | package
  | pdns-backend-sqlite2     | SQLite 2 backend for pdns                                      | package
  | pdns-backend-sqlite3     | SQLite 3 backend for pdns                                      | package
i | perl-DBD-SQLite          | The DBD::SQLite is a self contained RDBMS in a DBI driver      | package
i | php5-sqlite              | PHP5 Extension Module                                          | package
  | python-sqlite2           | Python bindings for sqlite 2                                   | package
  | qt3-sqlite               | SQLite Database Plug-In for Qt                                 | package
  | rekall-sqlite            | Rekall sqlite Database Backend                                 | package
  | rubygem-sqlite3          | A Ruby interface for the SQLite3 database engine               | package
i | sqlite2                  | Embeddable SQL Database Engine                                 | package
  | sqlite2-32bit            | Embeddable SQL Database Engine                                 | package
  | sqlite2-devel            | Embeddable SQL Database Engine                                 | package
i | sqlite3                  | Embeddable SQL Database Engine                                 | package
  | sqlite3-devel            | Embeddable SQL Database Engine                                 | package
  | sqlite3-tcl              | Tcl binding for SQLite                                         | package
  | tntdb1-sqlite            | Tntdb is a c++-class-library for easy database-access - sqlite | package
  | ulogd-sqlite             | SQLite output plugin for ulogd                                 | package

The letter "i" in column one (1); states that the package is already installed on the local machine. To see all available versions of matching packages, use "--details/-s" option:

Reading installed packages...

S | Name           | Type    | Version    | Arch   | Repository
--+----------------+---------+------------+--------+------------------------------------
v | virtualbox-ose | package | 1.6.2-2.1  | x86_64 | VirtualBox OSE
i | virtualbox-ose | package | 1.5.6-33.1 | x86_64 | openSUSE-11.1-Oss
v | virtualbox-ose | package | 1.5.6-20.5 | x86_64 | VirtualBox OSE (
v | virtualbox-ose | package | 1.6.2-2.1  | i586   | VirtualBox OSE
v | virtualbox-ose | package | 1.5.6-33.1 | i586   | openSUSE-11.1-Oss
v | virtualbox-ose | package | 1.5.6-20.3 | i586   | VirtualBox OSE

The letter "i" in column one (1); states that the software selected is already installed on the local machine, while the letter "v" in column one (1); states that there are other versions of the product installed on the local machine.

Other examples:

zypper se -dC --match-words RSI   # look for RSI acronym (case-sensitively), also in summaries and descriptions
zypper se 'yast*'                 # show all packages starting with 'yast' (beware of shell expansion, quote the strings if unsure!)
zypper se -r packman              # list all packages from 'packman' repository
zypper se -i sqlite               # show all installed packages containing 'sqlite' in their name
zypper se -t pattern -r repo-oss  # list all patterns available in the 'repo-oss' repository
zypper se -t product              # list all available products

Obtaining information about packages

info or if

Reading installed packages...


Information for package amarok:

Repository: Packman 11.1
Name: amarok
Version: 1.4.9.1-103.pm.1
Arch: x86_64
Vendor: packman.links2linux.de
Installed: Yes
Status: up-to-date
Installed Size: 12.1 M
Summary: Media Player for KDE
Description:
Amarok is a media player for all kinds of media, supported by aRts, GStreamer
or Xine (depending on the packages you install). This includes MP3, Ogg
Vorbis, audio CDs and streams.
It also supports audio effects of all kinds that are provided by aRts.
Playlists can be stored in .m3u or .pls files.

Amarok also provides audio file collection management, by using either an
embedded sqlite3, a MySQL or a PostgreSQL database.

This command displays detailed information about package named 'amarok'.

Other examples:

zypper info -t patch MozillaFirefox    # show information about 'MozillaFirefox' patch
zypper patch-info MozillaFirefox       # the same as above
zypper info -t pattern lamp_server     # show info about 'lamp_server' pattern
zypper info -t product openSUSE-FTP    # show info about specified product

Dependencies

what-provides or wp

To list all providers of specified capability, do:

Reading installed packages...
S | Name           | Type    | Version     | Arch   | Repository
--+----------------+---------+-------------+--------+------------------
i | MozillaFirefox | package | 3.0-0.1     | x86_64 | Updates for 11.1
v | MozillaFirefox | package | 2.9.95-25.1 | x86_64 | openSUSE-11.1-Oss
v | MozillaFirefox | package | 3.0-0.1     | i586   | Updates for 11.1
v | MozillaFirefox | package | 2.9.95-25.1 | i586   | openSUSE-11.1-Oss

This command is similar to rpm -q --whatprovides firefox, but rpm is only able to query the RPM database (database of the installed packages). Zypper, on the other hand, will tell you about providers of the capability from any repository, not only the installed ones.

Other queries

Commands patches, packages, patterns, and products are similar to search -s -t [patch,package,pattern,product], except that they display some additional information specific to the corresponding package type. For example patches shows also the status of patches (Needed/Security/Not Applicable).

Commands list-updates and patch-check are discussed in Update Management.

Package locks

locks or ll addlock or al removelock or rl cleanlocks or cl

Package locks serve the purpose of preventing changes to the packages on the system. Packages matching an active lock can't change their installed status; installed packages can't be removed or upgraded, packages not yet installed can't be installed.

To lock all packages starting with 'yast2', do:

Reading installed packages...
Specified lock has been successfully added.

Again beware of shell expansion, use quotes if there is a possibility that yast* will match some files or directories in the working directory.

To list currently active locks:

# | Name             | Type    | Repository
--+------------------+---------+-----------
1 | libpoppler3      | package | (any)
2 | libpoppler-glib3 | package | (any)
3 | yast*            | package | (any)

To remove a lock, do:

Reading installed packages...
The following query locks some of the objects you want to unlock:

type: package
match_type: glob
case_sensitive: on
solvable_name: yast2*

Do you want remove this lock? [YES/no]: y
Lock count has been succesfully decreased by: 1

Other examples:

You can manipulate the locks also by directly editing the locks file.

Utilities

Verify dependencies

verify or ve

You may occasionally end up with a broken system when it comes to package dependencies. If some of your applications fails to start with a message indicating that it misses something, this is something for zypper to check:

Could not find compatible GRE between version 1.9.0 and 1.9.0.

Reading installed packages...
Some of the dependencies of installed packages are broken. In order to fix these dependencies, the following actions need to be taken:

The following NEW package is going to be installed:
  mozilla-xulrunner190


Overall download size: 6.5 M. After the operation, additional 23.5 M will be used.
Continue? [YES/no]: y

Install new recommended packages

install-new-recommends or inr

This command finds and installs newly added recommended packages for packages you have already installed. This provides an easy way to get new language bundles for your software or drivers for newly added hardware.

Reading installed packages...

The following NEW packages are going to be installed:
  kdebase4-openSUSE-lang bundle-lang-common-cs


Overall download size: 534.0 K. After the operation, additional 1.9 M will be used.
Continue? [YES/no]:

Check processes

ps

This command shows processes that use files deleted by recent package upgrades or removal

There are some running programs that use files deleted by recent upgrade. You may wish to restart some of them. Run 'zypper ps' to list these programs.

The following running processes use deleted files:

PID   | PPID  | UID  | Login | Command       | Service | Files
------+-------+------+-------+---------------+---------+--------------------------------
10604 | 10603 | 1000 | geeko | chrome        |         | /usr/share/mime/mime.cache
      |       |      |       |               |         | /usr/share/mime/mime.cache
15304 | 3195  | 1000 | geeko | kio_thumbnail |         | /var/tmp/kdecache-geeko/ksycoca4
      |       |      |       |               |         | /var/tmp/kdecache-geeko/ksycoca4

You may wish to restart these processes.
See 'man zypper' for information about the meaning of values in the above table.

Update management

There are two approaches to keeping your system up to date. One is patch-wise, the second is package-wise.

The patch-wise approach is particularly useful for people using stable releases and want update their systems with patches released through online update repositories. Update repositories are added by default during installation or upgrade of the system, or they can be added via Online Update Configuration from the Software tab in YaST Control Center, or manually using zypper. Here is the list of available openSUSE update repositories.

YaST equivalent of this feature is the Online Update module.

The second, package-wise update is described in section Package Updates and servers for general updating of packages from any repository with their newer versions.

Listing needed patches

list-patches or lp

To list all needed patch updates, do:

Reading installed packages...
Patches

Repository       | Name               | Version | Category    | Status
-----------------+--------------------+---------+-------------+-------
Updates for 11.1 | KDE4-fixes         | 38      | recommended | Needed
Updates for 11.1 | MozillaFirefox     | 50      | recommended | Needed
Updates for 11.1 | NetworkManager-kde | 49      | recommended | Needed

Sometimes only updates affecting the package management are listed, since these should be applied first. Once applied, the rest of available updates will be listed by this command.

This command is equivalent to zypper up -t patch known from older zypper versions. To list all available package updates, use:

Applying patches

patch

To apply the needed patches, do:

Reading installed packages...

The following packages are going to be upgraded:
  NetworkManager-kde mozilla-nss mozilla-nspr kde4-korganizer


The following NEW patches are going to be installed:
  NetworkManager-kde MozillaFirefox KDE4-fixes


Overall download size: 2.9 M. After the operation, additional 283.0 K will be used.
Continue? [YES/no]:

Listing all patches

patches

The list-updates command only lists needed patches. To list all available patches, use:

Reading installed packages...
Catalog          | Name               | Version | Category    | Status
-----------------+--------------------+---------+-------------+---------------
Updates for 11.1 | KDE4-fixes         | 38      | recommended | Installed
Updates for 11.1 | MozillaFirefox     | 50      | recommended | Installed
Updates for 11.1 | NetworkManager-kde | 49      | recommended | Installed
Updates for 11.1 | autoyast2          | 37      | recommended | Installed
Updates for 11.1 | courier-authlib    | 42      | security    | Not Applicable
Updates for 11.1 | insserv            | 47      | recommended | Installed
Updates for 11.1 | opera              | 43      | security    | Installed

Checking patches

patch-check

This command will tell you whether there are any important patches available for your system and the number of such patches:

Reading installed packages...
0 patches needed (0 security patches)

Getting information about patches

patch-info
info -t patch

Reading installed packages...


Information for patch MozillaFirefox:

Name: MozillaFirefox
Version: 50
Arch: noarch
Vendor: [email protected]
Status: Installed
Category: recommended
Created On: Thu 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 AM CET
Reboot Required: No
Package Manager Restart Required: No
Interactive: No
Summary: Mozilla Firefox 3.0
Description:
This patch updates Mozilla Firefox to the final 3.0 version.

The dependend libraries mozilla-xulrunner190, mozilla-nspr
and mozilla-nss were also brought to their release version.

Package updates

list-updates or lu
update or up

To simply update installed packages with their newer available versions, do:

You can get a list of available updates with:

The above commands will list or update only such packages whose update has no dependency problems. To get raw list of packages with newer versions than those installed, do:

This will list all update candidates, regardless whether they are installable or not, or whether they need user's interaction to resolve some problems.

Distribution upgrade

dist-upgrade or dup

This command uses the distribution upgrade algorithm, which handles package splits, unmaintaned packages, and similar. Use it to switch to another distribution release.

It is recommended to enable only the main repository of the distribution you want to install plus a few important repositories you were using (even better - their version corresponding to the current main repository) during a dist-upgrade. You can achieve this by disabling the old repositories using zypper mr -da, adding the new repositories via zypper ar and issuing zypper dup. You can also specify repositories to be used using --repo option: zypper dup -r repo1 -r repo2 ....

Q: Is it true that "zypper up" only upgrades packages when a newer version is in the same repo as the outdated package and "zypper dup" upgrades everything, no matter in which repo the new package is located?

A: "zypper up" updates the packages if a newer version is available but will not change the vendor (Note: The whole build service currently has the same vendor). "zypper dup" will try to sync your currently installed packages with the ones available from (all) the repos you have enabled. This means it will also downgrade packages if your installed version is newer than the one available in the repo.

Using zypper in scripts and applications

Zypper supports several global options which make it suitable for use within automated processes like scripts. Also, several different exit codes listed in zypper's manual page can be checked for when using zypper in an automated process.

Non interactive mode

--non-interactive

In this mode zypper does not prompt the user for any answers and uses default answers instead. When using this option it is guaranteed that zypper will not hang prompting for an answer on stdin, or in an endless loop.

For example, to update your system automatically without confirmation, you can type

This command does not require confirmation from the user to proceed with update, skips all interactive patches which would need additional confirmation and also automatically answers any other prompts.

No GPG checks mode

--no-gpg-checks

If this option is used, zypper will always choose to continue if some of the gpg checks fails, e.g. a repository file is not signed and should be, a file is signed and the gpg check fails, etc.

Auto-agree with licenses

--auto-agree-with-licenses

This is special option for the install, remove and update commands. By using this, the user declares he/she agrees with the terms of licenses the command will install, and zypper will automatically say 'yes' to the license confirmation prompt. This is useful for people installing the same set of packages on multiple machines (by an automated process) and have read all the licenses before.

Quiet output

--quiet

Avoids displaying too much texts like progress information and only displays result of the operation and error messages.

XML output

--xmlout

This option makes zypper to talk in XML. This allows scripts, graphical front-ends or other types of applications which would like to use zypper, to parse zypper's output in a well-defined, standard way. The RNC schema of zypper's XML output is available here and at /usr/share/zypper/xml/xmlout.rnc.

Not all (but most of) the output is currently in XML; the goal is to have all possible output in XML.

Prompts

The following should be a complete list of cases where zypper needs user interaction together with the replies used in non-interactive mode. All the additional options mentioned here have higher priority over --non-interactive, so if used, the answer they imply are automatically used even if --non-interactive isn't used.

GPG-related prompts

Where --no-gpg-checks is applied, a message is displayed or a warning is written to stderr and logged.

Other prompts

In XML output, prompts are indicated by <prompt> tag, containing id attribute. Enumeration of all known ids is available in prompt.h include file packaged with zypper (/usr/include/zypper/prompt.h).

Compatibility with Rug

Zypper's syntax is similar to that of Rug but its command and option set has started to diversify from rug as well as its output and behavior. However, zypper is able to work also in rug-compatible mode and supports most of the rug commands. For more details see man zypper, section COMPATIBILITY WITH RUG.

zypper

zypper is a command-line interface to ZYpp system management library. It can be used to install, update, remove software, manage repositories, perform various queries, and more.

zypper [--global-opts] <command> [--command-opts] [command-arguments]

zypper help [command] 

Repositories

Libzypp works with package metadata, that is information about packages and their relations extracted from RPM packages and other data like patch information, pattern definitions, etc. These data are stored together with the RPM files in folders called repositories. Repositories can be placed on various media like an HTTP or FTP server, DVD, or a folder on a local disc.

There is a special set of commands in zypper intented to manipulate repositories. Also many commands and options take a repository as an argument.

Resource Identfiers (URI)

To specify locations of repositories or other resources (RPM files, .repo files) you can use any type of URIs supported by libzypp. See http://en.opensuse.org/Libzypp/URI for a complete list and usage examples.

In addition to these URIs you can use plain directory and file paths in which case zypper automatically treats them as dir:/path URIs.

Refresh

Refreshing a repository means downloading metadata of packages from the medium (if needed), storing it in local cache (typically under /var/cache/zypp/raw/<alias> directory) and preparsing the metadata into .solv files (building the solv cache), typically under /var/cache/zypp/solv/<alias>.

The metadata get refreshed either automatically or on user request. An automatic refresh takes place right before reading metadata from the database if the auto-refresh is enabled for the repository and the metada is reported to be out of date. If the auto-refresh is disabled, the repository will only be refreshed on user request. You can request a refresh by calling zypper refresh (see the documentation of the refresh command for details).

The repository metadata are checked for changes before actually doing the refresh. A change is detected by downloading one or two metadata index files (small files) and comparing the checksums of the cached ones and the remote ones. If the files differ, the repository is out of date and will be refreshed.

To delay the up-to-date check (and thus the automatic refresh) for a certain number of minutes, edit the value of the repo.refresh.delay attribute of ZYpp config file (/etc/zypp/zypp.conf). This means, zypper will not even try to download and check the index files, and you will be able to use zypper for operations like search or info without internet access or root privileges.

Services

Services are one level above repositories and serve to manage repositories or to do some special tasks. Libzypp currently supports only one type of services, the Repository Index Service (RIS).

Repository Index Service (RIS) is a special type of repository which contains a list of other repositories. This list can be generated dynamically by the server according to some URI parameters or user name, or can be static. Once such service is added to your system, zypper takes care of adding, modifying, or removing these repositories on your system to reflect the current list. See section Service Management and http://en.opensuse.org/Standards/Repository_Index_Service for more details.

Package Types

zypper works with several types of resource objects, called resolvables. A resolvable is a package, patch, pattern, or a product.

package - an ordinary RPM package. patch - update of one or more packages. A patch can include special scripts and messages to be run or shown during installation of the update. pattern - group of packages required or recommended to install some functionality. product - group of packages which are necessary to install a product. srcpackage - source code package (.src.rpm). This type works in search and install commands.

Throughout this manual we will refer to resolvables simply as packages and to resolvable types as package types. These type names can be used as arguments of --type option in several commands like install, info, or search.

Package Dependencies

Software packages depend on each other in various ways. Packages usually require or recommend other packages, they can declare that they conflict with other packages, etc. Packages can also depend on specific hardware. See http://en.opensuse.org/Software_Management/Dependencies for more information. Zypper utilizes a dependency solver to find out what packages are needed to be installed according to user's request.

COMMANDS

zypper provides a number of commands. Each command accepts the options listed in the GLOBAL OPTIONS section. These options must be specified before the command name. In addition, many commands have specific options, which are listed in this section. These command-specific options must be specified after the name of the command and before any of the command arguments.

General Commands

Package Management Commands

Update Management Commands

Query Commands

Repository Management

Zypper is able to work with YaST, RPM-MD (yum) software repositories, and plain directories containing .rpm files.

Repositories are primarily identified using their URI or alias. Alias serves as a shorthand for the long URI or name of the repository. The name of the repository should briefly describe the repository and is shown to the user in tables and messages. The name is not required, and if not known, the alias is shown instead. The alias is required and uniquely identifies the repository on the system.

The alias, name, URI, or the number from zypper repos list can be used to specify a repository as an argument of various zypper commands and options like refresh, --repo, or --from.

Apart from the above, repositories have several other properties which can be set using the commands described in this section below, or by manually editing the repository definition files (.repo files, see section FILES).

Service Management

The services, addservice, removeservice, modifyservice, and refresh-services commands serve for manipulating services. A service is specified by its URI and needs to have a unique alias defined (among both services and repositories).

Standalone repositories (not belonging to any service) are treated like services, too. The ls command will list them, ms command will modify them, etc. Repository specific options, like --keep-packages are not available here, though. You can use repository handling commands to manipulate them.

Package Locks Management

Package locks serve the purpose of preventing changes to the set of installed packages on the system. The locks are stored in form of a query in /etc/zypp/locks file (see also locks(5)). Packages matching this query are then forbidden to change their installed status; an installed package can't be removed, not installed package can't be installed. When requesting to install or remove such locked package, you will get a dependency problem dialog.

Other Commands

GLOBAL OPTIONS

FILES

EXIT CODES

There are several exit codes defined for zypper for use e.g. within scripts. These codes are defined in header file src/zypper-main.h found in zypper source package. Codes from interval (1-5) denote an error, numbers (100-105) provide a specific information, 0 represents a normal successful run. Following is a list of these codes with descriptions.

COMPATIBILITY WITH RUG

zypper is designed to be compatible with rug, which is a command-line interface to the ZENworks Linux Management (ZLM) agent. Compared to rug, zypper does not need the ZLM daemon to run, and is intented to provide more and improved functionality. Following is a list of zypper-rug command aliases, supported rug command line options, and compatibility notes. See also compatibility notes in descriptions of zypper commands.

To enable rug-compatible behavior, use the -r or --rug-compatible global option with each command.

Service Management Commands

ZENworks uses different terminology than ZYpp. ZLM services are ZYpp's repositories and services. Additionally some ZLM services can contain catalogs (rpmmd-type repositories in ZYpp speak).

Zypper tries to mimick rug's behavior in its service handling commands when used with the -r global option. It also supports the --catalog option for specifying catalogs to work with in current operation (this is an alias for zypper's --repo option).

Package Management Commands

Patch Management Commands

Pattern Management Commands

Product Management Commands

System Commands

Other Compatibility Notes

NEWS CONTENTS

• 190419 : Bash upgrade using zypper ( )
• 190419 : Package Management With Zypper Linux Journal ( Package Management With Zypper Linux Journal, )

Old News ;-)

Bash upgrade using zypper

lusytp27:~ # cat /etc/*release
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 (x86_64)
VERSION = 11
PATCHLEVEL = 3
LSB_VERSION="core-2.0-noarch:core-3.2-noarch:core-4.0-noarch:core-2.0-x86_64:core-3.2-x86_64:core-4.0-x86_64"
lusytp27:~ # zipper install bash
If 'zipper' is not a typo you can run the following command to lookup the package that contains the binary:
    command-not-found zipper
-bash: zipper: command not found
lusytp27:~ # zypper install bash
Refreshing service 'nu_novell_com'.
Authentication required for 'https://nu.novell.com/?cookies=0&credentials=NCCcredentials'
User Name: bezroukovn
Password:
Authentication required for 'https://nu.novell.com/?cookies=0&credentials=NCCcredentials'
User Name: bezroukovn
Password:
			

Package Management With Zypper Linux Journal

As I've mentioned before I'm an openSUSE user, and as long as they don't make the "U" lower case again, I'll probably stick with it. When it comes to package management, OpenSUSE and SUSE Linux Enterprice (and SuSE before them) are usually associated with YaST (and yes, I'm still waiting for them to upper case the "a"). YaST works well but it's a bit verbose for installing a single package, and of course that's just more fodder for the apt-getters with all their apt-get install this and their apt-get install thats. And you can't argue with them, but there are other options with openSUSE: yum and apt4rpm come to mind, but the preferred solution is zypper.

Zypper is a command line tool for package management, it's based on ZYpp, aka libzypp. The WikiPedia entry for Zypp says:

Unlike other common package managers, it provides a powerful satisfiability solver to compute package dependencies and a convenient package management API.

Since we don't want our heads to explode we'll just take it for granted that a powerful satisfiability solver is a good thing.

It turns out that YaST is also (now) based on ZYpp so you don't need to worry that you're missing out on something by using zypper.

Zypper is fairly straightforward to use. If you want to search for a package do zypper search STRING.... The STRING(s) can include * and ? wildcards and there are options for matching all or any of the strings and for full exact matches (the default is a partial match). If you want to search the package descriptions there's an option for that also. For example to search for packages with the word "mail" in the name or in the description do:

$ zypper search --search-descriptions mail
$ # --search-descriptions can be abbreviated as -d
Reading installed packages...

S | Name                 | Summary                                | Type
--+----------------------+----------------------------------------+-----------
  | Buddi                | Buddi - Personal budget software ...   | package
  | CgEddie              | A simple editor with syntax high ...   | package
  | FrostWire            | Gnutella peer-to-peer (P2P) file ...   | package
  ...
i | yast2-mail           | YaST2 - Mail Configuration             | package
  | yast2-mail-plugins   | YaST2-Users/Group Plugins for the ...  | package
  | yum-updatesd         | YUM update notification daemon         | package

When installing packages with zypper, as you'd expect/hope, zypper takes care of installing the package's dependencies:

$ zypper install Buddi
Reading installed packages...

The following NEW packages are going to be installed:
  BrowserLauncher2 swingx Buddi jcommon jfreechart

Overall download size: 4.1 M. After the operation, additional 5.2 M will be used.
Continue? [YES/no]:

Some of the other interesting commands that zypper supports are:

• refresh - to refresh the package information from the repositories you have defined.
• addrepo - to add a new repository.
• remove - to remove a package.
• list-updates - to list the updates/patches that are available for the packages you have installed.

For a full list of the commands that zypper supports type zypper help and check the man page for more details.

One of Ubuntu's WOW factors seems to be apt-get dist-upgrade, i.e. the ability to upgrade to the next version of Ubuntu (and actually it's a feature of any debian based distro). This is another thing that the apt-getters puff up about, well enter zypper dist-upgrade or zypper dup. This allows you to upgrade from one version of openSUSE to the next. I have not used this feature yet, but posts on the openSUSE wiki seem to indicate that it works well.

So to all you apt-getters out there, all I can say is: zypp it.

Recommended Links

http://en.opensuse.org/Zypper

Zypper-Usage-11.2 - openSUSE

Support How to upgrade to SLES-SLED 11 SP3

Support How to upgrade to SLES-SLED 11 SP2

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Last modified: March 12, 2019