CentOS uses packages that are included in repositories to manage the updates and upgrades of your CentOS installation / installed software. In this article, we show you how to update all packages on your CentOS 7 VPS, update specific software, and update your entire OS to a newer version.
- Connect to your VPS via SSH, or the VPS console before executing the commands below, and follow the steps as root user or use sudo
- Restart your VPS after updating the kernel. Changes are often not processed until your server is restarted.
Updating all software
With the command below, you update all software in CentOS 7:
yum -y update-y confirms that this process may make changes to your VPS.
Updating specific software / packages
Would you rather update a specific package instead of all packages? Then you'd use the command:
yum -y update packagenameReplace 'packagename' with the name of the relevant package. In our article 'Installing software in CentOS 7', we explain how to find out the name of packages. For a total overview of all packages use:
Upgrading CentOS 7
Suppose you want to upgrade CentOS 7, for example from 7.5 to 7.6, then this works exactly the same as updating all your software packages:
yum -y updateCheck the current installed version with:
cat /etc/redhat-release
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