26

For example I can easily find locate command belongs to mlocate.i386 package.

yum search locate
mlocate.i386 : An utility for finding files by name
[mirror@home /]$ rpm -qa | grep locate
mlocate-0.15-1.el5.1

yum search updatedb
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, protectbase
0 packages excluded due to repository protections
=========================================== Matched: updatedb ===========================================
mlocate.i386 : An utility for finding files by name

But it's not so easy to find which package free command belongs to:

yum search free   // this command just returns too much informationy 
rpm -qa | grep free
freetype-2.2.1-31.el5_8.1   // obviously not the package by which free command is installed

So is there any convinent way to know which package a specific command belongs to on Linux? For example CentOS or some other distributions

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4 Answers 4

Reset to default
17

Query the rpmdb.

rpm -qf $(which free)
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3
  • why not use rpm -qf which free?
    – hugemeow
    Commented Sep 1, 2012 at 9:35
  • Either is fine. $(...) is habit for me.
    – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams
    Commented Sep 1, 2012 at 12:20
  • The pipe way which free | xargs rpm -qf
    – Eido95
    Commented Aug 23, 2019 at 11:06
28

Ubuntu / Debian example to check the package of the free command: 

dpkg -S $(which free)
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4
  • 1
    this works only for installed packages. i found here something that works for non installed packages $ dpkg -S */free$*
    – bobrobbob
    Commented Jun 2, 2017 at 9:23
  • @bobrobbob I am afraid that is not correct. I tested with dpkg -S */firefox$* which gives multiple results on a server which has Firefox installed, none on a server without Firefox. I think it can't work because dpkg is a command operating on the locally installed packages. To find non installed packages you can go to packages.ubuntu.com/…
    – Jeroen Vermeulen
    Commented Jun 2, 2017 at 10:31
  • oh my. you're right, sorry for that
    – bobrobbob
    Commented Jun 3, 2017 at 6:32
  • 1
    If you get dpkg-query: no path found matching pattern try this: dpkg -S "$(readlink -fn "$(which free)")".
    – Pablo A
    Commented Jul 7, 2017 at 21:00
11

For CentOS, how about yum provides?

Use 

which free

to find out where it is

For me it's at

/usr/bin/free

So then you can run 

yum provides /usr/bin/free

and it will tell you which package has it

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1
  • If the command was not installed or available in your centos, you could use yum provides <command>, because which <command> will return not <command> in ...
    – Lane Ouyang
    Commented Jan 2, 2020 at 3:04
1

For all red-hat based distributions you can use yum package management utility

yum provides `which free`

provides argument specifies which package provides certain feature or file.

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