Installing MariaDB with yum/dnf

How to install MariaDB on systems that use the yum or dnf package managers

On RHEL, CentOS, Fedora, and other similar Linux RPM based distributions, these provide MariaDB packages. These are supported by those distributions. If you have a particular need for a later version than what is in the distribution, then MariaDB provides repositories for them.

Using repositories rather than installing RPM allows for an ease of update when a new release is made. It is highly recommended to install the relevant RPM packages from MariaDB's repository using yum or dnf. Centos 7 still uses yum, most others use dnf, and SUSE/openSUSE use zypper.

This page walks you through the simple installation steps using dnf and yum.

Adding the MariaDB YUM repository

We currently have YUM/DNF repositories for the following Linux distributions, and for the versions that are in standard (not extended) support:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

• CentOS

• Fedora

• openSUSE

• SUSE

Using the MariaDB Package Repository Setup Script

MariaDB provides two helpful scripts for setting up repositories, one for MariaDB Community Server named mariadb_repo_setup, and one for MariaDB Enterprise Server named mariadb_es_repo_setup.

See the Using MariaDB Corporation's Repository Setup Scripts section on the MariaDB Package Repository Setup and Usage page for information on using these scripts.

Using the MariaDB Foundation Repository Configuration Tool

Visit https://mariadb.org/download/?t=repo-config and follow the instructions from there. It will ask for your Linux distribution, desired MariaDB version, and the mirror to use, and will show what files to edit and what commands to run to configure a repository.

Pinning the MariaDB Repository to a Specific Minor Release

If you wish to pin your yum or dnf repository to a specific minor release, or if you would like to downgrade to a specific minor release, then you can configure a repository with the URL hard-coded to that specific minor release.

MariaDB Corporation repo setup scripts

If you used MariaDB Corporation's mariadb_repo_setup or mariadb_es_repo_setup scripts to generate your repository configuration, simply re-run the script and specify the full version number to use with the --mariadb-server-version option.

See Pinning the Repository to a Specific Minor Release on the MariaDB Package Repository Setup and Usage page for details.

The full list of MariaDB Enterprise Server releases can be found on the Enterprise Server - All Releases page.

MariaDB Foundation repo config tool

Updating the MariaDB YUM repository to a New Major Release

MariaDB's yum repository can be updated to a new major release. How this is done depends on how you originally configured the repository.

Updating the Major Release with the MariaDB Package Repository Setup Script

If you configured yum to install from MariaDB Corporation's MariaDB Package Repository by using the MariaDB Package Repository setup script, then you can update the major release that the repository uses by running the script again.

Updating the Major Release with the MariaDB Repository Configuration Tool

If you configured yum to install from MariaDB Foundation's MariaDB Repository by using the MariaDB Repository Configuration Tool, then you can update the major release that the repository uses by updating the yum repository configuration file in-place. For example, if you wanted to change the repository from MariaDB 10.6 to MariaDB 10.11, and if the repository configuration file was at /etc/yum.repos.d/MariaDB.repo, then you could execute the following:

sudo sed -i 's/10.6/10.11/' /etc/yum.repos.d/MariaDB.repo

After that, the repository should refer to MariaDB 10.11.

If the yum repository is pinned to a specific minor release, then the above sed command can result in an invalid repository configuration. In that case, the recommended options are:

• Edit the MariaDB.repo repository file manually.

• Or delete the MariaDB.repo repository file, and then install the repository of the new version with the more robust MariaDB Package Repository setup script.

The MariaDB GPG Key

See the GPG page for information on the various keys used by MariaDB.

Installing MariaDB Packages with YUM/DNF

After the dnf/yum repository is configured, you can install MariaDB by executing the dnf or yum command. The specific command that you would use would depend on which specific packages that you want to install.

Installing the Most Common Packages

To Install the most common packages, execute the following command:

sudo dnf install MariaDB-server MariaDB-server-galera galera-4 MariaDB-client MariaDB-shared MariaDB-backup MariaDB-common

Installing MariaDB Server

To Install MariaDB Server, execute the following command:

sudo dnf install MariaDB-server

Installing MariaDB Galera Cluster with YUM

Note for MariaDB 12.3 and later: Galera Cluster support is no longer included in the base MariaDB-server package. To enable cluster functionality, you must explicitly install the MariaDB-server-galera package. This package contains cluster-specific scripts, systemd bootstrap capability, and the wsrep_info plugin.

You need to install the galera-4 package to obtain the Galera 4 wsrep provider library.

To install MariaDB Galera Cluster, you could execute the following command:

sudo dnf install MariaDB-server MariaDB-server-galera MariaDB-client galera-4

If you haven't yet imported the MariaDB GPG public key, then yum will prompt you to import it after it downloads the packages, but before it prompts you to install them.

See MariaDB Galera Cluster for more information on MariaDB Galera Cluster.

Installing MariaDB Clients and Client Libraries with YUM

MariaDB Connector/C has been included as the client library (staticly linked). However, the package name for the client library has not been changed.

To Install the clients and client libraries, execute the following command:

sudo dnf install MariaDB-client MariaDB-shared

If you want compile your own programs against MariaDB Connector/C, execute the following command:

sudo dnf install MariaDB-devel

Installing mariadb-backup with YUM

To install mariadb-backup, execute the following command:

sudo yum install MariaDB-backup

Installing Plugins with YUM

Some plugins may also need to be installed.

For example, to install the cracklib_password_check password validation plugin, execute the following command:

sudo dnf install MariaDB-cracklib-password-check

Installing Debug Info Packages with YUM

The MariaDB yum repository also contains debuginfo packages. These package may be needed when debugging a problem.

Installing Debug Info for the Most Common Packages with YUM

To install debuginfo for the most common packages, execute the following command:

sudo dnf install MariaDB-server-debuginfo MariaDB-client-debuginfo MariaDB-shared-debuginfo MariaDB-backup-debuginfo MariaDB-common-debuginfo

All packages have their debuginfo by appending -debuginfo to the package name.

Installing Debug Info for MariaDB Server with YUM

To install debuginfo for MariaDB Server, execute the following command:

sudo dnf install MariaDB-server-debuginfo

Installing Older Versions from the Repository

The MariaDB yum repository contains the last few versions of MariaDB. To show what versions are available, use the following command:

sudo dnf list --showduplicates MariaDB-server

The output shows the available versions. For example:

sudo dnf list --showduplicates MariaDB-server
Last metadata expiration check: 0:01:42 ago on Fri 12 Dec 2025 03:47:20 PM UTC.
Available Packages
MariaDB-server.x86_64  11.8.2-1.el8                               mariadb-main
MariaDB-server.x86_64  12.0.2-1.el8                               mariadb-main
MariaDB-server.x86_64  12.1.2-1.el8                               mariadb-main
mariadb-server.x86_64  3:10.3.39-1.module+el8.8.0+1452+2a7eab68   appstream

The MariaDB repository in this example contains MariaDB 12.1.2, 12.0.2, and 11.8.2; and the appstream repository contains MariaDB 10.3.39.

To install an older version of a package instead of the latest version we just need to specify the package name, a dash, and then the version number. And we only need to specify enough of the version number for it to be unique from the other available versions.

However, when installing an older version of a package, if dependencies need to be installed, then it will automatically choose to install the latest versions of those packages, which can sometimes break those dependencies. To ensure that all MariaDB packages are on the same version in this scenario, it is necessary to specify them all.

The MariaDB packages that the MariaDB-server package depend on are: MariaDB-client, MariaDB-shared, and MariaDB-common. Therefore, to install MariaDB 12.0.2 from this yum repository, we could do the following (putting the version in a variable and each package on its own line so things are cleaner):

ver=12.0.2
sudo dnf install \
  MariaDB-server-${ver} \
  MariaDB-client-${ver} \
  MariaDB-shared-${ver} \
  MariaDB-common-${ver}

For MariaDB Enterprise it is necessary to specify the release part of the version number as well, but with an underscore (_) instead of a dash (-), as that is how dnf/yum see the version number. For example, for MariaDB Enterprise Server 11.8.5-2 you would specify the version as 11.8.5_2. For example:

ver=11.8.5_2
sudo dnf install \
  MariaDB-server-${ver} \
  MariaDB-client-${ver} \
  MariaDB-shared-${ver} \
  MariaDB-common-${ver}

The rest of the install and setup process is as normal.

After Installation

After the installation is complete, you can start MariaDB with:

sudo systemctl start mariadb 

If you are using MariaDB Galera Cluster, then keep in mind that the first node will have to be bootstrapped.

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