Enable EPEL on CentOS

Background

Fedora’s Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) repository provides the ability to install software packages that are not included in the official CentOS or Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) repositories.

EPEL is not maintained by Red Hat and is a volunteer effort from the Fedora Community. Although it is a well-maintained repository, there aren’t any commercial support contracts for software held within it.

Shown below is information from the Fedora Wiki regarding the differences between EPEL and other third-party repositories.

How is EPEL different from other third party repositories for RHEL and derivatives?

Enable With The Package

The CentOS Extras The repository includes a package to install EPEL, and is enabled by default. To install the EPEL package, run the following command.

sudo yum install epel-release

If this fails, the additional CentOS Extras repository may be disabled. Proceed to the next section to install the repository manually.

Enable With Manual Installation

CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.x

wget http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/5/x86_64/epel-release-5-4.noarch.rpm
sudo rpm -Uvh epel-release-5*.rpm

CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.x

wget http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/x86_64/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm
sudo rpm -Uvh epel-release-6*.rpm

CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.x

wget http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/7/x86_64/e/epel-release-7-5.noarch.rpm
sudo rpm -Uvh epel-release-7*.rpm