What yum clean all Does and How to Force a yum Reinstall

Updated: 17 October 2026 · Applies to: dnf 4.20 on AlmaLinux 10.2 and dnf 4.14 on AlmaLinux 9.8 (yum is a link to dnf); the same commands work on Rocky Linux and RHEL 9 and 10

yum clean all deletes dnf's cache in /var/cache/dnf: the downloaded repository metadata, the solver files built from it and any package files kept there. It does not remove, update or change installed packages, their configuration or the RPM database. The next yum command simply downloads fresh metadata. To force a package to be installed again, run yum reinstall PACKAGE (the same as dnf reinstall).

On AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux and RHEL 8 and later, yum is only another name for dnf: on AlmaLinux 10 both /usr/bin/yum and /usr/bin/dnf point to dnf-3. CentOS 7 and CentOS Linux 8 are end of life; move such servers to AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux.

What yum clean all removes

Lab example from an AlmaLinux 10 test container with four repositories enabled:

$ du -sh /var/cache/dnf
61M	/var/cache/dnf
$ yum clean all
26 files removed
$ du -sh /var/cache/dnf
1.3M	/var/cache/dnf

clean all runs all of the cleaning types below. According to the DNF command reference, it also removes data left behind by disabled or removed repositories and by older release versions.

dnf clean metadata      # repository metadata (repodata) used to see which packages exist
dnf clean dbcache       # solver cache files generated from the metadata
dnf clean packages      # downloaded package files
dnf clean expire-cache  # only marks the metadata as expired, deletes nothing

The old yum clean headers no longer exists. dnf answers dnf clean: error: argument type: invalid choice: 'headers' (choose from metadata, packages, dbcache, expire-cache, all).

To download fresh metadata straight away instead of on the next command, run dnf makecache. It prints one line per repository and Metadata cache created.

When cleaning the cache helps

• "Cannot download repomd.xml" or "Failed to download metadata for repo": run yum clean all and try again. If it still fails, test the network and DNS (curl -I https://repo.almalinux.org/), or disable a broken third-party repository with dnf config-manager --set-disabled REPOID. See also the bad id for repo error.
• "Checksum doesn't match" or "Package does not match intended download": a mirror was out of date while you downloaded. Clean the cache and try again later.
• Old package versions offered after a repository changed: dnf clean metadata forces fresh metadata.
• A full disk: du -sh /var/cache/dnf shows how much space the cache uses. For "Insufficient space in download directory", see this guide.

Cleaning does not fix a damaged RPM database (errors such as "rpmdb open failed"). For that, see fix rpmdb open failed errors and rebuild the RPM database.

Keep downloaded packages

By default dnf deletes package files after installing them. To keep them, for example to install the same versions on other servers, add keepcache=True to the [main] section of /etc/dnf/dnf.conf. The files then stay in /var/cache/dnf/REPO-ID/packages/ until you run dnf clean packages; in our test, one reinstall with --setopt=keepcache=True left tree-2.1.0-8.el10.x86_64.rpm there, and dnf clean packages answered 1 file removed. To collect packages without installing them, see downloading RPM packages with dependencies.

How to force a reinstall with yum or dnf

1. Reinstall the package from the repository:

   yum reinstall tree

   dnf shows a normal transaction with Reinstalling: tree x86_64 2.1.0-8.el10 baseos and ends with Complete!. Add -y to skip the question.
2. Check that the files match the package again with rpm -V tree. Before the reinstall our test showed missing /usr/bin/tree; afterwards rpm -V printed nothing, which means everything matches.
3. Know what happens to configuration files. In our test, a changed /etc/nanorc (rpm -V nano showed S.5....T. c /etc/nanorc) kept the change after dnf reinstall nano, and no .rpmnew file was created. A deleted /etc/nanorc was restored. So, to get a package's default configuration back, move the file away first, then reinstall.

If the reinstall fails, the message tells you why:

• Package wget available, but not installed.: install it with dnf install instead.
• No match for argument: NAME: check the package name with rpm -qa | grep NAME.
• Installed package tree-2.1.0-8.el10.x86_64 (from baseos) not available.: dnf can only reinstall the exact installed version from an enabled repository. Enable that repository, update the package instead with dnf update NAME, or reinstall from the matching RPM file as below. For installing a specific version, see install, downgrade or lock a package version.

Force a reinstall from an RPM file

dnf reinstall ./tree-2.1.0-8.el10.x86_64.rpm      # resolves dependencies, recommended
rpm -ivh --replacepkgs tree-2.1.0-8.el10.x86_64.rpm
rpm -Uvh --force tree-2.1.0-8.el10.x86_64.rpm

A plain rpm -ivh stops with package tree-2.1.0-8.el10.x86_64 is already installed. --replacepkgs only allows a package that is already installed. According to the rpm manual, --force is the same as --replacepkgs, --replacefiles and --oldpackage together, so it also lets the package overwrite files of other packages and replace a newer version with an older one: use it only when you know why. More rpm options are in how to use the rpm command.

On Fedora, Ubuntu and Debian

• Fedora uses dnf5: yum and dnf both point to dnf5 (5.4.6 on Fedora 44). dnf clean all and dnf reinstall PACKAGE work the same way, the cache is in /var/cache/libdnf5, and clean headers fails there too (Unknown cache type "headers").
• Ubuntu and Debian: apt keeps downloaded packages in /var/cache/apt/archives. apt clean deletes them all; apt autoclean deletes only those that can no longer be downloaded. To force a reinstall, run apt install --reinstall PACKAGE. On Debian 13 (apt 3.0.3) it reported 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled and restored a deleted file, checked with dpkg --verify PACKAGE.

Official documentation: DNF command reference (clean, makecache and reinstall) and DNF configuration reference (keepcache).