EPEL, which stands for “Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux” is a free to use repository maintained by the Fedora Special Interest Group. This repository is for use on Linux distributions based on Red Hat Linux, e.g RHEL, CentOS and Oracle Linux and Scientific Linux. The EPEL repository contains packages mostly not available in the official operating system Base and AppStream repositories.

The EPEL project strives to provide packages with both high quality and stability. If you read Oracle Linux documentation page, you’ll notice EPEL repository is in the category of repositories to be used for development purposes only. But from my personal experience, EPEL is a great repository and I’ve never recorded any bugs.

Enable the EPEL Repository on Oracle Linux

Login to your Oracle Linux machine as root or use with sudo privileges.

$ ssh root@oraclelinuxserver
$ sudo dnf 

Method 1: Using Oracle provided EPEL repository contents

Once logged in, create EPEL repository file on your Oracle Linux system.

• Oracle Linux 8

sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/ol8-epel.repo<<EOF
[ol8_developer_EPEL]
name= Oracle Linux \$releasever EPEL (\$basearch)
baseurl=https://yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL8/developer/EPEL/\$basearch/
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle
gpgcheck=1
enabled=1
EOF

• Oracle Linux 9

sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/ol9-epel.repo<<EOF
[ol9_developer_EPEL]
name= Oracle Linux \$releasever EPEL (\$basearch)
baseurl=https://yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL9/developer/EPEL/\$basearch/
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle
gpgcheck=1
enabled=1
EOF

Update Yum cache by running the commands below.

$ sudo dnf makecache
Oracle Linux 8 EPEL (x86_64)                                                                                           4.3 kB/s | 2.5 kB     00:00    
Oracle Linux 8 BaseOS Latest (x86_64)                                                                                  5.2 kB/s | 2.7 kB     00:00    
Oracle Linux 8 Application Stream (x86_64)                                                                             5.0 kB/s | 2.9 kB     00:00    
Latest Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 6 for Oracle Linux 8 (x86_64)                                             4.7 kB/s | 2.5 kB     00:00    
Metadata cache created.

List configured repositories on Oracle Linux.

$ sudo yum repolist
repo id                                                                repo name
ol8_UEKR6                                                              Latest Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 6 for Oracle Linux 8 (x86_64)
ol8_appstream                                                          Oracle Linux 8 Application Stream (x86_64)
ol8_baseos_latest                                                      Oracle Linux 8 BaseOS Latest (x86_64)
ol8_developer_EPEL                                                     Oracle Linux 8 EPEL (x86_64)

Method 2: Using Fedora official EPEL repository

For the open EPEL repository, run the commands:

# Oracle Linux 8
sudo dnf install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-8.noarch.rpm

# Oracle Linux 9
sudo dnf install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-9.noarch.rpm

Accept installation when prompted.

...
Transaction Summary
=======================================================================================================================================================
Install  1 Package

Total size: 22 k
Installed size: 32 k
Is this ok [y/N]: y

Confirm EPEL is installed on Oracle Linux.

$ sudo yum repolist 
repo id                                        repo name
epel                                           Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64
epel-modular                                   Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64
ol8_UEKR6                                      Latest Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 6 for Oracle Linux 8 (x86_64)
ol8_appstream                                  Oracle Linux 8 Application Stream (x86_64)
ol8_baseos_latest                              Oracle Linux 8 BaseOS Latest (x86_64)

You can try install a package in the EPEL repository to confirm it is working.

$ sudo dnf install clamav
...
Transaction Summary
=======================================================================================================================================================
Install  5 Packages

Total download size: 170 M
Installed size: 174 M
Is this ok [y/N]: y

As confirmed the package installed from the EPEL repository we just added. That’s all on the installation of EPEL repository on Oracle Linux 8 Linux system.

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