Managing dnf Transactions with dnf history and Rollback

This article explains how to leverage the dnf history command to inspect past package transactions and perform rollbacks or undos when necessary. Use this guide to maintain reliable package management on RHEL‑based systems like Rocky Linux and CentOS.

Introduction

Package management on RHEL‑based distributions (e.g., RHEL, CentOS, Rocky Linux) is handled by dnf. The dnf history feature provides a record of all transactions (installations, removals, upgrades), allowing you to audit and even revert undesired changes.

Prerequisites

• Root or sudo privileges.
• A system using dnf for package management.
• Basic familiarity with installing and removing packages using dnf.

Viewing Transaction History

Listing All Transactions

Run:

dnf history list

This shows a table of the last N transactions with:

• ID: Transaction identifier.
• Command line: The dnf command that was run.
• Date and time: When the transaction started.
• Action(s): Install, Remove, Upgrade, etc.
• Altered: Number of packages affected.

Inspecting Details of a Transaction

To view what changed in a specific transaction, use its ID:

# Replace <ID> with a real transaction number
dnf history info <ID>

You’ll see:

• Begin and end time of the transaction
• Command line invoked
• List of packages installed, upgraded, or erased

Undoing and Rolling Back Transactions

undo vs. rollback

• undo: Reverses a single transaction by ID (can remove installed packages and re-install erased ones).
• rollback: Rolls the entire RPM database to a given transaction scope, effectively undoing multiple transactions in one go.

Undoing a Single Transaction

# Revert transaction 53
sudo dnf history undo 53

This will:

• Erase any packages installed in transaction 53.
• Re-install any packages that were removed in transaction 53.

Rolling Back to a Previous State

# Roll the system back to transaction 50
sudo dnf history rollback 50

This will undo all transactions that occurred after transaction 50, restoring the system state as of that transaction.

Best Practices and Caveats

• Inspect before reverting: Always use dnf history info to confirm which packages will be affected.
• Avoid partial rollbacks: Rolling back complex dependency operations may lead to conflicts; prefer undo for single, targeted transactions.
• Back up critical data: Although dnf history is powerful, always maintain backups of configuration files and important data.
• Limit rollback depth: Long rollback chains can leave the system in an inconsistent state; plan and test in a staging environment first.

Examples

1. List the last 10 transactions

   dnf history list | head -n 12

2. View details of transaction 58

   dnf history info 58

3. Undo a bad install

   sudo dnf history undo 58

4. Rollback two transactions

   sudo dnf history rollback 56

References

• dnf(8) Manual Page
• Chapter 9. Handling package management history | Installing managing and removing user-space components | Red Hat Enterprise Linux | 8 | Red Hat Documentation