Forcing yum to reinstall a package Revision as of Sunday, 20 December 2015 at 19:56 UTC
When things are OK
# Simply remove and install the package
yum -y remove PACKAGE
yum -y install PACKAGE
When things get bad
# Use rpm to force removal and reinstall with yum
rpm -e --nodeps PACKAGE
yum -y install PACKAGE
When things go very South
# Trick yum into thinking that the package
# doesn't exist in the RPM database
rpm -e --nodeps --justdb PACKAGE
yum install PACKAGE
N.B. The last method doesn’t actually remove any files.
Other notes
Files staged for install when performing a yum update are kept in
/var/cache/yum/. This is useful in certain
situations.