How To Install mdevctl on CentOS 8

mdevctl is Mediated device management and persistence utility

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install mdevctl on CentOS 8.

What is `mdevctl`

mdevctl is a utility for managing and persisting devices in the mediated device device framework of the Linux kernel. Mediated devices are sub-devices of a parent device (ex. a vGPU) which can be dynamically created and potentially used by drivers like vfio-mdev for assignment to virtual machines.

We can use yum or dnf to install mdevctl on CentOS 8. In this tutorial we discuss both methods but you only need to choose one of method to install mdevctl.

Install mdevctl on CentOS 8 Using dnf

Update yum database with dnf using the following command.

sudo dnf makecache --refresh

The output should look something like this:

CentOS Linux 8 - AppStream                                       43 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - BaseOS                                          65 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - ContinuousRelease                               43 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Extras                                          23 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - FastTrack                                       40 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - HighAvailability                                36 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Plus                                            24 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - PowerTools                                      50 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64           13 kB/s | 9.2 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64                   24 kB/s | 8.5 kB     00:00    
Metadata cache created.

After updating yum database, We can install mdevctl using dnf by running the following command:

sudo dnf -y install mdevctl

Install mdevctl on CentOS 8 Using yum

Update yum database with yum using the following command.

sudo yum makecache --refresh

The output should look something like this:

CentOS Linux 8 - AppStream                                       43 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - BaseOS                                          65 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - ContinuousRelease                               43 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Extras                                          23 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - FastTrack                                       40 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - HighAvailability                                36 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Plus                                            24 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - PowerTools                                      50 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64           13 kB/s | 9.2 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64                   24 kB/s | 8.5 kB     00:00    
Metadata cache created.

After updating yum database, We can install mdevctl using yum by running the following command:

sudo yum -y install mdevctl

How To Uninstall mdevctl on CentOS 8

To uninstall only the mdevctl package we can use the following command:

sudo dnf remove mdevctl

mdevctl Package Contents on CentOS 8

/etc/mdevctl.d
/usr/lib/udev/rules.d/60-mdevctl.rules
/usr/sbin/lsmdev
/usr/sbin/mdevctl
/usr/share/doc/mdevctl
/usr/share/doc/mdevctl/README.md
/usr/share/licenses/mdevctl
/usr/share/licenses/mdevctl/COPYING
/usr/share/man/man8/lsmdev.8.gz
/usr/share/man/man8/mdevctl.8.gz

References

mdevctl website

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install mdevctl on CentOS 8 using yum and dnf.