DNF is a package manager for RPM-based distributions such as CentOS Stream, Fedora, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and Rocky Linux. The following tutorial will cover how to increase DNF performance, centering around download speed by adding parallel downloads and configuring the fastest mirrors.
What is DNF Package Manager?
DNF Package Manager, also known as Dandified Yum, is a powerful and versatile software package management utility for Linux distributions. It can install, uninstall, and update packages from multiple sources, such as online repositories or local files. The Fedora Project team has developed DNF to provide an improved version for yum – their original package manager -and offers users high levels of functionality, including support for multiple architectures, parallel downloads, dependency solving, delta RPMs for faster updates, and transaction rollbacks. Furthermore, DNF provides automatic upgrades through command line or GUI interfaces and integrates smoothly with other package managers like RPM.
Recommended Steps Before Hand
Before you continue, your system is advised to ensure all existing packages are up to date to avoid system conflicts during the installation and good system maintenance.
sudo dnf upgrade --refreshConfigure DNF Package Manager
The first step is to open the following configuration using the following command.
sudo nano /etc/dnf/dnf.confConfigure Parallel Downloads
The first option to increase the DNF speed is to add parallel downloads, and this option enabled will show results instantly after you allow it.
Add the following at the bottom of the dnf.conf configuration file.
max_parallel_downloads=10The above tells the DNF package manager to download ten parallel packages at the same time, 10 is the most recommended setting to start with, but you can increase this but only do so sparingly, such as from 10 to 15, 15 to 20. My advice is to start small at ten and then raise the limit in the DNF package manager configuration file. Adding too many parallels may reduce performance if you add 100, to begin with.
Configure Fastest Mirror
The second improvement alongside parallel downloads is to enable the fastest mirror.
Add the following underneath parallel downloads in the dnf.conf configuration file.
fastestmirror=TrueWith the fastest mirror and parallel mirrors configured, save the configuration file CTRL+O and exit CTRL+X.
The good idea is to run a DNF upgrade, and you will notice first the DNF package manager is now determining the fastest mirrors in the output.
sudo dnf update --refresh
Depending on the number of parrel downloads, this may take a few moments to check and sort out, but in the long term, your DNF speeds should be incredibly faster now.
Comments
For users who find this has not helped, you will need to diagnose the issue further. The above settings work best when you have 50 to 300 packages to update, which should be incredibly fast with the fastest mirror downloading the packages at the best bandwidth rate possible along with utilizing parallel downloads, so you are not downloading each package one by one, which is the biggest culprit in slowing down DNF in my opinion.
