Every CentOS installation ships with a baseline set of packages, but a handful of extra tools make day-to-day server administration significantly easier. Here are five essential applications worth installing on a fresh CentOS 7 server.
1. Vim
Vi was the original Unix text editor, and Vim (Vi IMproved) is its modern, open-source successor. CentOS 7 ships with basic vi by default, but the enhanced Vim package adds syntax highlighting, plugins, and a much friendlier editing experience for configuration files and scripts.
yum install vim2. ifconfig (net-tools)
ifconfig — short for Interface Configuration — is the classic Linux utility for displaying and managing network interfaces. CentOS 7 deprecated it in favor of the ip command, but many admins and tutorials still rely on it, so it’s worth having available.
ifconfig ships as part of the net-tools package. Installing net-tools and yum-utils together also gives you useful companions like arp, route, and netstat:
yum install net-tools yum-utils
repoquery -l net-tools3. Wget
Wget is a non-interactive command-line downloader that can fetch files in the background, resume interrupted downloads, and throttle bandwidth — without needing an active user session. It’s ideal for pulling large files onto a remote VPS or RDP.
yum install wget4. Telnet
Telnet is a legacy protocol, but it’s still a convenient way to test raw network connectivity to a remote port.
- Never use Telnet over the public internet — it transmits credentials unencrypted.
- Stick to local/private networks, or use SSH instead (with root login disabled).
yum install telnet
telnet gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com 25Once connected, press Ctrl + ] to close the connection, then type quit to exit.
5. Htop
Htop is an interactive, real-time process monitor and a major upgrade over the default top command. It isn’t in the default CentOS repositories, so you’ll need EPEL first:
yum install epel-release
yum install htopAdvantages of Htop over top include:
- Mouse support for selecting processes
- Vertical scrolling through the process list and horizontal scrolling through command lines
- Faster startup since it doesn’t wait to fetch data before displaying
- Kill multiple processes at once without typing individual PIDs
- Press
eto view a process’s full set of environment variables
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