{"id":1939,"date":"2026-08-15T03:49:02","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T22:19:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kwikserver.com\/tutorials\/5-essential-apps-to-install-on-centos-7\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T03:49:02","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T22:19:02","slug":"5-essential-apps-to-install-on-centos-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kwikserver.com\/tutorials\/5-essential-apps-to-install-on-centos-7\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Essential Apps to Install on a Fresh CentOS 7 Server"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>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.<\/p>\n<h2>1. Vim<\/h2>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<pre><code>yum install vim<\/code><\/pre>\n<h2>2. ifconfig (net-tools)<\/h2>\n<p>ifconfig &mdash; short for Interface Configuration &mdash; is the classic Linux utility for displaying and managing network interfaces. CentOS 7 deprecated it in favor of the <code>ip<\/code> command, but many admins and tutorials still rely on it, so it&#8217;s worth having available.<\/p>\n<p>ifconfig ships as part of the net-tools package. Installing net-tools and yum-utils together also gives you useful companions like <code>arp<\/code>, <code>route<\/code>, and <code>netstat<\/code>:<\/p>\n<pre><code>yum install net-tools yum-utils\nrepoquery -l net-tools<\/code><\/pre>\n<h2>3. Wget<\/h2>\n<p>Wget is a non-interactive command-line downloader that can fetch files in the background, resume interrupted downloads, and throttle bandwidth &mdash; without needing an active user session. It&#8217;s ideal for pulling large files onto a remote VPS or RDP.<\/p>\n<pre><code>yum install wget<\/code><\/pre>\n<h2>4. Telnet<\/h2>\n<p>Telnet is a legacy protocol, but it&#8217;s still a convenient way to test raw network connectivity to a remote port.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Never use Telnet over the public internet &mdash; it transmits credentials unencrypted.<\/li>\n<li>Stick to local\/private networks, or use SSH instead (with root login disabled).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<pre><code>yum install telnet\ntelnet gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com 25<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>Once connected, press <code>Ctrl + ]<\/code> to close the connection, then type <code>quit<\/code> to exit.<\/p>\n<h2>5. Htop<\/h2>\n<p>Htop is an interactive, real-time process monitor and a major upgrade over the default <code>top<\/code> command. It isn&#8217;t in the default CentOS repositories, so you&#8217;ll need EPEL first:<\/p>\n<pre><code>yum install epel-release\nyum install htop<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>Advantages of Htop over top include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Mouse support for selecting processes<\/li>\n<li>Vertical scrolling through the process list and horizontal scrolling through command lines<\/li>\n<li>Faster startup since it doesn&#8217;t wait to fetch data before displaying<\/li>\n<li>Kill multiple processes at once without typing individual PIDs<\/li>\n<li>Press <code>e<\/code> to view a process&#8217;s full set of environment variables<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Need a CentOS server to try these on? KwikServer&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/kwikserver.com\/linux-vps.php\">Linux VPS plans<\/a> come with full root access so you can install exactly what you need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Five command-line tools worth adding to a fresh CentOS 7 install: Vim, ifconfig\/net-tools, Wget, Telnet, and Htop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-linux"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kwikserver.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kwikserver.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kwikserver.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kwikserver.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kwikserver.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kwikserver.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1939\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kwikserver.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kwikserver.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kwikserver.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}