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
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
yum install vim<\/code><\/pre>\n2. ifconfig (net-tools)<\/h2>\n
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<\/code> command, but many admins and tutorials still rely on it, so it’s worth having available.<\/p>\nifconfig ships as part of the net-tools package. Installing net-tools and yum-utils together also gives you useful companions like arp<\/code>, route<\/code>, and netstat<\/code>:<\/p>\nyum install net-tools yum-utils\nrepoquery -l net-tools<\/code><\/pre>\n3. Wget<\/h2>\n
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.<\/p>\n
yum install wget<\/code><\/pre>\n4. Telnet<\/h2>\n
Telnet is a legacy protocol, but it’s still a convenient way to test raw network connectivity to a remote port.<\/p>\n
\n- Never use Telnet over the public internet — it transmits credentials unencrypted.<\/li>\n
- Stick to local\/private networks, or use SSH instead (with root login disabled).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
yum install telnet\ntelnet gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com 25<\/code><\/pre>\nOnce connected, press Ctrl + ]<\/code> to close the connection, then type quit<\/code> to exit.<\/p>\n5. Htop<\/h2>\n
Htop is an interactive, real-time process monitor and a major upgrade over the default top<\/code> command. It isn’t in the default CentOS repositories, so you’ll need EPEL first:<\/p>\nyum install epel-release\nyum install htop<\/code><\/pre>\nAdvantages of Htop over top include:<\/p>\n
\n- Mouse support for selecting processes<\/li>\n
- Vertical scrolling through the process list and horizontal scrolling through command lines<\/li>\n
- Faster startup since it doesn’t wait to fetch data before displaying<\/li>\n
- Kill multiple processes at once without typing individual PIDs<\/li>\n
- Press
e<\/code> to view a process’s full set of environment variables<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n