Installing PowerShell on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Article
11/18/2024

All packages are available on our GitHub releases page. Before installing, check the list of Supported versions below. After the package is installed, run pwsh from a terminal. Run pwsh-preview if you installed a preview release.

Note

PowerShell 7.4 is an in-place upgrade that removes previous versions of PowerShell 7. Preview versions of PowerShell can be installed side-by-side with other versions of PowerShell. If you need to run PowerShell 7.4 side-by-side with a previous version, reinstall the previous version using the binary archive method.

RHEL 7 uses yum and RHEL 8 and higher uses the dnf package manager.

Installation via the Package Repository

Microsoft builds and supports a variety of software products for Linux systems and makes them available via Linux packaging clients (apt, dnf, yum, etc). These Linux software packages are hosted on the Linux package repository for Microsoft products, https://packages.microsoft.com, also known as PMC.

Installing PowerShell from PMC is the preferred method of installation.

Note

This script only works for supported versions of RHEL.

###################################
# Prerequisites

# Get version of RHEL
source /etc/os-release
if [ $(bc<<<"$VERSION_ID < 8") = 1 ]
then majorver=7
elif [ $(bc<<<"$VERSION_ID < 9") = 1 ]
then majorver=8
else majorver=9
fi

# Download the Microsoft RedHat repository package
curl -sSL -O https://packages.microsoft.com/config/rhel/$majorver/packages-microsoft-prod.rpm

# Register the Microsoft RedHat repository
sudo rpm -i packages-microsoft-prod.rpm

# Delete the downloaded package after installing
rm packages-microsoft-prod.rpm

# RHEL 7.x uses yum and RHEL 8+ uses dnf
if [ $(bc<<<"$majorver < 8") ]
then
    # Update package index files
    sudo yum update
    # Install PowerShell
    sudo yum install powershell -y
else
    # Update package index files
    sudo dnf update
    # Install PowerShell
    sudo dnf install powershell -y
fi

Installation via direct download

PowerShell 7.2 introduced a universal package that makes installation easier. Download the universal package from the releases page onto your RHEL machine.

The link to the current version is:

PowerShell 7.4.6 universal package for supported versions of RHEL
- https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/download/v7.4.6/powershell-7.4.6-1.rh.x86_64.rpm
PowerShell 7.2.24 universal package for supported versions of RHEL
- https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/download/v7.2.24/powershell-7.2.24-1.rh.x86_64.rpm
PowerShell 7.5.0-rc.1 universal package for supported versions of RHEL
- https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/download/v7.5.0-rc.1/powershell-preview-7.5.0_preview.2-1.rh.x86_64.rpm

The following shell script downloads and installs the current preview release of PowerShell. You can change the URL to download the version of PowerShell that you want to install.

On RHEL 8 or 9:

sudo dnf install https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/download/v7.4.6/powershell-7.4.6-1.rh.x86_64.rpm

Uninstall PowerShell

On RHEL 8 or 9:

sudo dnf remove powershell

Support for Arm processors

PowerShell 7.2 and newer supports running on RHEL using a 64-bit Arm processor. Use the binary archive installation method of installing PowerShell that's described in Alternate ways to install PowerShell on Linux.

PowerShell paths

$PSHOME is /opt/microsoft/powershell/7/
The profiles scripts are stored in the following locations:
- AllUsersAllHosts - $PSHOME/profile.ps1
- AllUsersCurrentHost - $PSHOME/Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1
- CurrentUserAllHosts - ~/.config/powershell/profile.ps1
- CurrentUserCurrentHost - ~/.config/powershell/Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1
Modules are stored in the following locations:
- User modules - ~/.local/share/powershell/Modules
- Shared modules - /usr/local/share/powershell/Modules
- Default modules - $PSHOME/Modules
PSReadLine history is recorded in ~/.local/share/powershell/PSReadLine/ConsoleHost_history.txt

PowerShell respects the XDG Base Directory Specification on Linux.

Supported versions

Microsoft supports PowerShell until PowerShell reaches end-of-support or the version of RHEL reaches end-of-support.

Install package files (.rpm) are also available from https://packages.microsoft.com/.

Docker images containing PowerShell 7.4 and PowerShell 7.5-preview for x64 are available from the Microsoft Artifact Registry for the following versions of RHEL:

RHEL 9 - OS support ends on 2032-05-31
RHEL 8 - OS support ends on 2029-05-31

PowerShell is tested on Red Hat Universal Base Images (UBI). For more information, see the UBI information page.

Important

The Docker images are built from official operating system (OS) images provide by the OS distributor. These images may not have the latest security updates. Microsoft recommends that you update the OS packages to the latest version to ensure the latest security updates are applied.

Installation support

Microsoft supports the installation methods in this document. There may be other methods of installation available from other third-party sources. While those tools and methods may work, Microsoft can't support those methods.

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