openSUSE Zypper¶

ID: zypper
Home page: https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Zypper
Upstream stars: ⭐ 492
Last commit: 2026-09-06
Version requirement: >= 1.14
Platforms: 🅱️ BSD · 🐧 Linux · ⨂ Unix
Operations: installed · outdated · orphans · search · install · upgrade · upgrade_all · remove · sync · cleanup
purl types: pkg:rpm · pkg:zypper
CLI name: zypper
Every call: zypper --no-color --no-abbrev --non-interactive --no-cd --no-refresh <command>
Issues and PRs: 📦 manager: rpm-based
Source: meta_package_manager/managers/zypper.py

openSUSE’s package manager.

mpm drives zypper in XML mode (--xmlout) and parses the result with xmltodict: the most stable machine-readable output zypper offers. Every call is pinned with --no-color and --no-abbrev (untruncated columns), --non-interactive for unattended runs, and --no-cd --no-refresh so it never touches removable media or auto-refreshes metadata (mpm refreshes explicitly through sync).

Note

Both installed and search run search --details --type package: --details is the only mode exposing versions, but it returns one row per source package, architecture and past release. mpm drops other-version rows and keeps the highest edition per package name to collapse those duplicates.

Documentation:

What `mpm` adds to `zypper`¶

Through mpm, zypper gains a one-command cleanup --orphans that removes every orphaned dependency at once.

Bigger still, mpm reaches across every manager at once: mpm installed and mpm outdated cover zypper alongside dnf, dnf5, yum and any other manager you run in one table, mpm upgrade --all updates them together, and mpm sbom exports the whole machine as one bill of materials.

Every mpm command also gains --dry-run and --plan previews, cross-scheme version comparison and purl identifiers. See manager augmentations for how each one is built.

Your `zypper` commands, in `mpm`¶

You already know zypper: each operation maps one-to-one onto mpm, in an interface shared by every manager.

To…	With `zypper`	With `mpm`
List what’s installed	`zypper --xmlout search --details --type package --installed-only`	`mpm --zypper installed`
List outdated packages	`zypper --xmlout list-updates`	`mpm --zypper outdated`
Search for a package	`zypper --xmlout search --details --type package kopete`	`mpm --zypper search <pkg>`
Install a package	`sudo zypper install kopete`	`mpm install pkg:zypper/kopete`
Upgrade one package	`sudo zypper update kopete`	`mpm --zypper upgrade kopete`
Upgrade everything	`sudo zypper update`	`mpm --zypper upgrade --all`
Remove a package	`sudo zypper remove kopete`	`mpm remove pkg:zypper/kopete`
List orphaned dependencies	`zypper packages --unneeded`	`mpm --zypper orphans`
Clear caches	`sudo zypper clean`	`mpm --zypper cleanup --cache`

Prefix any command above with --dry-run to simulate the underlying manager calls without touching the system: the safe way to watch what mpm would do before trusting it.

Operations¶

Operation	Supported	Notes
`installed`	✓
`outdated`	✓
`orphans`	✓
`search`	✓
`install`	✓
`upgrade`	✓
`upgrade_all`	✓
`remove`	✓	`--orphans` also drops the package’s orphaned dependencies
`sync`	✓
`cleanup`	✓	`--orphans` sweep backfilled by `mpm`
`doctor`

Selecting and configuring `zypper`¶

Deselect zypper for a single run with --no-zypper, or persist the choice in your configuration:

[mpm]
zypper = false

The arguments and environment variables listed in the box atop this page are forced on every zypper call, so runs stay quiet, non-interactive and reproducible: the defaults you would set in CI anyway.

Keep it enabled but tune how mpm drives it with a per-manager override:

[mpm.overrides.zypper]
timeout = 900

mpm config-template zypper prints every overridable attribute as a ready-to-paste block.

Recipes¶

A few jobs you would otherwise script around zypper, one mpm command each:

Snapshot and clone a machine: mpm --zypper dump zypper.toml, then mpm restore zypper.toml on the next one.
Export a compliance SBOM: mpm --zypper sbom (CycloneDX by default, --spdx for SPDX).

Privilege escalation¶

System-wide manager: mpm wraps its privileged operations in sudo out of the box. Instead of letting the tool prompt mid-run, mpm primes the credential cache up-front, with a single branded password prompt at most. Turn escalation off for rootless setups with --no-sudo or the per-manager sudo override.

See privilege escalation for the full policy.

Concurrency¶

mpm never runs zypper at the same time as dnf, dnf5, urpmi or yum: they all reach the RPM database, and a second writer waits on its lock for as long as the first one holds it, rather than failing. Each mutating operation waits for the previous one, even with a higher --jobs, while managers outside this group keep running in parallel.

Only mutations are held back. The read-only queries (installed, outdated, search) take no backend lock and stay fully concurrent.

Cooldown¶

State of openSUSE Zypper’s release-age gating, from the cooldown support table:

Status: ❌ None

A cooldown only pays off where a compromised release can be withdrawn while the clock runs, and can only be emulated where the registry dates its releases. From the retraction table:

Registry: Distro binary archives (pkg:deb, pkg:rpm, pkg:alpm, pkg:apk)
Retraction: Index revert: removal is an archive operation and the mirror is rebuilt without the package. Debian, for one, requires filing an RM: bug against ftp.debian.org (developers-reference)
Publish date: ❌ the version string is the distro maintainer’s build, carrying no upstream publication date

With --cooldown set, mpm skips this manager’s install and upgrade operations rather than run them unguarded (fail-closed); --cooldown best-effort opts back in.

Version probe¶

The version is probed by running:

$ zypper --version
zypper 1.14.11

and extracted with:

r"zypper\s+(?P<version>\S+)"

Reference traces¶

Raw native outputs captured in the manager source: the reference mpm’s parsers were written against. If you know openSUSE Zypper well and a transcript below looks wrong, or a newer release changed its output format, report it.

$ zypper --no-color --no-abbrev --non-interactive --no-cd --no-refresh             --xmlout list-updates
<?xml version='1.0'?>
<stream>
<message type="info">Ignoring repository &apos;openSUSE-20260830-0&apos; because of &apos;no-cd&apos; option.</message>
<message type="info">Loading repository data...</message>
<message type="info">Reading installed packages...</message>
<update-status version="0.6">
<update-list>
<update kind="package" name="libopenh264-8" edition="2.6.0-2.suse1699.10" arch="aarch64" edition-old="2.6.0~noopenh264-1.5"><summary>H.264 codec library</summary><description>OpenH264 is a codec library which supports H.264 encoding and
decoding. It is suitable for use in real time applications such as
WebRTC.

This package contains libraries used by applications that use openh264.</description><license/><source url="http://codecs.opensuse.org/openh264/openSUSE_Tumbleweed" alias="repo-openh264"/></update></update-list>
</update-status>
</stream>

$ zypper --no-color --no-abbrev --non-interactive --no-cd --no-refresh             packages --unneeded
Ignoring repository 'openSUSE-20260830-0' because of 'no-cd' option.
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
S  | Repository            | Name    | Version   | Arch
---+-----------------------+---------+-----------+--------
i  | Main Repository (OSS) | xorriso | 1.5.8-1.2 | aarch64

Feed any of these through mpm and the raw output becomes one uniform table, the same shape for every manager: filter it, project columns, or export it (mpm --zypper installed --output json, or csv, toml, yaml), each package carrying a purl and a version comparable across managers.

Upstream project¶

Metrics	`openSUSE/zypper`
Activity
Popularity
Metadata

Changelog¶

8.0.0.dev0 (unreleased)
- Fix installed, outdated and search, which crashed whenever the query matched exactly one package. An exact search and a host one update behind are both ordinary states.
- Show captured openSUSE Tumbleweed output in the manager page’s reference traces, in place of placeholder package names.
6.4.1 (2026-05-04)
- Loosen the xmltodict floor from >=1 to >=0.12.
6.4.0 (2026-04-27)
- Add remove operation. Closes #1775.
5.12.0 (2023-02-25)
- outdated returns early when zypper prints nothing, instead of handing an empty document to the XML parser.
5.2.0 (2022-06-16)
- Fix outdated crashing when zypper reports no update at all: the XML traversal assumed the update-list element always held a mapping.
5.0.0 (2022-04-25)
- Add zypper support for Suse and OpenSuse. Closes #566.