Frequently Asked Question

How do I stop a package from being upgraded?

Sometimes you need a specific version of a package to stay put, perhaps a kernel that a proprietary driver was built against, or a database whose upgrade you want to schedule for the weekend. On Debian and Ubuntu, sudo apt-mark hold <pkg> pins the package: it will be skipped by apt upgrade and listed as "kept back". sudo apt-mark unhold <pkg> releases it, and apt-mark showhold lists everything currently pinned. Underneath, this sets a flag in the dpkg selections database, equivalent to echo "<pkg> hold" | sudo dpkg --set-selections.

On Fedora and RHEL, dnf does not have a built-in hold but adds an --exclude=<pkg> flag and the versionlock plugin (dnf install python3-dnf-plugin-versionlock), which lets you dnf versionlock add <pkg> to pin a specific version. On Arch you write the package's name into the IgnorePkg line of /etc/pacman.conf. In every case the effect is local to that machine, the repository still moves on without you.