Determining which packages were recently installed on a CentOS Linux system

I needed to determine which packages were recently installed on a CentOS 7 system where yum is used to install packages. The command rpm -qa --last will list all packages that have been installed in chronological order with the most recently installed packages listed first, since the --last option orders the package listing by install time such that the latest packages are at the top. E.g.:

CentOS 7 System Engineer Complete Course
CentOS 7 System Engineer
Complete Course 1x1 px 

# rpm -qa --last
amarok-utils-2.8.0-19.el7.x86_64              Fri 12 Aug 2016 09:02:34 PM EDT
amarok-libs-2.8.0-19.el7.x86_64               Fri 12 Aug 2016 09:02:34 PM EDT
amarok-2.8.0-19.el7.x86_64                    Fri 12 Aug 2016 09:02:31 PM EDT
taglib-extras-1.0.1-8.el7.x86_64              Fri 12 Aug 2016 09:02:17 PM EDT
mariadb-embedded-5.5.50-1.el7_2.x86_64        Fri 12 Aug 2016 09:02:17 PM EDT
qjson-0.8.1-4.el7.x86_64                      Fri 12 Aug 2016 09:02:15 PM EDT
kdelibs-webkit-4.14.8-1.el7.x86_64            Fri 12 Aug 2016 09:02:14 PM EDT
qtscriptbindings-0.2.0-5.el7.x86_64           Fri 12 Aug 2016 09:02:13 PM EDT
qtwebkit-2.3.4-6.el7.x86_64                   Fri 12 Aug 2016 09:01:57 PM EDT
alpine-2.20-2.el7.x86_64                      Mon 08 Aug 2016 10:13:54 PM EDT
fuse-sshfs-2.5-1.el7.x86_64                   Mon 08 Aug 2016 09:28:26 PM EDT
gpg-pubkey-352c64e5-52ae6884                  Mon 08 Aug 2016 09:27:13 PM EDT
epel-release-7-6.noarch                       Mon 08 Aug 2016 09:12:51 PM EDT
lynx-2.8.8-0.3.dev15.el7.x86_64               Fri 05 Aug 2016 10:28:17 PM EDT
telnet-0.17-59.el7.x86_64                     Sat 30 Jul 2016 04:34:17 PM EDT
thunderbird-45.2-1.el7.centos.x86_64          Sat 30 Jul 2016 04:10:55 PM EDT
mutt-1.5.21-26.el7.x86_64                     Sat 30 Jul 2016 03:50:58 PM EDT
<text snipped>
gnu-free-fonts-common-20120503-8.el7.noarch   Fri 15 Jul 2016 03:10:39 PM EDT
dejavu-fonts-common-2.33-6.el7.noarch         Fri 15 Jul 2016 03:10:39 PM EDT
libgcc-4.8.5-4.el7.x86_64                     Fri 15 Jul 2016 03:10:38 PM EDT
fontpackages-filesystem-1.44-8.el7.noarch     Fri 15 Jul 2016 03:10:38 PM EDT
control-center-filesystem-3.14.5-8.el7.x86_64 Fri 15 Jul 2016 03:10:38 PM EDT
#

Alternatively, I could obtain a list of package installation dates ordered from the oldest packages installed to the most recently installed packages with the oldest ones being listed first using the command below:

# rpm -qa --qf '%{INSTALLTIME} %{INSTALLTIME:date} %{NAME}-%{VERSION}-%{RELEASE}.%{ARCH}\n' | sort -n
1468609838 Fri 15 Jul 2016 03:10:38 PM EDT control-center-filesystem-3.14.5-8.el7.x86_64
1468609838 Fri 15 Jul 2016 03:10:38 PM EDT fontpackages-filesystem-1.44-8.el7.noarch
1468609838 Fri 15 Jul 2016 03:10:38 PM EDT libgcc-4.8.5-4.el7.x86_64
1468609839 Fri 15 Jul 2016 03:10:39 PM EDT dejavu-fonts-common-2.33-6.el7.noarch
1468609839 Fri 15 Jul 2016 03:10:39 PM EDT gnu-free-fonts-common-20120503-8.el7.noarch
<text snipped>
1469908255 Sat 30 Jul 2016 03:50:55 PM EDT urlview-0.9-15.20121210git6cfcad.el7.x86_64
1469908258 Sat 30 Jul 2016 03:50:58 PM EDT mutt-1.5.21-26.el7.x86_64
1469909455 Sat 30 Jul 2016 04:10:55 PM EDT thunderbird-45.2-1.el7.centos.x86_64
1469910857 Sat 30 Jul 2016 04:34:17 PM EDT telnet-0.17-59.el7.x86_64
1470450497 Fri 05 Aug 2016 10:28:17 PM EDT lynx-2.8.8-0.3.dev15.el7.x86_64
1470705171 Mon 08 Aug 2016 09:12:51 PM EDT epel-release-7-6.noarch
1470706033 Mon 08 Aug 2016 09:27:13 PM EDT gpg-pubkey-352c64e5-52ae6884.(none)
1470706106 Mon 08 Aug 2016 09:28:26 PM EDT fuse-sshfs-2.5-1.el7.x86_64
1470708834 Mon 08 Aug 2016 10:13:54 PM EDT alpine-2.20-2.el7.x86_64
1471050117 Fri 12 Aug 2016 09:01:57 PM EDT qtwebkit-2.3.4-6.el7.x86_64
1471050133 Fri 12 Aug 2016 09:02:13 PM EDT qtscriptbindings-0.2.0-5.el7.x86_64
1471050134 Fri 12 Aug 2016 09:02:14 PM EDT kdelibs-webkit-4.14.8-1.el7.x86_64
1471050135 Fri 12 Aug 2016 09:02:15 PM EDT qjson-0.8.1-4.el7.x86_64
1471050137 Fri 12 Aug 2016 09:02:17 PM EDT mariadb-embedded-5.5.50-1.el7_2.x86_64
1471050137 Fri 12 Aug 2016 09:02:17 PM EDT taglib-extras-1.0.1-8.el7.x86_64
1471050151 Fri 12 Aug 2016 09:02:31 PM EDT amarok-2.8.0-19.el7.x86_64
1471050154 Fri 12 Aug 2016 09:02:34 PM EDT amarok-libs-2.8.0-19.el7.x86_64
1471050154 Fri 12 Aug 2016 09:02:34 PM EDT amarok-utils-2.8.0-19.el7.x86_64
#

If I only wanted to see the package names without the version information, but ordered from the first installed to the last installed, I could use the command below piping the output of the sort command to the cut command and using a space character for the delimiter between fields, i.e., -d" " and displaying only field number two with -f2.

# rpm -qa --qf '%{INSTALLTIME} %{NAME}\n' | sort -n | cut -d" " -f2
control-center-filesystem
fontpackages-filesystem
libgcc
dejavu-fonts-common
gnu-free-fonts-common
<text snipped>
urlview
mutt
thunderbird
telnet
lynx
epel-release
gpg-pubkey
fuse-sshfs
alpine
qtwebkit
qtscriptbindings
kdelibs-webkit
qjson
mariadb-embedded
taglib-extras
amarok
amarok-libs
amarok-utils
#

The tags you can use for the rpm query are shown below:

Udemy Generic Category (English)120x600 





# rpm --querytags
ARCH
ARCHIVESIZE
BASENAMES
BUGURL
BUILDARCHS
BUILDHOST
BUILDTIME
C
CHANGELOGNAME
CHANGELOGTEXT
CHANGELOGTIME
CLASSDICT
COLLECTIONS
CONFLICTFLAGS
CONFLICTNAME
CONFLICTNEVRS
CONFLICTS
CONFLICTVERSION
COOKIE
DBINSTANCE
DEPENDSDICT
DESCRIPTION
DIRINDEXES
DIRNAMES
DISTRIBUTION
DISTTAG
DISTURL
DSAHEADER
E
EPOCH
EPOCHNUM
EVR
EXCLUDEARCH
EXCLUDEOS
EXCLUSIVEARCH
EXCLUSIVEOS
FILECAPS
FILECLASS
FILECOLORS
FILECONTEXTS
FILEDEPENDSN
FILEDEPENDSX
FILEDEVICES
FILEDIGESTALGO
FILEDIGESTS
FILEFLAGS
FILEGROUPNAME
FILEINODES
FILELANGS
FILELINKTOS
FILEMD5S
FILEMODES
FILEMTIMES
FILENAMES
FILENLINKS
FILEPROVIDE
FILERDEVS
FILEREQUIRE
FILESIZES
FILESTATES
FILEUSERNAME
FILEVERIFYFLAGS
FSCONTEXTS
GIF
GROUP
HDRID
HEADERCOLOR
HEADERI18NTABLE
HEADERIMAGE
HEADERIMMUTABLE
HEADERREGIONS
HEADERSIGNATURES
ICON
INSTALLCOLOR
INSTALLTID
INSTALLTIME
INSTFILENAMES
INSTPREFIXES
LICENSE
LONGARCHIVESIZE
LONGFILESIZES
LONGSIGSIZE
LONGSIZE
N
NAME
NEVR
NEVRA
NOPATCH
NOSOURCE
NVR
NVRA
O
OBSOLETEFLAGS
OBSOLETENAME
OBSOLETENEVRS
OBSOLETES
OBSOLETEVERSION
OLDFILENAMES
OPTFLAGS
ORDERFLAGS
ORDERNAME
ORDERVERSION
ORIGBASENAMES
ORIGDIRINDEXES
ORIGDIRNAMES
ORIGFILENAMES
OS
P
PACKAGER
PATCH
PATCHESFLAGS
PATCHESNAME
PATCHESVERSION
PAYLOADCOMPRESSOR
PAYLOADFLAGS
PAYLOADFORMAT
PKGID
PLATFORM
POLICIES
POLICYFLAGS
POLICYNAMES
POLICYTYPES
POLICYTYPESINDEXES
POSTIN
POSTINFLAGS
POSTINPROG
POSTTRANS
POSTTRANSFLAGS
POSTTRANSPROG
POSTUN
POSTUNFLAGS
POSTUNPROG
PREFIXES
PREIN
PREINFLAGS
PREINPROG
PRETRANS
PRETRANSFLAGS
PRETRANSPROG
PREUN
PREUNFLAGS
PREUNPROG
PROVIDEFLAGS
PROVIDENAME
PROVIDENEVRS
PROVIDES
PROVIDEVERSION
PUBKEYS
R
RECONTEXTS
RELEASE
REMOVETID
REQUIREFLAGS
REQUIRENAME
REQUIRENEVRS
REQUIRES
REQUIREVERSION
RPMVERSION
RSAHEADER
SHA1HEADER
SIGGPG
SIGMD5
SIGPGP
SIGSIZE
SIZE
SOURCE
SOURCEPACKAGE
SOURCEPKGID
SOURCERPM
SUMMARY
TRIGGERCONDS
TRIGGERFLAGS
TRIGGERINDEX
TRIGGERNAME
TRIGGERSCRIPTFLAGS
TRIGGERSCRIPTPROG
TRIGGERSCRIPTS
TRIGGERTYPE
TRIGGERVERSION
URL
V
VCS
VENDOR
VERBOSE
VERIFYSCRIPT
VERIFYSCRIPTFLAGS
VERIFYSCRIPTPROG
VERSION
XPM
#

References:

  1. CentOS: List the installed RPMs by date of installation/update?
    Date posted: January 22, 2015 Unix & Linux