Installation fails with “Cannot find rpmkeys executable to verify signatures”

Linux Troubleshooting
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1

Hi,

I am getting package installation error “Cannot find rpmkeys executable to verify signatures” in Alma Linux and CentOS.

Cannot find rpmkeys executable to verify signatures.
Error: GPG check FAILED

Thanks in advance. :sos_button:

2

Hello,

This problem arises when the RPM package containing /usr/bin/rpmkeys gets removed.
That tool is essential for DNF/Yum to check GPG signatures on packages.
Without it, signature verification fails, blocking installations.

To resolve the issue, either download the RPM package on a functioning server and transfer it to the problematic one, or perform a fresh installation via the customer portal. Pick one of these two approaches:

Transfer RPM from a working server

On the working system, download the required RPM package.

# dnf download rpm

Transfer the file to the affected server

# scp rpm-4.14.3-32.el8_10.x86_64.rpm root@<ip of affected server>:/root

Execute commands on the affected server

Install rpm.

# rpm -ivh  rpm-4.14.3-32.el8_10.x86_64.rpm

Clean dnf/yum cache and retry.

# dnf clean all
# dnf install <package-name> eg. apache

You may check this issue using following commands.

# rpm -V rpm
# ls -l /usr/bin/rpmkeys
# rpm -qa gpg-pubkey

Let me know if you need more details.