Removing firewall-config from gnome software also removes firewalld package

Ask Fedora
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1

Fedora Workstation 42 , removing firewall-config from gnome software also removed the firewalld package , removing firewall-config from DNF ofc doesn’t remove firewalld why gnome software would do this ?

2

I guess they think.a user should have a firewall gui?

You’ll have to raise an issue over at Gnome to get it changed.

I assume you reinstalled your firewall?

3

No, i didn’t reinstall firewalld before getting the gui it was the one that came preinstalled.

4

What I am checking is that you now have a firewall active.

5

I was able to reproduce this in a F42 VM.

Install:

Transaction ID : 2
Begin time     : Sun 05 Oct 2025 12:38:52 PM EDT
Begin rpmdb    : 1693e69961b431c1061a56f00018eb03b51fd658f10e73daad6ea9903557572d
End time       : Sun 05 Oct 2025 12:38:53 PM EDT (1 seconds)
End rpmdb      : ec93d7cb560e6148a29a5f45a4799239ec1ab411e544bf6316eaf8d4db8033b8
User           : grumpey <grumpey>
Return-Code    : Success
Releasever     : 
Command Line   : 
Comment        : 
Packages Altered:
    Install firewall-config-2.3.1-1.fc42.noarch @updates
    Install dbus-x11-1:1.16.0-3.fc42.x86_64     @fedora

Removal

Transaction ID : 3
Begin time     : Sun 05 Oct 2025 12:50:42 PM EDT
Begin rpmdb    : ec93d7cb560e6148a29a5f45a4799239ec1ab411e544bf6316eaf8d4db8033b8
End time       : Sun 05 Oct 2025 12:50:43 PM EDT (1 seconds)
End rpmdb      : f34b0c152d089113db267e954743604ee29c8c161a6fe1e42002fc906d035880
User           : grumpey <grumpey>
Return-Code    : Success
Releasever     : 
Command Line   : 
Comment        : 
Packages Altered:
    Removed dbus-x11-1:1.16.0-3.fc42.x86_64          @@System
    Removed firewall-config-2.3.1-1.fc42.noarch      @@System
    Removed firewalld-2.3.1-1.fc42.noarch            @@System
    Removed firewalld-filesystem-2.3.1-1.fc42.noarch @@System
    Removed ipset-7.22-2.fc42.x86_64                 @@System
    Removed ipset-libs-7.22-2.fc42.x86_64            @@System
    Removed libcap-ng-python3-0.8.5-4.fc42.x86_64    @@System
    Removed python3-firewall-2.3.1-1.fc42.noarch     @@System
    Removed python3-nftables-1:1.1.1-3.fc42.x86_64   @@System

This could be due to gnome-software/package-kit still utilizing the dnf4 backend but not sure.
Went ahead and filed a bug 2401680 – Installing and then removing firewall-config via gnome-software removes firewalld and dependencies

2 Likes
6

Some obervations from my F42 KDE install (in case it helps, maybe it’s just showing the obvious)

pkcon without --autoremove does not remove firewalld:

$ pkcon remove firewall-config
Resolving                               [=========================]         
Finished                                [                         ] (0%)  
The following packages have to be removed:
 firewall-config-2.3.1-1.fc42.noarch	Firewall configuration application
Proceed with changes? [N/y] n

pkcon with --autoremove does remove firewalld:

$ pkcon remove firewall-config --autoremove
Resolving                               [=========================]         
Querying                                [=========================]         
Testing changes                         [=========================]         
Finished                                [                         ] (0%)  
The following packages have to be removed:
 firewall-config-2.3.1-1.fc42.noarch	Firewall configuration application
 firewalld-2.3.1-1.fc42.noarch	A firewall daemon with D-Bus interface providing a dynamic firewall
 ipset-7.22-2.fc42.x86_64	Manage Linux IP sets
 ipset-libs-7.22-2.fc42.x86_64	Shared library providing the IP sets functionality
 libcap-ng-python3-0.8.5-4.fc42.x86_64	Python3 bindings for libcap-ng library
 python3-firewall-2.3.1-1.fc42.noarch	Python3 bindings for firewalld
 python3-nftables-1:1.1.1-3.fc42.x86_64	Python module providing an interface to libnftables
Proceed with changes? [N/y] n

dnf remove (which implicitly autoremoves unless you tell it not to) does not remove firewalld:

$ dnf remove firewall-config --assumeno
Package                                Arch       Version                                Repository               Size
Removing:
 firewall-config                       noarch     2.3.1-1.fc42                           updates               1.0 MiB

Transaction Summary:
 Removing:           1 package

After this operation, 1 MiB will be freed (install 0 B, remove 1 MiB).
Operation aborted by the user.

So the difference seems to be that dnf5 “knows” that firewalld was installed for its own sake, not merely as a dependency of firewall-config.

dnf4 / pkcon doesn’t know that and thinks that firewalld is just a dependency.

Edit: in fact, sudo dnf4 remove firewall-config --assumeno behaves the same as dnf5 - it doesn’t try to remove firewalld. So there seems to be something specific to PackageKit here.

3 Likes
8

Yes reinstalled it and made sure its running.