File command Linux package name

Question

I can't find out which package provides the file on CentOS 6.

Solution

If you had file installed on one of your systems, than the following command would have answered your question

 rpm -q --whatprovides `which file`

In CentOS and other RedHat derived distributions the name of the package is file

 $ rpm -q --whatprovides `which file`
 file-5.04-13.el6.x86_64

Edit 2 (after a comment from jww)

To install file type

 sudo yum install file

Edit 1 As @Miquel reminds in Debian and Ubuntu one can use dpkg-query -S:

 $ dpkg-query -S `which file`
 file: /usr/bin/file

Comments

[jww]

Try sudo yum install file.

[Miquel]

Replace rpm -q with dpkg -S in debian/ubuntu/derivates

[jww]

The file progam is missing on CentOS 6 and 7: /usr/bin/which: no file in (/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bi‌​n:/root/bin) I don't believe we can use which to locate it. And rpm -q --whatprovides "/usr/bin/file" results in error: file /usr/bin/file: No such file or directory.

[humble]

@jww edited the post