Red Hat, CentOS, Fedora, and Amazon Linux (.rpm)

You can deploy Neo4j on Red Hat, CentOS, Fedora, or Amazon Linux distributions using the Neo4j RPM package.

Java prerequisites

Neo4j 5.x runs on Java 17, and from Neo4j 5.14, it also supports Java 21.

OpenJDK Java 17

Most of our supported Linux distributions have OpenJDK Java 17 available by default. Consequently, no extra setup is required if you are using OpenJDK Java, the correct Java dependency will be installed by the package manager when installing Neo4j.

Oracle Java 17

There is some minor setup required for compatibility with Oracle Java 17 because Oracle and OpenJDK provide incompatible RPM packages for Java 17.

You can use an adapter for Oracle Java 17, which must be installed before Neo4j. The adapter contains no code but stops the package manager from installing OpenJDK 17 as a dependency despite an existing Oracle Java 17 installation.

  1. Download and install the Oracle Java 17 JDK from the Oracle website.

  2. Install the adapter:

    sudo yum install https://dist.neo4j.org/neo4j-java17-adapter.noarch.rpm

    The SHA-256 of the adapter package can be verified against https://dist.neo4j.org/neo4j-java17-adapter.noarch.rpm.sha256.

Zulu JDK 17 or Corretto 17

If you want to use a non-default JDK, it must be installed before starting the Neo4j installation. Otherwise, your package manager will install the default Java distribution for your operating system, usually OpenJDK.

Installation instructions can be found on the manufacturer’s website:

Install on Red Hat, CentOS or Amazon Linux

Set up the repository

To use the repository for generally available versions of Neo4j, run the following as root to add the repository:

rpm --import https://debian.neo4j.com/neotechnology.gpg.key
cat << EOF >  /etc/yum.repos.d/neo4j.repo
[neo4j]
name=Neo4j RPM Repository
baseurl=https://yum.neo4j.com/stable/5
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
EOF

If you are upgrading from Neo4j 4.4 or earlier, you may need to clear the package manager cache before Neo4j packages become available:

yum clean dbcache

Install Neo4j

Install Neo4j as root using the following commands depending on which edition you are using:

  • Community Edition

    yum install neo4j-5.25.1

  • Enterprise Edition

    From Neo4j 5.4 onwards, you are required to accept either the commercial or the evaluation license agreement before running the Neo4j Enterprise Edition. The following are examples of using an interactive prompt and a non-interactive installation:

    Interactive installation of Enterprise Edition under the commercial license
    yum install neo4j-enterprise-5.25.1

    You have to choose either a commercial license or an evaluation license before the interactive installation is allowed to complete.

    For a non-interactive installation, you can set the environment variable NEO4J_ACCEPT_LICENSE_AGREEMENT to yes (for the commercial license) or eval (for the evaluation license). This should be done in the same line as the package is installed, to ensure bash correctly passes the environment variable to the installer process. As in the following example:

    Non-interactive installation of Enterprise Edition under the commercial license
    NEO4J_ACCEPT_LICENSE_AGREEMENT=yes yum install neo4j-enterprise-5.25.1

Install on SUSE

For SUSE-based distributions, the steps are as follows:

  1. Use the following as root to add the repository:

    zypper addrepo --refresh https://yum.neo4j.com/stable/5 neo4j-repository

  2. Install Neo4j as root using the following commands depending on which edition you are using:

    • Community Edition

      zypper install neo4j-5.25.1

    • Enterprise Edition

      From Neo4j 5.4 onwards, you are required to accept either the commercial or the evaluation license agreement before running the Neo4j Enterprise Edition. The following are examples of using an interactive prompt and a non-interactive installation:

      Interactive installation of Enterprise Edition under the commercial license
      zypper install neo4j-enterprise-5.25.1

      You have to choose either a commercial license or an evaluation license before the interactive installation is allowed to complete.

      For a non-interactive installation, you can set the NEO4J_ACCEPT_LICENSE_AGREEMENT to yes (for the commercial license) or eval (for the evaluation license) as in the following example:

      Non-interactive installation of Enterprise Edition under the commercial license
      NEO4J_ACCEPT_LICENSE_AGREEMENT=yes zypper install neo4j-enterprise-5.25.1

Offline installation

If you cannot reach https://yum.neo4j.com/stable/5 to install Neo4j using RPM, perhaps due to a firewall, you need to obtain Neo4j via an alternative machine that has the relevant access, and then move the RPM package manually.

It is important to note that using this method means that the offline machine cannot receive the dependencies that are normally downloaded and installed automatically when using yum for installing Neo4j, Neo4j Cypher Shell, and Java.

  1. Download the Neo4j and Cypher Shell RPM installers from Deployment Center or run the following to obtain the required packages:

    • Cypher Shell:

      curl -O https://dist.neo4j.org/cypher-shell/cypher-shell-5.25.1-1.noarch.rpm

    • Neo4j Community Edition:

      curl -O https://dist.neo4j.org/rpm/neo4j-5.25.1-1.noarch.rpm

    • Neo4j Enterprise Edition:

      curl -O https://dist.neo4j.org/rpm/neo4j-enterprise-5.25.1-1.noarch.rpm

  2. Manually move the downloaded RPM packages to the offline machine. Before installing Neo4j, you must manually install the required Java 17 packages.

    If using Oracle Java 17, the same dependency issues apply as with the Oracle Java prerequisites. You will need to additionally download and install the Java adaptor described in that section.

  3. Install Neo4j and Cypher Shell as root using the following command depending on which edition you are using:

    If you are upgrading from Neo4j 4.4 or earlier versions of 5.x, due to strict dependencies between Neo4j and Cypher Shell, both packages must be upgraded simultaneously. This must be one single command, and Neo4j Cypher Shell must be the first package in the command. For later versions, you can install them separately but still need to install Cypher Shell first.

    • Community Edition

      rpm --install cypher-shell-5.25.1-1.noarch.rpm neo4j-5.25.1-1.noarch.rpm

    • Enterprise Edition

      From Neo4j 5.4 onwards, you are required to accept either the commercial or the evaluation license agreement before running the Neo4j Enterprise Edition. The following example uses an interactive prompt:

      rpm --install cypher-shell-5.25.1-1.noarch.rpm neo4j-enterprise-5.25.1-1.noarch.rpm

      You have to choose either a commercial license or an evaluation license before the interactive installation is allowed to complete. For a non-interactive installation, you can set the NEO4J_ACCEPT_LICENSE_AGREEMENT to yes (for the commercial license) or eval (for the evaluation license) as in the following example:

      NEO4J_ACCEPT_LICENSE_AGREEMENT=yes rpm --install cypher-shell-5.25.1-1.noarch.rpm neo4j-enterprise-5.25.1-1.noarch.rpm

Start the Neo4j service automatically on system start

To enable Neo4j to start automatically on system boot, run the following command:

systemctl enable neo4j

Before starting up the database for the first time, it is recommended to use the set-initial-password command of neo4j-admin to define the password for the native user neo4j.

If the password is not set explicitly using this method, it will be set to the default password neo4j. In that case, you will be prompted to change the default password at first login.

For more information, see Set an initial password.

For more information on operating the Neo4j system service, see Neo4j system service.

Uninstall Neo4j

Follow these steps to uninstall Neo4j:

  1. (Optional) Create a backup to avoid losing your data.

  2. Uninstall Neo4j:

    ---
sudo yum remove neo4j
---