UPDATEDB (Locate etc)

see also tips->locate

From Mike Andrew

'locate' and 'updatedb' are the front runners in searching for the existence of any file on a Linux system.

In order to operate efficiently, 'locate' uses a database rather than hunting individual directory paths.

For this to operate, and remain current, it means the database itself must be updated.

To do to this, 'updatedb' is invoked.

You can invoke updatedb manually any time you feel like it. However, it is quite the norm, for this binary to be executed in a cron. Cron.daily at5 am to be exact.

The two bottom line questions you will be asking, is

• 'how do I change what is included/excluded", and
• "how do i set the time when this is updated.
  

The piece of magic you are interested in is /etc/cron.d/Daily/50update-locatedb

This is a soft link to the common pool of cron scripts in /etc/cron.d/lib The '50' tells the background cron job the order in which to execute this, and other scripts found in the same directory. All 'objects' found in the Daily directory are executed at the same time each day. (see below)

Don't worry overly much about what soft links are, essentially, this mechanisism is a very "Linux way of doing things". A pool of common scripts are maintained in a ?lib directory, and they are linked to, from various other parts of the Linux file system. In this way, redundant copies of binaries are minimised and only ONE script needs to be altered to affect all players. In this case, of all the scripts availaible for use by cron, in the cron library, we are interested in the update-locatedb script.

While we are on the subject of cron libraries, do not be overly impressed with the name. It is not for gurus only, they are simple-enough bash shell scripts that anyone, you and i, can write.

When is updatedb invoked?

5:05 a every morning.

How do I change it?

Edit /etc/crontab

change the Daily script time to something other than 55 5, OR

edit the hashed out entry for updatedb so that it runs separately any time you like.

See cron for explanation of this file

what directories get included?

ALL mounted file systems, including dos, _if_ mounted.

How do i exclude some folders?

edit /etc/cron.d/update-locatedb


Add whatever file paths you wish to the OMIT paramater

Enjoy

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