forcing synapse to index a directory

Question

I have a NTFS drive binded into a directory inside my home (binding is specified in fstab), like this:

UUID=1A782A664EB8 /mnt/windows ntfs permissions,locale=en_US.utf8 0 2
/mnt/windows/Users/me/Documents /home/me/Documents none bind 0 0

The permissions are set 666 for files and 777 for directories.

This is my /etc/updatedb.conf:

PRUNE_BIND_MOUNTS="yes"
PRUNEPATHS="/tmp /var/spool /media /home/.ecryptfs /var/lib/schroot"
PRUNEFS="NFS nfs nfs4 rpc_pipefs afs binfmt_misc proc smbfs autofs iso9660 ncpfs coda devpts ftpfs devfs mfs shfs sysfs cifs lustre tmpfs usbfs udf fuse.glusterfs fuse.sshfs curlftpfs ecryptfs fusesmb devtmpfs"

NOTE: home directory is not encrypted.

It seems that synapse fails to index those files. Is there a way to force synapse to index that directory?

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:24

It is possibile, but disabled by default. I am not sure what will happen to the NTFS file system if you index it with updatedb.

The thing is, Synapse uses Zeitgeist, that uses locate to find things.

Following this answer my /etc/updatedb.conf reads

cat /etc/updatedb.conf
PRUNE_BIND_MOUNTS="yes"
# PRUNENAMES=".git .bzr .hg .svn"
PRUNEPATHS="/tmp /var/spool /media /home/.ecryptfs /var/lib/schroot"
PRUNEFS="NFS nfs nfs4 rpc_pipefs afs binfmt_misc proc smbfs autofs iso9660 ncpfs coda devpts ftpfs devfs mfs shfs sysfs cifs lustre tmpfs usbfs udf fuse.glusterfs fuse.sshfs curlftpfs ecryptfs fusesmb devtmpfs"

Where these variables are documented in

man updatedb.conf

[...]
PRUNE_BIND_MOUNTS
              One of the strings 0, no, 1 or yes.  If PRUNE_BIND_MOUNTS  is  1
              or  yes,  bind  mounts are not scanned by updatedb(8).  All file
              systems mounted in the subtree of a bind mount  are  skipped  as
              well,  even  if they are not bind mounts.  As an exception, bind
              mounts of a directory on itself are not skipped.

So I would have to modify the first variale to "no" through

sudo nano /etc/updatedb.conf

Then modify it, then Ctrl+O to save, and Ctrl+X to exit.

Then

sudo updatedb

and try to locate something on that mount point to see if it works.

I repeat it here at the very end of the post: I do not know what would happen to a NTFS file system when scanned by updatedb (will it take forever? will it crash? will it corrupt the FS? I really have no idea).

forcing synapse to index a directory

1 Answers1