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Questions tagged [updatedb]

Updatedb indexes the files on the filesystem and is automatically run at certain intervals to refresh the database. The locate command depends on updatedb for its fast search functionality.

26 questions
82
votes
4 answers

Can I disable updatedb.mlocate?

On ubuntu server here and I'm trying to unpack 300M image files from a compressed file format using Java. My unpack rate is 0.5Mbytes/sec, abysmal (34 days to unpack 1.5TB at this rate). I'm trying to figure out why, and the only oddity I notice is…
David Parks
  • 2,586
26
votes
3 answers

updatedb & locate command problem - Files from external hard drive are no longer indexed after rebooting

Files from my external hard drive are no longer indexed after rebooting. I have to remount and then run # updatedb after each reboot. The problem is updatedb takes a few minutes for my external hard drives. Is there any way I can retain indexing…
user784637
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17
votes
2 answers

How do I run Updatedb everyday?

How do I edit the update.conf at /etc/update.conf to run every day on Ubuntu? This would enable me to use locate with a very recent database. I read this: default setting, updatedb, it has been in /etc/cron.daily and its name is slocate.cron if you…
dearN
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6
votes
3 answers

Where is the database for locate/updatedb on Ubuntu?

I have been reading about the locate command, and the tutorial I was using says that /var/log/updatedb is where the updatedb is located. It is not there on ubuntu (xubuntu), and it doesn't even seem to be locate-able (ironically) in principle. This…
Will
  • 69
5
votes
2 answers

updatedb doesn't include all attached drives

Manpage states the by default updatedb includes the entire file system. I have two usb attached drives that don't get included updatedb. I can create my own db file for each drive but wondering if I can force updatedb to include them? I realized…
Guy D'Amico
  • 141
4
votes
4 answers

`updatedb` cannot open file `mlocate.db`

When I run updatedb from a terminal, I get this error: updatedb: can not open a temporary file for `/var/lib/mlocate/mlocate.db' Any ideas about how to get updatedb to work?
Ken Sandoval
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4
votes
1 answer

Can Locate command output only genuine files (not directories)

I am building a home made catalog/indexer of my PDF/DJVU/EPUB/LIT/unspecified files. I need only index the file names. Indexing contents are not needed as I always keep descriptive file names. The locate command does a good job and outputs the…
Magguu
  • 143
4
votes
1 answer

How do I tell locate to keep the index of an external HDD?

I changed my configuration so locate is also searching through external harddisks that are mounted in /media. My /etc/updatedb.conf: PRUNE_BIND_MOUNTS="yes" # PRUNENAMES=".git .bzr .hg .svn" PRUNEPATHS="/tmp /var/spool /home/.ecryptfs…
rubo77
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4
votes
1 answer

Why anacron does not call the crontab user files?

I want a special command to be lauched everyday, but dont want to put it in the /etc/cron.d/ because its a user specific user! pg@pipoTower: ~$ crontab -l # m h dom mon dow command 0 0 * * * updatedb -l 0 -o ~/.externalharddisk.db -U…
Philippe Gachoud
  • 6,120
4
votes
3 answers

updatedb command line options changed during upgrade from 19.04 to 19.10

The updatedb utility changed after upgrading from Ubuntu 19.04 to 19.10 (uhh why?). This broke some scripts I had that used the old command-line options. The new man page from the new system is not explanatory enough to identify what the new options…
bgoodr
  • 1,612
3
votes
1 answer

Browse through file databases created by updatedb (locate)?

Having indexed external drives using updatedb -l 0 -o db_file -U source_directory I wonder whether there is already a (GUI) browser like Nautilus to navigate offline through the indexed files. Note: locate -d DB . gives the whole list of…
type
  • 3,247
3
votes
0 answers

How should the daily updatedb cronjob be configured?

For the longest time I have a huge performance issue in my Ubuntu VM, as every day at some time the cpu would be at a 100%, pointing to the fuse process that mounts the shared directories under /mnt/hgfs as the problem. To find out what was causing…
oligofren
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3
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1 answer

How to exclude files from ubdatedb?

Yesterday, while trying to unmount our (davfs2 mounted) work webdav server from my filesystem, I got device is busy. Running sudo lsof | grep /mountpoint/of/davfs, revealed that the culprit was updatedb. Running man updatedb revealed that this is a…
Bruni
  • 11,099
2
votes
1 answer

locate not returning files residing on mounted disks

Yes, I have set updatedb.conf to not prune nfs, cifs, smb, autofs and set prune bind mounts to "no". PRUNE_BIND_MOUNTS="no" # PRUNENAMES=".git .bzr .hg .svn" PRUNEPATHS="/tmp /var/spool /home/.ecryptfs /var/lib/schroot" PRUNEFS="rpc_pipefs afs…
Sridhar Sarnobat
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2
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1 answer

updatedb : File size limit exceeded (18.04 LTS)

Whenever I run a command : updatedb I get the message : File size limit exceeded (core dumped) Why is that ? I know that locate command utilizes a database created by a related utility, updatedb. Most Linux systems run this automatically once a…
Tomas.R
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