updatedb creates or updates a database used by
locate(1) . If the database already exists,
its data is reused
to avoid rereading directories that have not changed.
updatedb is usually run daily by
cron(8) to update the default database.
EXIT STATUS
updatedb returns with exit status 0 on success, 1 on error.
OPTIONS
The
PRUNEFS and
PRUNEPATHS variables, which are modified by some of the options, are documented in detail
in
updatedb.conf(5) .
-f, --add-prunefsFS
Add entries in white-space-separated list FS to PRUNEFS.
-e, --add-prunepathsPATHS
Add entries in white-space-separated list PATHS to PRUNEPATHS.
-U, --database-rootPATH
Store only results of scanning the file system subtree rooted at PATH to
the generated database.
The whole file system is scanned by default.
PATH must be an absolute path name, but it may contain symbolic links;
locate(1)will output the entries using the exact spelling of PATH.
-h, --help
Write a summary of the available options to standard output
and exit sucessfully.
-o, --outputFILE
Write the database to
FILE instead of using the default database.
--prunefs IFS
Set PRUNEFS to IFS, overriding the config file.
--prunepaths IPATHS
Set PRUNEPATHS to IPATHS, overriding the config file.
-l, --require-visibility IFLAG
Set the (lqrequire file visibility before reporting it(rq flag in the
generated database to FLAG.
If
FLAGis
0 or no,
locate(1)outputs the database entries even if the user running
locate(1) could not have read the directory necessary to find out the file described
by the database entry.
If
FLAG is
1 or
yes (the default),
locate(1) checks the permissions of parent directories of each entry
before reporting it to the invoking user.
To make the file existence truly hidden from other users, the database
group is set to
slocate and the database permissions prohibit reading the database by users using
other means than
locate(1) , which is sgid slocate.
-v, --verbose
Output path names of files to standard output, as soon as they are found.
-V, --version
Write information about the version and licence of
locate on standard output and exit sucessfully.
Databases built with
--require-visibility no allow users to find names of files and directories of other users,
which they would not otherwise be able to do.
NOTES
The accompanying
locate(1) utility was designed to be compatible to
slocate and attempts to be compatible to
GNU locate where possible.
This is not the case for updatedb.
