8.3 Invoking ‘updatedb’ §

updatedb [OPTION...]

‘updatedb’ creates and updates the database of file names used by ‘locate’. ‘updatedb’ generates a list of files similar to the output of ‘find’ and then uses utilities for optimizing the database for performance. ‘updatedb’ is often run periodically as a ‘cron’ job and configured with environment variables or command options. Typically, operating systems have a shell script that “exports” configurations for variable definitions and uses another shell script that “sources” the configuration file into the environment and then executes ‘updatedb’ in the environment.

‘—findoptions=‘OPTION…” Global options to pass on to ‘find’. The environment variable ‘FINDOPTIONS’ also sets this value. Default is none.

‘—localpaths=‘PATH…” Non-network directories to put in the database. Default is ’/‘.

‘—netpaths=‘PATH…” Network (NFS, AFS, RFS, etc.) directories to put in the database. The environment variable ‘NETPATHS’ also sets this value. Default is none.

‘—prunepaths=‘PATH…” Directories to omit from the database, which would otherwise be included. The environment variable ‘PRUNEPATHS’ also sets this value. Default is ‘/tmp /usr/tmp /var/tmp /afs’. The paths are used as regular expressions (with ‘find … -regex’, so you need to specify these paths in the same way that ‘find’ will encounter them. This means for example that the paths must not include trailing slashes.

‘—prunefs=‘PATH…” Filesystems to omit from the database, which would otherwise be included. Note that files are pruned when a filesystem is reached; Any filesystem mounted under an undesired filesystem will be ignored. The environment variable ‘PRUNEFS’ also sets this value. Default is ‘nfs NFS proc’.

‘—output=DBFILE’ The database file to build. The default is system-dependent, but when this document was formatted it was ‘/usr/local/var/locatedb’.

‘—localuser=USER’ The user to search the non-network directories as, using ‘su’. Default is to search the non-network directories as the current user. You can also use the environment variable ‘LOCALUSER’ to set this user.

‘—netuser=USER’ The user to search network directories as, using ‘su’. Default ‘user’ is ‘daemon’. You can also use the environment variable ‘NETUSER’ to set this user.

‘—dbformat=FORMAT’ Generate the locate database in format ‘FORMAT’. Supported database formats include ‘LOCATE02’ (which is the default) and ‘slocate’. The ‘slocate’ format exists for compatibility with ‘slocate’. *Note Database Formats::, for a detailed description of each format.

‘—help’ Print a summary of the command line usage and exit. ‘—version’ Print the version number of ‘updatedb’ and exit.