Hello. Today I found a very strange problem. Some files seem to be
missing from locatedb database.

It all started with one particular file I wanted to find. But 'locate
<word>' didn't find the file I was looking for. I went to the
directory it was supposed to be, and there it was!

I have a cron job to updatedb every night. In fact:

$ ls -l /var/cache/locate/
total 7020
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7173582 2007-09-27 06:26 locatedb

So it seems to be in order. The file I wanted was created in August. So?

In fact, none the files in this directory is in the database!

In case you're curious, the directory is named

~/textos/fisica/departamento_fisica/departamento

In /etc/updatedb.conf, there is the following line:

PRUNEPATHS="/tmp /usr/tmp /var/tmp /afs /amd /alex /var/spool /sfs /media"

So I don't think updatedb should omit this directory. In fact, none of
the files in any subdirectory of ~/textos/fisica/departamento_fisica/
is indexed!

I've made some random search of files in other directories, and they
seem indexed. In fact files in ~/textos itself are indexed.

Some files in the original problematic directory have permissions
-rw------- (does updatedb respect this), but the file I was looking
for in the first place has read permissions for all.

I don't understand. Does any?

Regards,

Victor


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Victor Munoz wrote:
> Hello. Today I found a very strange problem. Some files seem to be
> missing from locatedb database.

[snip]

> I don't understand. Does any?

Try running 'updatedb' as root manually and check if this s.

Johannes
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On 09/27/07 12:38, Victor Munoz wrote:
> Hello. Today I found a very strange problem. Some files seem to be
> missing from locatedb database.
>
> It all started with one particular file I wanted to find. But 'locate
> <word>' didn't find the file I was looking for. I went to the
> directory it was supposed to be, and there it was!
>
> I have a cron job to updatedb every night. In fact:
>
> $ ls -l /var/cache/locate/
> total 7020
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7173582 2007-09-27 06:26 locatedb
>
> So it seems to be in order. The file I wanted was created in August. So?
>
> In fact, none the files in this directory is in the database!
>
> In case you're curious, the directory is named
>
> ~/textos/fisica/departamento_fisica/departamento
>
> In /etc/updatedb.conf, there is the following line:
>
> PRUNEPATHS="/tmp /usr/tmp /var/tmp /afs /amd /alex /var/spool /sfs /media"
>
> So I don't think updatedb should omit this directory. In fact, none of
> the files in any subdirectory of ~/textos/fisica/departamento_fisica/
> is indexed!
>
> I've made some random search of files in other directories, and they
> seem indexed. In fact files in ~/textos itself are indexed.
>
> Some files in the original problematic directory have permissions
> -rw------- (does updatedb respect this), but the file I was looking
> for in the first place has read permissions for all.
>
> I don't understand. Does any?

When were these files created?

- --
Ron Johnson, Jr.
Jefferson LA USA

Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day.
Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good!

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On Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 01:43:14PM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote:
> >
> > Some files in the original problematic directory have permissions
> > -rw------- (does updatedb respect this), but the file I was looking
> > for in the first place has read permissions for all.
> >
> > I don't understand. Does any?
>
> When were these files created?
>

There are 7 files with -rw------- permission, last modification times
between 2003-10-16 and 2007-06-11, and 9 files with -rw-r--r--
permissions, last modification times between 2007-05-02 and 2007-08-29.
Anyway, other directories which don't seem to be indexed either have
files with timestamps in various ranges, I don't see any correlation.

Victor


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On Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 03:21:32PM -0400, Victor Munoz wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 01:43:14PM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote:
> > >
> > > Some files in the original problematic directory have permissions
> > > -rw------- (does updatedb respect this), but the file I was looking
> > > for in the first place has read permissions for all.
> > >
> > > I don't understand. Does any?
> >
> > When were these files created?
> >
>
> There are 7 files with -rw------- permission, last modification times
> between 2003-10-16 and 2007-06-11, and 9 files with -rw-r--r--
> permissions, last modification times between 2007-05-02 and 2007-08-29.
> Anyway, other directories which don't seem to be indexed either have
> files with timestamps in various ranges, I don't see any correlation.

what are the permissions on the parent directories? that might be more
relevant.

A

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On Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 12:26:43PM -0700, Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
>
> what are the permissions on the parent directories? that might be more
> relevant.
>

drwxr-xr-x in all cases.

Victor




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On 09/27/2007 02:21 PM, Victor Munoz wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 01:43:14PM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote:
>>> Some files in the original problematic directory have permissions
>>> -rw------- (does updatedb respect this), but the file I was looking
>>> for in the first place has read permissions for all.
>>>
>>> I don't understand. Does any?
>> When were these files created?
>>
>
> There are 7 files with -rw------- permission, last modification times
> between 2003-10-16 and 2007-06-11, and 9 files with -rw-r--r--
> permissions, last modification times between 2007-05-02 and 2007-08-29.
> Anyway, other directories which don't seem to be indexed either have
> files with timestamps in various ranges, I don't see any correlation.
>
> Victor
>
>

Check /etc/updatedb.conf and the LOCALUSER variable. LOCALUSER is set to
'nobody' by default, and 'nobody' has no ability to view directories
with -rwx------ permissions.




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On Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 03:31:23PM -0400, Victor Munoz wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 12:26:43PM -0700, Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
> >
> > what are the permissions on the parent directories? that might be more
> > relevant.
> >
>
> drwxr-xr-x in all cases.
>

Wrong. One had permissions drwxr-xr-- as I mention in other post, and
that's why it failed.

Thanks,

Victor


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On Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 08:23:14PM +0200, Johannes Wiedersich wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Victor Munoz wrote:
> > Hello. Today I found a very strange problem. Some files seem to be
> > missing from locatedb database.
>
> [snip]
>
> > I don't understand. Does any?
>
> Try running 'updatedb' as root manually and check if this s.
>

It worked. All missing files are there now.

At first, this was a mystery, but now I understand why. updatedb is
not run as root, but as 'nobody', as set in /etc/updatedb.conf, so
the sequence

$ . /etc/updatedb.conf; updatedb

yields a lot of "Permission denied" messages, unlike "$ updatedb".

And I was wrong when I replied to another post in this thread, saying
that all directories had permissions drwxr-xr-x. ~/textos/fisica had
drwxr-xr--, and that was it.

So it's all working now, and much better, I understand :-) Thanks for
the .

Victor


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On Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 03:31:23PM -0400, Victor Munoz wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 12:26:43PM -0700, Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
> >
> > what are the permissions on the parent directories? that might be more
> > relevant.
> >
>
> drwxr-xr-x in all cases.
>

are these directories nfs mounts by any chance? that's all I can think
of, as they are excluded by default.

A

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On Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 02:53:18PM -0500, Mumia W.. wrote:
>
> Check /etc/updatedb.conf and the LOCALUSER variable. LOCALUSER is set to
> 'nobody' by default, and 'nobody' has no ability to view directories
> with -rwx------ permissions.
>

That was the problem, indeed. Thanks,

Victor


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Victor Munoz wrote:
> It worked. All missing files are there now.
>
> At first, this was a mystery, but now I understand why. updatedb is
> not run as root, but as 'nobody', as set in /etc/updatedb.conf, so
> the sequence
>
> $ . /etc/updatedb.conf; updatedb
>
> yields a lot of "Permission denied" messages, unlike "$ updatedb".
>
> And I was wrong when I replied to another post in this thread, saying
> that all directories had permissions drwxr-xr-x. ~/textos/fisica had
> drwxr-xr--, and that was it.
>
> So it's all working now, and much better, I understand :-) Thanks for
> the .

I use package 'slocate' instead of 'locate':

/-----------
$ aptitude show slocate
Package: slocate
[snip]
Description: Secure replacement of findutil's locate
This locate can index all files on your system, but only files and
directories which the invoking user has access
to will be displayed.

Note: If your computer is not up 24/7 you should consider installing
anacron since the database is only updated
once a night.
\-----------

Usage is like for locate, ie. I type locate, but it will execute slocate.

HTH,

Johannes
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