If there is no /etc/updatedb.conf file, the /etc/cron.daily/slocate script mails the following error message to root warning: updatedb: could not access /etc/updatedb.conf: open: No such file or directory The problem is that the updatedb command always tries to parse the file when run and thus will always print the error message. Looking at the script, it seems to me that if we are going to check for the presence of the file, then if it isn't there we should update the slocate database in a way that doesn't generate an error message. However, I can also see that point that we should generate the error message since a default /etc/updatedb.conf is distributed with the package. I am attaching a patch that will change the script so that it doesn't generate an error message all the time, but prints an error message only if the administrator desires. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. mv /etc/updatedb.conf /etc/updatedb.conf.orig 2. execute /etc/cron.daily/slocate 3. Actual Results: Error message: warning: updatedb: could not access /etc/updatedb.conf: open: No such file or directory is printed Expected Results: No output. Portage 2.0.49-r15 (default-x86-1.4, gcc-3.2.3, glibc-2.3.2-r3, 2.4.20-gentoo-r9) ================================================================= System uname: 2.4.20-gentoo-r9 i586 Pentium MMX Gentoo Base System version 1.4.3.10p1 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=pentium-mmx -pipe" CHOST="i586-pc-linux-gnu" COMPILER="gcc3" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /var/qmail/control /usr/share/config /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /var/bind" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=pentium-mmx -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="sandbox ccache autoaddcvs fixpackages" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.oregonstate.edu http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="x86 apm crypt cups foomaticdb gpm libwww ncurses nls pdflib slang spell svga xml2 zlib gdbm berkdb readline tcpd pam ssl perl python cdr mbox ppds samba sasl usb -oss -arts -avi -encode -gif -gtk -imlib -jpeg -kde -gnome -libg++ -mad -mikmod -motif -mpeg -oggvorbis -opengl -png -qt -quicktime -sdl -truetype -X -xmms -xv"
Created attachment 21708 [details, diff] /etc/cron.daily/slocate patch
From the updatedb man page: updatedb is simply a link to slocate that implies the -u option. OPTIONS -u Create slocate database starting at the root directory. This is the default behavior when called as updatedb. So... how does your patch make a difference in the behavior? That seems odd. Also, there should be a default /etc/updatedb.conf file installed by the ebuild. What happened to it on your system?
Actually updatedb implies "slocate -u -c", from the README file in /usr/share/doc/slocate-2.7-r2 "If you symlinked /usr/local/bin/slocate to /usr/local/bin/updatedb, then executing the updatedb command will automatically index the root filesystem starting at '/'. This will also cause the file '/etc/updatedb.conf' to be parsed. This file is in the same format as the original updatedb.sh configuration file." My updatedb.conf file is still in place, A user on the gentoo-user mailing list wanted to know how to add "/home/*/.Maildir" to the paths to be pruned. Since I had done something similar a long time ago with the findutils version of locate, I was trying to see how to do it with slocate. In the process, I moved /etc/updatedb.conf to /etc/updatedb.conf.orig while testing behavior. That is when I discovered that the updatedb command tries to always parse /etc/updatedb.conf Here is the behavior when run on my machine: garion root # ls -l /etc/updatedb.conf ls: /etc/updatedb.conf: No such file or directory garion root # updatedb warning: updatedb: could not access /etc/updatedb.conf: open: No such file or directory garion root # slocate -u garion root # slocate -u -c warning: slocate: could not access /etc/updatedb.conf: open: No such file or directory garion root # mv /etc/updatedb.conf.orig /etc/updatedb.conf garion root # ls -l /etc/updatedb.conf -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 586 Dec 4 13:47 /etc/updatedb.conf garion root # cat /etc/updatedb.conf # Copyright 1999-2003 Gentoo Technologies, Inc. # Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2 # $Header: /home/cvsroot/gentoo-x86/sys-apps/slocate/files/updatedb.conf,v 1.4 2003/04/18 02:42:14 lostlogic Exp $ # This file sets environment variables which are used by updatedb # filesystems which are pruned from updatedb database PRUNEFS="NFS nfs afs proc smbfs autofs auto iso9660 devfs tmpfs ncpfs" export PRUNEFS # paths which are pruned from updatedb database PRUNEPATHS="/tmp /var/tmp" export PRUNEPATHS # netpaths which are added NETPATHS="" export NETPATHS garion root # slocate -u; locate /proc/cpu /proc/cpuinfo garion root # slocate -u -c; locate /proc/cpu garion root #
-u is implied only if slocate is called as 'updatedb' if you call it as 'slocate' you need to include -u i'll do up the patch if no one else cares
This looks like a bug in slocate to me. The man page should say that it will always look at /etc/updatedb.conf if called as updatedb because that's what the code does. upstream probably needs to be made aware of this little inconsistency in the documentation and behavior. The patch looks good to me.
go for it, spanky
ok, i e-mailed the upstream author about this ... hopefully it should be fixed in future release thanks for the catch mr bones
