Bug#472059: marked as done (updatedb.mlocate issues huge amount of stat64(/etc/mtab) calls)

[Debian Bug Tracking System]

Your message dated Tue, 17 Aug 2021 17:05:16 +0200
with message-id <20210817150516.ke3jxj7qgwbq6...@sesse.net>
and subject line Closing mlocate bugs
has caused the Debian Bug report #472059,
regarding updatedb.mlocate issues huge amount of stat64(/etc/mtab) calls
to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

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-- 
472059: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=472059
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact ow...@bugs.debian.org with problems

--- Begin Message ---

Package: mlocate
Version: 0.18-2
Severity: normal


It seems to me updatedb.mlocate is issueing a lot too many calls to
stat64() on /etc/mtab, as seen stracing the process execution.

Ex:
chdir("phalanx")                        = 0
lstat64(".", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0
stat64("/etc/mtab", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=842, ...}) = 0
lstat64("phalanx", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0
fchdir(13)                              = 0
stat64("/etc/mtab", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=842, ...}) = 0
lstat64("php", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0
chdir("php")                            = 0
lstat64(".", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0
stat64("/etc/mtab", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=842, ...}) = 0
lstat64("files", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0
fchdir(13)                              = 0
stat64("/etc/mtab", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=842, ...}) = 0
lstat64("picocom", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0
stat64("/etc/mtab", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=842, ...}) = 0
lstat64("pine", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0
stat64("/etc/mtab", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=842, ...}) = 0
lstat64("pivotinit", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0
chdir("pivotinit")                      = 0
lstat64(".", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0
stat64("/etc/mtab", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=842, ...}) = 0
lstat64("spitz", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0
fchdir(13)                              = 0
stat64("/etc/mtab", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=842, ...}) = 0
lstat64("pkgconfig", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0
chdir("pkgconfig")                      = 0
lstat64(".", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0
stat64("/etc/mtab", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=842, ...}) = 0
lstat64("pkgconfig-0.15.0", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=4096, ...}) =
0
write(4, "1.11\0\0configure-uclibc.patch\0\0co"..., 4096) = 4096
fchdir(13)                              = 0
stat64("/etc/mtab", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=842, ...}) = 0
lstat64("plinciv", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0
chdir("plinciv")                        = 0
lstat64(".", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0
stat64("/etc/mtab", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=842, ...}) = 0


I doubt this is very much necessary and beneficial performance-wise...

On slow machines with lots of files/dirs, updatedb performance
improvements would be very much welcome.

Of course this seems like upstream problem and not specific to Debian.

Hope this helps,

Best regards.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.22-3-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages mlocate depends on:
ii  adduser                       3.106      add and remove users and groups
ii  libc6                         2.7-6      GNU C Library: Shared libraries

mlocate recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information

--- End Message ---

--- Begin Message ---

Hi,

As of bookworm, mlocate no longer exists in Debian and is replaced by plocate.
There's still an “mlocate” package, but it is only a transitional package
to install plocate (and convert over the old database).

Thus, I'm closing a series of bugs related to mlocate that I believe are
either:

 1. Already fixed in plocate, or
 2. Related to implementation bugs in mlocate that are highly unlikely
    to reappear in plocate (which only shares configuration parsing code,
    no other internals).

If you believe this is in error and the bug is relevant for plocate,
please reopen it with a message as of why that is the case (and reassign it
to plocate). Thanks!

/* Steinar */
-- 
Homepage: http://www.sesse.net/

--- End Message ---