On Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 10:07:15PM -0600, L. V. Lammert wrote: | On Sat, 14 Jan 2012, Philip Guenther wrote: | | > Any progress? I see plenty of replies to the people that you *don't* | > think are helping you but no reply to my question about what user you | > think locate.updatedb runs as, something which does factor into being | > able to solve this... | > | The answer was already posted, .. perhaps you missed it?
Perhaps he did. Wouldn't it be useful to help the guy trying to help you (you know, the "wheat") by giving a really simple and straightforward answer, even if it is repeating yourself ? Probably would've been less typing than what you just did (e.g. "Sorry, I think it runs as user XXXXXXXX"). However, unless I've missed an e-mail from you, you have *not* answered the question. Here's what you did reply (that is somewhat related to Philip's question): In <pine.bso.4.53.1201111716310.7...@mail.omnitec.net> > Agreed, .. but if locate.update does NOT run as root, that would seem to > indicate some problem other than permissions. ...and... In <pine.bso.4.53.1201111804330.7...@mail.omnitec.net> > If it does not run as root, then it isn't a permission issue as running as > root provides all required permissions, eh? > > I have never seen locate.updatedb fail when run as root (3.0 to 5.0, > actually), .. but, then, it isn't exactly 'failing', it just isn't > indexing anything except "/home". You see how you don't mention what user you think it runs as ? You make some roundabout statements concerning what would or would not work if it did or did not run as root (quite confusing), but a clear cut, straightforward answer is missing. Let's analyze one part in particular: "If it does not run as root, then it isn't a permission issue" If you do not run as root, you don't have root privileges so you have fewer permissions. But if you have these fewer permissions, that can not be an issue. Do you see how that statement is wrong ? Philip called you out on it, saying he didn't understand what you were saying. He replies with: In <cakkmsngtnz65nfkocgem9bdd3e6svqwtym3j5uyu9ccl8zh...@mail.gmail.com> > I'm sorry, but I don't understand that sentence. It appears to > conflate running as root with not running as root, or I'm miscounting > the 'not's. > > So let me try again: what user do you think locate.updatedb is run as? Yet you never (publically) answered this e-mail (at least not according to http://marc.info/ or my own archive of misc@). Here's another piece of the puzzle for you .. locate.updatedb does NOT run as root by default: --- from /etc/weekly ------------------------------------------------- UPDATEDB="/usr/libexec/locate.updatedb" echo "${UPDATEDB} --fcodes=- --tmpdir=${TMPDIR:-/var/tmp}" | \ nice -5 su -m nobody 2>/dev/null 1>$TMP ---------------------------------------------------------------------- So /by default/ it runs as user 'nobody'. Now you can change your setup so that locate.updatedb does run as root, but we all know you didn't do this as you would have mentioned it in your first post. One thing you actually could try is removing the 2>/dev/null from those lines, to see if any errors show up that might further help you debug this issue. Anyway, I hadn't seen a reply to my questions either. I'm quite curious by now what the find and locate snippets I suggested would output on your system. Also wondering if fsck showed you any errors which might explain what's going on. So, what's up with those ? Curious minds want to know. The archive is also still waiting for answers to provide as feedback to future google queries. Paul 'WEiRD' de Weerd -- >++++++++[<++++++++++>-]<+++++++.>+++[<------>-]<.>+++[<+ +++++++++++>-]<.>++[<------------>-]<+.--------------.[-] http://www.weirdnet.nl/
