Re: locatedb question
As I said the first time, updatedb.conf isn't used in casual use of updatedb. Look at the cron job: if [ -f /etc/updatedb.conf ]; then . /etc/updatedb.conf fi That '.' means that the contents of updatedb.conf are read and used to set environment variables. If you were doing this manually, I apologize, but the transcript of what you did didn't indicate this. Sorry, I have a bad habit of not reading things fully, when I'm already typing. Drives my girlfriend nuts too. =) Just seemed logical to me that updatedb would follow it's config file updatedb.conf, is all. Thanks for the help, Mike
locatedb question
router:~# locate \* | wc -l 68558 router:~# updatedb router:~# locate \* | wc -l 91395 Every night, updatedb runs, and updates, removing something like 21000 files from the locatedb. Looking through the cron.daily, i see updatedb runs as nobody. Is there a particular danger in running this as other than nobody? thanks mike
Re: locatedb question
I believe there's a restricted locate, called slocate. Then again, it looks like it's trying to do the same thing anyways, so that's what's confusing me. Fortunately, I have no shell users =) On Wed, 18 Jul 2001, Robert Waldner wrote: On Wed, 18 Jul 2001 13:27:09 EDT, Mike Dresser writes: Every night, updatedb runs, and updates, removing something like 21000 files from the locatedb. Looking through the cron.daily, i see updatedb runs as nobody. Is there a particular danger in running this as other than nobody? On multi-user-systems, yes. Imagine files like waldner:~$ ls -al .cryptfile -rw--- 1 waldner waldner 1073741824 Jul 17 13:32 .cryptfile Well, there?s no point in making files only readable by specific users/ groups if locate would locate them just nicely for everyone ;-) cheers, rw
Re: locatedb question
On Wed, 18 Jul 2001 13:27:09 EDT, Mike Dresser writes: Every night, updatedb runs, and updates, removing something like 21000 files from the locatedb. Looking through the cron.daily, i see updatedb runs as nobody. Is there a particular danger in running this as other than nobody? On multi-user-systems, yes. Imagine files like waldner:~$ ls -al .cryptfile -rw--- 1 waldner waldner 1073741824 Jul 17 13:32 .cryptfile Well, there´s no point in making files only readable by specific users/ groups if locate would locate them just nicely for everyone ;-) cheers, rw -- -- You are in a maze of twisty little Linux distros, all different. -- Abigail, asr pgpKH2ScSWdof.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: locatedb question
Mike Dresser [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: router:~# locate \* | wc -l 68558 router:~# updatedb router:~# locate \* | wc -l 91395 Every night, updatedb runs, and updates, removing something like 21000 files from the locatedb. Perhaps it's ignoring some of the paths and filesystems it's told to prune in /etc/updatedb.conf? Those are only noticed by the cron job, not by casual use, unless you source that file. Looking through the cron.daily, i see updatedb runs as nobody. Is there a particular danger in running this as other than nobody? I wouldn't worry about files that aren't world-readable (as another respondent suggested), but when *directories* aren't world-readable then an updatedb running as root would expose the names of files within those directories to the rest of the system. slocate remembers the permissions on directories and makes sure that it only exposes the names of files within them to users who would normally be able to see inside those directories. -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: locatedb question
Robert Waldner [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Well, there´s no point in making files only readable by specific users/ groups if locate would locate them just nicely for everyone ;-) Of course there is! They may be able to locate them, but they still can't _read_ them. Now, there may be cases where you don't even want people to know that said files exist (your pr0n directory) but your example isn't one of them. -- Alan Shutko [EMAIL PROTECTED] - In a variety of flavors! Your lucky number is 3552664958674928. Watch for it everywhere.
Re: locatedb question
On Wed, 18 Jul 2001 at 15:19:06 -0400, Mike Dresser wrote: [Please do *not* cc me on list mail. I read the list. Thanks.] On Wed, 18 Jul 2001, Colin Watson wrote: Perhaps it's ignoring some of the paths and filesystems it's told to prune in /etc/updatedb.conf? Those are only noticed by the cron job, not by casual use, unless you source that file. Well, the thing is, the only difference is that i'm running it as root, instead of nobody. The updatedb.conf is the same for both. As I said the first time, updatedb.conf isn't used in casual use of updatedb. Look at the cron job: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~]$ cat /etc/cron.daily/find #! /bin/sh # # cron script to update the `find.codes' database. # # Written by Ian A. Murdock [EMAIL PROTECTED] and #Kevin Dalley [EMAIL PROTECTED] if [ -f /etc/updatedb.conf ]; then . /etc/updatedb.conf fi cd / updatedb --localuser=nobody 2/dev/null That '.' means that the contents of updatedb.conf are read and used to set environment variables. If you were doing this manually, I apologize, but the transcript of what you did didn't indicate this. Cheers, -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: locatedb question
On Wed, 18 Jul 2001, Colin Watson wrote: Mike Dresser [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: router:~# locate \* | wc -l 68558 router:~# updatedb router:~# locate \* | wc -l 91395 Every night, updatedb runs, and updates, removing something like 21000 files from the locatedb. Perhaps it's ignoring some of the paths and filesystems it's told to prune in /etc/updatedb.conf? Those are only noticed by the cron job, not by casual use, unless you source that file. Well, the thing is, the only difference is that i'm running it as root, instead of nobody. The updatedb.conf is the same for both. Seeing as how i have no users, i'll likely change the runs as, to root, instead of nobody.
Re: locatedb question
On Wed, Jul 18, 2001 at 01:27:09PM -0400, Mike Dresser wrote: router:~# locate \* | wc -l 68558 router:~# updatedb router:~# locate \* | wc -l 91395 Every night, updatedb runs, and updates, removing something like 21000 files from the locatedb. Looking through the cron.daily, i see updatedb runs as nobody. Is there a particular danger in running this as other than nobody? On your router, likely there is no harm in having a full locatedb. On a true multi-user system, users want to be able to chmod go-rwx their directories and not have the names of files still available to random other users on the system. AFAIK that is the reason. Cheers, Joost
