updatedb/mtab/mounts problem

[Roland Mas <lolando@debian.org>]

  Hi all,

  I have a problem.

  My initial problem was: the s?locate database is empty.  The
updatedb command has been run by hand several times, the
/etc/cron.daily/find script has been run by crond and then by hand (to
be sure), and the database was still empty.  Whatever I tried and
"locate", I got no results.  That was frustrating.

  So I took out my l33t shellscript debugging skillz, and I found out
why that database was empty.  The updatedb script uses find to scan
the filesystems, and some filesystem types, as well as some
directories, are pruned.  Nothing wrong with that, I'm perfectly happy
that NFS filesystems and Samba shares are not indexed, but something
seems wrong to me: my root directory is pruned too.

  After some investigation, I found out that my root partition is
pruned because it is listed as mounted with the "auto" filesystem
type.  At least, that's what mount says.  True, it is listed as "auto"
in /etc/fstab, and it's also shown as "auto" in /etc/mtab, but it is
actually ext3, as shown by /proc/mounts.  I want to be able to boot a
non-ext3-enabled kernel on my boxes, hence the "auto" in /etc/fstab.

  This problem occurs both with the updatedb provided by slocate and
the one provided by findutils.

  Now my current problem is: who gets the bug report?  mount, for
keeping inaccurate info in /etc/mtab?  Or find, for using the wrong
file (strace shows it uses /etc/mtab and not /proc/mounts)?  Or
slocate?

  If I get a consensus as to what package to report a bug on, I'll
obviously comply.  If my problem is of no interest to anyone, then
I'll pick one candidate according to my mood.  It will probably take
some convincing to get me to forget the idea of reporting that bug,
since I really think my position is legitimate.

Roland.
-- 
Roland Mas

Bonjour, je suis un virus de signature.  Propagez-moi dans la vôtre !