Re: What's the difference between updatedb and /etc/cron.daily/find?

["Gabriel Parrondo" <g.parrondo@gmail.com>]

2006/11/23, michael <michael@estone.ca>:
> On Thu, 23 Nov 2006 12:03:49 -0700, Chris Purves wrote
> > I am seeing different results from /etc/cron.daily/find and running
> > updatedb from the command line:
> >
> > aims-07:~# /etc/cron.daily/find
> > aims-07:~# locate Access.pm
> > aims-07:~# updatedb
> > aims-07:~# locate Access.pm
> > /home/httpd/twiki/lib/TWiki/Access.pm
> > aims-07:~# /etc/cron.daily/find
> > aims-07:~# locate Access.pm
> > aims-07:~#
> >
> > What are the differences between these and why does the daily cron
> > job find less files than running updatedb?  I have a standard
> > install and have not modified either /etc/updatedb.conf
> or /etc/cron.daily/find.
> > I see the same behaviour on both stable and testing installs.
>
> I will take a stab at this and say that perhaps the cron.daily find command
> is run as the user "nobody" and so it only updates the locatedb for
> files that nobody can read.
> Please correct me if thats incorrect.

You're right michael.
And it works that way for a good reason: you don't want users to know
about files that only root is supossed to know.

Best,
Gabriel.