1updatedb.conf(5) File Formats Manual updatedb.conf(5)
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6 /etc/updatedb.conf - a configuration file for updatedb(8)
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10 /etc/updatedb.conf is a text file. Blank lines are ignored. A # char‐
11 acter outside of a quoted string starts a comment extending until end
12 of line.
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14 Other lines must be of the following form:
15 VARIABLE = "VALUE"
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17 White space between tokens is ignored. VARIABLE is an alphanumeric
18 string which does not start with a digit. VALUE can contain any char‐
19 acter except for ". No escape mechanism is supported within VALUE and
20 there is no way to write VALUE spanning more than one line.
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22 Unknown VARIABLE values are considered an error. The defined variables
23 are:
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26 PRUNEFS
27 A whitespace-separated list of file system types (as used in
28 /etc/mtab) which should not be scanned by updatedb(8). The file
29 system type matching is case-insensitive. By default, no file
30 system types are skipped.
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32 When scanning a file system is skipped, all file systems mounted
33 in the subtree are skipped too, even if their type does not
34 match any entry in PRUNEFS.
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37 PRUNEPATHS
38 A whitespace-separated list of path names of directories which
39 should not be scanned by updatedb(8). Each path name must be
40 exactly in the form in which the directory would be reported by
41 locate(1).
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43 By default, no paths are skipped.
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46 PRUNE_BIND_MOUNTS
47 One of the strings 0, no, 1 or yes. If PRUNE_BIND_MOUNTS is 1
48 or yes, bind mounts are not scanned by updatedb(8). All file
49 systems mounted in the subtree of a bind mount are skipped as
50 well, even if they are not bind mounts.
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52 By default, bind mounts are not skipped.
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56 Unlike the traditional behavior of PRUNEFS and PRUNEPATHS, which
57 excludes the matched directory (or the root of a matched file system)
58 from the created database, the matched directory is entered in the cre‐
59 ated database. This allows e.g. locate /tmp to find the standard tem‐
60 porary directories even though their contents are excluded from the
61 database.
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63 In some updatedb(8) implementations PRUNEPATHS can be used to exclude
64 non-directory files. This is not the case in this implementation.
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66 /etc/updatedb.conf is a shell script in some implementations, which
67 allows much more flexibility in defining the variables. Equivalent
68 functionality can be achieved by using the command-line options to
69 updatedb(8).
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73 Miloslav Trmac <mitr@redhat.com>
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77 locate(1), updatedb(8)
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81mlocate Jul 2005 updatedb.conf(5)