Re: Locate & whatis on new install.

[Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@usta.de>]

Hi Daniel, hi Marc,

Marc Espie wrote on Sat, Jan 01, 2005 at 10:34:57PM +0100:
> On Sat, Jan 01, 2005 at 03:51:07PM -0500, Daniel Ouellet wrote:

>> Not a big deal really, but a suggestion for the fresh install
>> of OpenBSD in regards to the 'locate' & 'whatis' database.

The OpenBSD install process completes very quickly.
Please do not forget this is a merit in itself.

Building a locate database may take some time,
depending on the hardware you use.  Thus, in my humble opinion,
it is a good idea _not_ to build locate.database by default
during the install process.
Keeping things quick and simple is not a bad policy.

> As to mklocatedb, I'm wondering what's the value of a locatedb
> on a fresh install...

Indeed.

> the only place where maybe it makes sense is mentioning this
> in afterboot(8).

Well, it is already nearly mentioned.  Quoting afterboot(8):

 || Look at and possibly edit the /etc/daily, /etc/weekly
 || and /etc/monthly scripts.

schwarze@athene $ wc /etc/weekly
      40     124     945 /etc/weekly
schwarze@athene $ grep locate /etc/weekly
if [ -f /var/db/locate.database ]; then
        TMP=`mktemp /var/db/locate.database.XXXXXXXXXX`
                echo "Rebuilding locate database:"
                UPDATEDB="/usr/libexec/locate.updatedb"
                        mv -f $TMP /var/db/locate.database
                        echo "Not installing locate database; zero size"
                echo "Not rebuilding locate database; can't create temp file"
        echo "Not rebuilding locate database; no /var/db/locate.database"

Reading this, you will probably issue a command like `ls -al /var/db/`
to see whether this code will actually be executed.

I think afterboot(8) is a notable case of a man page not just intended
for perusal and reference, but to be used as a checklist.  It even says
so itself in its very second sentence:

 || This document attempts to list items for the system administrator
 || to check and set up after the installation and first complete boot
 || of the system.  The idea is to create a list of items that can be
 || checked off so that you have a warm fuzzy feeling that something
 || obvious has not been missed.

Keeping afterboot(8) short and to the point may not be a bad idea
either, so i'm not sure it needs to be even more explicit than
"Look at and possibly edit /etc/weekly".

By the way, even if you really fail to follow afterboot(8) 
and try to use locate straight away, you get the following:

  schwarze@selene $ locate murks
  database too small: /var/db/locate.database

My typical reaction would be to type `man locate`.  The second
sentence in locate(1) reads:

 || The database is recomputed periodically (usually weekly or daily),

While the references in locate(1) are:

 || FILES
 ||  /etc/weekly                   script that starts the database rebuild
 ||  /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb  script to update the locate database
 ||  /var/db/locate.database       locate database
 ||
 || SEE ALSO
 ||  find(1), fnmatch(3), locate.updatedb(8), weekly(8)

There appears to be very little room for making that more explicit
or less confusing, except perhaps by deleting the two words "or daily".

Yours,
  Ingo