[NTLUG:Discuss] What is this?

[Rev. wRy]

On Fri, 2004-07-02 at 12:25, Wayne Dahl wrote:

> #!/bin/sh
> renice +19 -p $$ >/dev/null 2>&1
> /usr/bin/updatedb -f "nfs,smbfs,ncpfs,proc,devpts" -e 
> "/tmp,/var/tmp,/usr/tmp,/afs,/net"
> 
> The fourth line was wrapped, so there are only 3 lines to it.  What
> exactly is this doing?  I'm not a programmer and probably never will be,
> but when I see processes running that I don't know about and didn't
> initiate (I understand the idea behind cron and hope this is just
> something running as it gets the opportunity because this computer stays
> turned off most of the time).
> 
> Thanks for any input you can give.

updatedb is for your 'locate' database.  the -f tells it to skip certain
types of file systems, the -e tells it to avoid certain directories.

You can take it out of cron if you want, but if you use locate, you'll
need to update the database manually at some point.

man updatedb for more info.

R