10 - Index Based Search

Note: Just a command-line exercise.

The Problem: find / -name "*foo*" is slow because it crawls the entire disk every time.

The Solution: plocate (or locate) queries a pre-built database. It's instant.

Prerequisites

• plocate installed (sudo apt install plocate)

Objective

Install plocate, build the index, and search instantly.

How-to

1. Build the Index

The index is usually built daily by a cron job, but run it manually now to populate it:

sudo updatedb

2. Search

Find files instantly:

locate aptitude

If you just created a file and locate can't find it, run sudo updatedb again.

Related Exercises

• 11 - Tail - Monitoring files
• 12 - Journalctl - System logs