finding things in unix

[Bill Campbell]

On Fri, Apr 23, 2010, Fairlight wrote:
>I don't know why nobody's suggested installing slocate, having updatedb run
>nightly, and using:  locate filename

There are issues with this, the most serious is that it can
reveal obfuscated file names in directories that are not
searchable allowing people to access files they shouldn't.

Other than that, there is the factor that the locate command
won't show anything created since the last update, usually daily,
but sometimes less frequently.

That said, locate is something we put on most machines we
support.

Another handy use of find is to figure out what files are
modified by GUI system maintenance routines.  Doing something
like this will allow one to see what files change:

touch /tmp/copyctrl
do some GUI maintenance
find /etc -type f -newer /tmp/copyctrl

Bill
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