[SOLVED] Linux command: updatedb

[Google Spider]

When I try to update the database I get:

$ updatedb
updatedb: can not open a temporary file for `/var/lib/mlocate/mlocate.db'

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks

EDIT: sudo....

sorry found the answer. silly me.

[robertchahine]

haha, glad to see that you had resolve your own problem.

[mr.circuit]

I am total newbie ! I have the same problem. How did you solved it ?

Can you please elaborate ?

[drs305]

I am total newbie ! I have the same problem. How did you solved it ?

Can you please elaborate ?

You run the command as:

sudo updatedb

If you aren't familiar with sudo, it will ask for your password. As you type you won't see it. Just type it completely and then hit Enter.

Welcome to the ubuntu forums!

[yixiong109]

hellow, I do as you guys advice above, but still met problems as follows:
" user is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported."
hope skilled guys help me , thank you very much!

[tr333]

You should normally not have to run updatedb as it is run daily via the system cronjob in /etc/cron.daily/mlocate.

[tr333]

hellow, I do as you guys advice above, but still met problems as follows:
" user is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported."
hope skilled guys help me , thank you very much!

That is telling you that your user account doesn't have permission to use sudo. You would have to ask the computer administrator to run this for you, or give your account sudo/admin privileges.

[javaguru]

This is because your user doesn't have permissions to write to /var/lib/mlocate/ and it tries to create a temporary file there when you run 'updatedb'

I did the following:

adyhasch@T60:~/Desktop$ sudo chown adyhasch:mlocate /var/lib/mlocate
adyhasch@T60:~/Desktop$ sudo chmod 775 /var/lib/mlocate/

First command changes the owner of the directory to my user, 'adyhasch" ,and the 'mlocate' group

Second, I enable write permissions for the group 'mlocate'