Can i remove the updatedb cron task?

[chconnor]

Hi -

I haven't used the locate command once in the last five years. I'd like to disable the cron tasks that occasionally bother me by consuming CPU. Is locate used by the system in any way? By scripts, maybe during updates, etc? Or is it safe to not bother updating the DB as long as I never use the command?

Thanks for any ideas,
-c

[Rob_H]

Re: Can i remove the updatedb cron task?

Should be safe to disable.

[Snowhog]

Re: Can i remove the updatedb cron task?

The updatedb update is run from /etc/cron.daily/mlocate

Simply making it unexecutable (sudo chmod -x /etc/cron.daily/mlocate) would be all you need to do. You can always run it manually when required:

sudo updatedb

[chconnor]

Re: Can i remove the updatedb cron task?

Thanks, both. I was just wondering if there were cases where, e.g. a system script would ask itself "is X installed" and might use locate to determine that, and if my database was not updated it would fail to find something, etc. Sounds like i can take the chance without worrying.

-c