packages in TeXShop (was: Re: [OS X TeX] question regarding spacing after a period)

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 14.03.2009 um 01:04 schrieb cfrees at imapmail.org:

> 	echo /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb | nice -5 su -fm nobody 2>&1 |  
> sed -e '/Permission denied/d'


Clea,

thank you for being so insistent!

When I updated from Panther to Tiger Launch Service did not seem to  
perform as documented (maybe I should have waited longer than a day  
of eight or ten hours), so I let it coexist with anacron. Since I did  
not understand what the cited line was doing, if it really performed  
the update since the shell script is just an argument for echo, I  
created my own addition. And then I saw the reports in the LOG files  
about root permissions, so I added the /etc/locate.rc file with its  
PRUNEPATHS setting. The reports persisted, but I could be sure that  
security was saved.

This morning I experimented. I let the cited command (plus the ones  
to set permissions for /var/db/locate.database) run in a shell owned  
by root. Once *with* my /etc/locate.rc file, and a second time  
without it. The command "apply 'locate /Users/%1/ | wc -l' Shared  
admin arobert btest ctest x11 pete" revealed

	  with   /etc/locate.rc   without
	    2844                   2844
	    1333                   1343	(find ~admin | wc -l => 1353)
	      14                     14
	      35                     35
	      32                     32
	      77                     77
	  243121                 243137	(find ~ | wc -l => 310664, so some  
files aren't locatable)
	
	  945225                 946892

The latter number come from "locate '*' | wc -l" – locate can handle  
some regular expressions. So the /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb shell  
script scans all user's home directories – and leaves out /var/root,  
root's home directory (locate /var/root/ | wc -l => 0). Without /etc/ 
locate.rc the GnuPG directories *are* scanned: "locate '/Users/*' |  
grep -i gnupg | wc -l" reports a number greater than zero (OK, I  
could set permissions to 711 or less)! And of course a DVD, which I  
exclude via PRUNEPATHS.

So I have to do two things: update PRUNEPATHS and comment the cited  
line in /etc/periodic/weekly/500.weekly. Executing the shell script / 
usr/libexec/locate.updatedb as nobody or as root makes no difference  
– except: nobody *will* stumble over directories or files it can't  
read – and this could lead to side effects. My own scheme relies on / 
usr/libexec/locate.updatedb working correctly, as run by any account.


In *any* case /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb does *not* search *some*  
sub-trees in a user's home directory. A rule cannot be deduced, at  
least not by me ... (Maybe I should also, or better, check the  
original GNU locate utilities!)

--
Greetings

   Pete

Hard Disk, n.:
	A device that allows users to delete vast quantities
	of data with simple mnemonic commands.