slocate command is Security Enhanced version of GNU locate. This command searches a database listing every file on the system; it is intended as a faster replacement for “find / -name pattern”. This version stores file permissions and ownership, in order to prevent unauthorized access to files.
locate and slocate consult database files about the system (usually compiled and updated by a job run from the scheduler system cron) to find files or commands almost instantly. The location of the actual database files, what is indexed therein, and how often it is checked may vary from system to system. Consult your system’s manpages for details. slocate (secure locate) stores permission information (in addition to filenames and paths) so that it will not list programs to which the user does not have access. On most Linux systems, locate is a symbolic link to slocate; other systems may have separate programs, or may not have slocate at all.
Syntax:
$ slocate [parameter] [search-string]
slocate Command Options
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| -c | Read /etc/updatedb.conf when updating the database. |
| -dfile, –database=file | Use file as the database to search. |
| -edir1[,dir2…] | Exclude the given directories from the database. |
| -ffstype1[,fstype2…] | Exclude files on filesystems of the given types (e.g., NFS). |
| -h, –help | Print an option summary and exit. |
| -i | Ignore case when searching. |
| -l level | Security level. If level is 0, no security checks are done, providing faster searches. The default is 1, which turns on security checking. |
| -n count | Do not print more than count results. |
| -ofile, –output=file | Use file as the database to create. |
| -q | Do not print error messages (quiet mode). |
| -rregex, –regexp=regex | Use the Basic Regular Expression regex to search the database. |
| -u | Create the database starting at /. |
| -U dir | Create the database starting at dir. |
| -v, –verbose | Display filenames when creating the database. |
| -V, –version | Print version information and exit. |
slocate Command Example
Use the command “slocate” to display the file path information with the keyword “parted” in the file name:
# slocate parted