How To Install mlocate on CentOS 8

mlocate is An utility for finding files by name

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install mlocate on CentOS 8.

What is `mlocate`

mlocate is a locate/updatedb implementation. It keeps a database of all existing files and allows you to lookup files by name. The ’m’ stands for “merging” rereading most of the file system, which makes updatedb faster and does not trash the system caches as much as traditional locate implementations.

We can use yum or dnf to install mlocate on CentOS 8. In this tutorial we discuss both methods but you only need to choose one of method to install mlocate.

Install mlocate on CentOS 8 Using dnf

Update yum database with dnf using the following command.

sudo dnf makecache --refresh

The output should look something like this:

CentOS Linux 8 - AppStream                                       43 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - BaseOS                                          65 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - ContinuousRelease                               43 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Extras                                          23 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - FastTrack                                       40 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - HighAvailability                                36 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Plus                                            24 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - PowerTools                                      50 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64           13 kB/s | 9.2 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64                   24 kB/s | 8.5 kB     00:00    
Metadata cache created.

After updating yum database, We can install mlocate using dnf by running the following command:

sudo dnf -y install mlocate

Install mlocate on CentOS 8 Using yum

Update yum database with yum using the following command.

sudo yum makecache --refresh

The output should look something like this:

CentOS Linux 8 - AppStream                                       43 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - BaseOS                                          65 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - ContinuousRelease                               43 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Extras                                          23 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - FastTrack                                       40 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - HighAvailability                                36 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Plus                                            24 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - PowerTools                                      50 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64           13 kB/s | 9.2 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64                   24 kB/s | 8.5 kB     00:00    
Metadata cache created.

After updating yum database, We can install mlocate using yum by running the following command:

sudo yum -y install mlocate

How To Uninstall mlocate on CentOS 8

To uninstall only the mlocate package we can use the following command:

sudo dnf remove mlocate

mlocate Package Contents on CentOS 8

/etc/updatedb.conf
/usr/bin/locate
/usr/bin/updatedb
/usr/lib/.build-id
/usr/lib/.build-id/17
/usr/lib/.build-id/17/5326f225ab803c258877d104693960f55c357b
/usr/lib/.build-id/b9
/usr/lib/.build-id/b9/263a264647440df0781009cd882b5de6378bd3
/usr/lib/systemd/system/mlocate-updatedb.service
/usr/lib/systemd/system/mlocate-updatedb.timer
/usr/libexec/mlocate-run-updatedb
/usr/share/doc/mlocate
/usr/share/doc/mlocate/AUTHORS
/usr/share/doc/mlocate/COPYING
/usr/share/doc/mlocate/NEWS
/usr/share/doc/mlocate/README
/usr/share/locale/ar/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/as/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/ast/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/bg/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/bs/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/ca/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/cs/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/da/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/de/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/el/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/en_GB/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/es/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/et/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/fa/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/fi/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/fr/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/gu/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/hu/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/it/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/ja/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/ko/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/lv/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/ms/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/nds/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/nl/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/pl/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/pt/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/pt_BR/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/ru/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/sr/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/sr@latin/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/sv/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/ta/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/tr/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/uk/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/zh_CN/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale/zh_TW/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/man/man1/locate.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man5/mlocate.db.5.gz
/usr/share/man/man5/updatedb.conf.5.gz
/usr/share/man/man8/updatedb.8.gz
/var/lib/mlocate
/var/lib/mlocate/mlocate.db

References

mlocate website

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install mlocate on CentOS 8 using yum and dnf.