How do I reduce the size of mlocate database?

Question

I'm out of space on /var

  25G   25G     0 100% /var

It looks like mlocate.db is the problem:

# find /var -printf '%s %p\n' | sort -nr | head
13140140032 ./lib/mlocate/mlocate.db.cgLMAM
12409839616 ./lib/mlocate/mlocate.db.MqGeqe

# cat /etc/updatedb.conf
PRUNE_BIND_MOUNTS="yes"
PRUNENAMES=".git .bzr .hg .svn"
PRUNEPATHS="/tmp /var/spool /media"
PRUNEFS="NFS nfs nfs4 rpc_pipefs afs binfmt_misc proc smbfs autofs iso9660 ncpfs coda devpts ftpfs devfs mfs shfs sysfs cifs lustre_lite tmpfs usbfs udf"

I don't see anything else to prune. So how can I fix this? Thanks

WOW! that is more than 10GB each! – rubo77 May 04 '14 at 12:49 — rubo77, May 04 '14 at 12:49

score 17 · Accepted Answer · edited May 04 '14 at 12:15

17

The /var/lib/mlocate/mlocate.db.?????? files are leftover temporary files from a (probably) interrupted updatedb run. They don't appear on either of my Ubuntu 11.10 systems, except when updatedb is running. Delete them:

sudo rm -f /var/lib/mlocate/mlocate.db.??????

then, to be sure, run

sudo /etc/cron.daily/mlocate

edited May 04 '14 at 12:15

rubo77

34,212

answered Mar 30 '12 at 02:39

waltinator

1

thank you. i was debating whether or not to delete the 900+MB file mlocate.db.pm5NNC that was time stamped dec 2015. with your answer i took the plunge! – northern-bradley Jul 20 '16 at 15:57
clearly my nearly 1GB file was a little one and i've got off lightly: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1487312 – northern-bradley Jul 20 '16 at 16:01

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 22 '21 at 15:09

0

You can re-install it too:

apt remove --purge mlocate \
&& apt install mlocate

It will delete and recreate your /var/lib/mlocate database file.

answered Feb 22 '21 at 15:09

Genjo

101

How do I reduce the size of mlocate database?

2 Answers2