the /etc/cron.daily job creates a valid locatedb in /tmp but does not move it to the /var/lib/locatedb location. It somehow creates an empty file in /var/lib [root@texnet lib]# ls -al /var/lib/locatedb* -rw------- 1 root root 0 Feb 15 10:28 /var/lib/locatedb [root@texnet lib]# ls -al /tmp/* -rw------- 1 nobody users 665408 Feb 15 10:31 /tmp/locatedb.a13148.n.a13181 [root@texnet lib]# rpm -q findutils findutils-4.1-24 when I run the updatedb command as root the proper file is created. My 5.2 systems do not do this.
I'm a twit. This system was converted from slackware to redhat several months ago. I preserved my /etc/passwd and /etc/group files. Apparently nobody was set to be # 65535, where RH expects it to be #99 I guess some inherited permissions based on userid, etc. I diddled the passwd file to some semblance of RH ism et viola, c'est marche. Question though. Does this imply that the nobody user is _priviledged_ somehow?
Nobody is "privileged" only in the sense that uid's below some small number (like 100 or 500) are usually assigned by a vendor. Other conventions, such as nobody:x:65535:65535: are also common.