2. One of the most annoying things according to me while managing servers
is trying to search for a file in Linux servers. At one point or another, we
are required to find a file’s location in a Linux server where you need to
make changes or have to locate a file with logs, backup, etc.
In this tutorial, we will learn how to search a file in Linux, using the
following two commands,
1- Find command
2- Locate command
Let’s discuss these two commands find / locate a file in Linux, one by one.
Recommended Read: Essential Linux Commands You Should Know
Also Read: Importance TERRAFORM commands that we should know
1- Using the ‘find command’ to locate a file in
Linux
Find is one the most widely used and powerful command Linux. Not only
can search for files in Linux but can also perform follow-up actions like
removing them, renaming them, etc, once the find command has located
the intended files.
To use the find command to locate a file in Linux, use the following
command as a reference,
# find /root -name ‘*.txt’
This will find all the files end with ‘.txt’ in the folder ‘/root’ folder.
Find command is so powerful utility that can locate files based on their
sizes or permissions or owner or hidden files or based on the time they
were accessed, modified, or created. We have created a detailed tutorial
regarding how to use the FIND command in Linux.
3. 2- Using the ‘locate command’ to find a file in
Linux
Another command to search for a file in Linux is the ‘locate command’. Not
all Linux distributions have the ‘locate command’ pre-installed but we can
install it with a single line command.
To install the ‘locate command in CentOS or other RHEL based Linux
distros, the command is,
# yum install mlocate
To install it on all the Debian-based Linux distributions, the command is,
# sudo apt install locate
Once the package for the ‘locate command’ has been installed, we need to
update its database with the following command,
# updatedb
This command creates or updates a database with the location of all files
or folders on your Linux system & when we search for a file with the
‘locate command’, then it will search the db & not the Linux system for the
required file’s location. Hence, it is much faster than the ‘find command’.
After this operation completes, then we can start to find files in your Linux
system, like this,
# locate shusain.txt
Locate command needs to have the exact name of the file that you are
trying to find.
Note: One other thing to consider while searching for a file with the ‘locate
command’ is that file is searched against the db for locate command. So if
you are trying to locate recently created files, then you might not find
those. If that is the case, you need to update the db again before
searching for the file. Rebuild the DB with,
# updatedb
That’s it guys, this was our tutorial on how to search a file in Linux using
the ‘find’ & ‘locate command. Please send in any questions or queries
using the comment below.
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Also, check out DevOps Book You should read section.
