[bug #23742] updatedb tries to index all mounted network shares when running on Cygwin

[anonymous]

Follow-up Comment #2, bug #23742 (project findutils):

> What does find -printf '%Fn' print for files on such 'network 
> shares'? Does the updatedb script exclude such filesystems? 

It prints the word "system" for all such files.  The updatedb script excludes
nfs, proc, smbfs, and many others, but not "system".

James, I did more research into this updatedb bug.  It is caused by a Cygwin
bug.  The Cygwin system calls return untruthful information about filesystem
types.  See http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.os.cygwin/14500/focus=14591 for
details.  IMO, instead the system calls should return "ntfs" or "vfat" or
"iso9660" for local drives.  Also, they should return "smbfs" or "ncpfs" or
"nfs" for mounted network shares (depending whether they are mounted from
SMB/CIFS or NetWare or Unix NFS file servers).

The cygwin bug was last discussed in 2004; Igor Pechtchanski said back then (
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.os.cygwin/51465/focus=51466 ) that the bug was
still on his TODO list and still unfixed.

So I guess this updatedb bug is caused by a Cygwin bug, and you might as well
keep waiting until the Cygwin bug is fixed.

Or you could poke the Cygwin people to fix the Cygwin bug.

Or you could fix the Cygwin bug yourself; I personally don't mind the Cygwin
bug that much that I would fix it.  :)

Or you could modify updatedb to prune the paths /cygdrive/h through
/cygdrive/z by default, unless users specify a different prune option.  The
advantage would be that most mounted network shares would be skipped, so
updatedb would be much faster.  The disadvantage would be that if someone had
more than 5 mounted local volumes, only C: through G: would be indexed.  That
could frustrate users who don't know about the disadvantage; so updatedb
should probably display a notice to all Cygwin users saying that any Windows
drives with letters H: through to Z: will not be indexed.

Cheers, --Jason

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