Subject: Re: when to run makewhatis
To: Valeriy E. Ushakov <uwe@ptc.spbu.ru>
From: Jeremy C. Reed <reed@reedmedia.net>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 01/19/2007 11:36:12
On Fri, 19 Jan 2007, Valeriy E. Ushakov wrote:

> > Other BSDs run makewhatis weekly.
> > 
> > It was removed from NetBSD's /etc/daily in 1993.
> > 
> > Should it be ran weekly?
> > 
> > Or what will update?
> > 
> > I see on my systems it is way out of date and doesn't have pkgsrc 
> > (/usr/pkg/share/man) also.
> 
> Out of date?  Don't we build and ship whatis database as part of sets?

Yes, it is included in sets (and updated when installing from source). But 
it may be useful to do weekly for the settings in man.conf:

# The whatis/apropos database.
_whatdb         /usr/share/man/whatis.db
_whatdb         /usr/X11R6/man/whatis.db
_whatdb         /usr/pkg/share/man/whatis.db
_whatdb         /usr/local/man/whatis.db

(So in my case it is up-to-date but incomplete.)

  Jeremy C. Reed