Installing locate

Ubuntu / Debian (mlocate)

sudo apt update
sudo apt install mlocate

# Build the initial database (required before first use)
sudo updatedb

# Verify
locate locate

Ubuntu 22.04 ships plocate as the default. It is faster and uses less disk space:

sudo apt install plocate
sudo updatedb        # same command, plocate's updatedb
locate --version

sudo dnf install mlocate
sudo updatedb

apk add mlocate
updatedb

After installation, a cron job is automatically added to run updatedb daily (usually between 00:00 and 06:00):

# View the scheduled job
cat /etc/cron.daily/mlocate
# (or /etc/cron.daily/plocate)

The cron job runs as root and rebuilds the entire database. Frequency depends on how frequently your system's file layout changes.

After installing new software, creating important directories, or before searching for something you just created:

sudo updatedb

On a typical server with hundreds of thousands of files, updatedb takes 5–30 seconds.

# mlocate database
ls -lh /var/lib/mlocate/mlocate.db

# plocate database  
ls -lh /var/lib/plocate/plocate.db