[X4U] OK with cron tasks if apps left running?

[John Baltutis]

On 1/9/09, Paul Bentley <pbwotw at googlemail.com> wrote:
> On 9 Jan 2009, at 00:04, John Baltutis wrote:
>
>> As Randy noted, run them manually-no need for 3rd-party apps.
>>
>> In the Terminal: sudo periodic daily weekly monthly
>>
>> Do note that the weekly task produces a truncated locate database.
>> If you want a complete one, run: sudo /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb
>
> John, could you expand on what the implications of having a truncated 
> locate database are, and do you know if the complete locate database
> is what you get if the overnight tasks run?

If you use the weekly script (i.e., the overnight weekly task), then the update
routine is run as user 'nobody'instead of as 'root' to prevent it from indexing
files that all users cannot see. Otherwise, unprivileged users can determine
the existence of said files via the 'locate' command." To index everything on
all mounted volumes, you need to run the command I noted. Whilst the new
procedure might be an useful security measure in a multiuser environment with a
mixture of admin and nonadmin accounts, it's crappola on a single-user machine,
but one that's not been discussed by Apple.

Side note. AFAIK, the tasks will run if the machine was sleepiing at their
schedule run times, but will not run if the machine was shut off until they
reach their normal run times.