Re: man -k doesn't work
On 4/1/2000 Brian J. Stults wrote: When I type man -k [anything], I always get this result: [anything]: nothing appropriate It doesn't matter what I substitite for anything. I have the environment variable MANPATH set like this in .bash_profile: MANPATH=/usr/bin/man:/usr/man:/usr/share/man:/usr/X11R6/man:/usr/local/man Can someone suggest an answer? Thanks! the mandb cron job has not been run yet, i think its a weekly: /etc/cron.weekly/mandb should make it run now, it takes a while. Ethan
Re: man -k doesn't work
Ethan Benson wrote: the mandb cron job has not been run yet, i think its a weekly: /etc/cron.weekly/mandb should make it run now, it takes a while. I tried that, but I still get nothing appropriate. Any other suggestions? Thanks, Brian On 4/1/2000 Brian J. Stults wrote: When I type man -k [anything], I always get this result: [anything]: nothing appropriate It doesn't matter what I substitite for anything. I have the environment variable MANPATH set like this in .bash_profile: MANPATH=/usr/bin/man:/usr/man:/usr/share/man:/usr/X11R6/man:/usr/local/man Can someone suggest an answer? Thanks! -- Brian J. Stults Doctoral Candidate Department of Sociology University at Albany - SUNY Phone: (518) 442-4652 Fax: (518) 442-4936 Web: www.albany.edu/~bs7452
Re: man -k doesn't work
On Tue, 4 Jan 2000, Brian Stults wrote: Ethan Benson wrote: the mandb cron job has not been run yet, i think its a weekly: /etc/cron.weekly/mandb should make it run now, it takes a while. I tried that, but I still get nothing appropriate. Any other suggestions? Brian You may have fixed the problem, and not recognize it. If you are getting 'nothing appropriate' that may be the correct answer. For example, on my system, elentari:~[1]man -k ls ls (1) - list contents of directories mkls-lR (8) - Make ls-lR files on FTP server for mirror use mktexlsr (1) - create ls-R databases texhash (1) - create ls-R databases elentari:~[1]man -k xxx xxx: nothing appropriate. elentari:~[1] Try that and compare results. --David David Teague, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Debian GNU/Linux Because software support is free, timely, useful, technically accurate, and friendly. (I'm hoping this is all of the above!)
Re: man -k doesn't work
On Tue, Jan 04, 2000 at 01:04:49PM -0500, Brian J. Stults wrote: Hi, When I type man -k [anything], I always get this result: [anything]: nothing appropriate and when you try man [anything] what do you get? If you get a manpage then it is the db to be rebuilt (mandb -c from root), if you get No manual entry for [anything] then [anything] is really not appropriate :-) It doesn't matter what I substitite for anything. I have the environment variable MANPATH set like this in .bash_profile: MANPATH=/usr/bin/man:/usr/man:/usr/share/man:/usr/X11R6/man:/usr/local/man It is always better to leave that env var unset, unless you have very specific stuff to add there. In any case, /usr/bin/man cannot go there! Use the command manpath to see if this setting is harming you; it should reply: /usr/local/man:/usr/share/man:/usr/X11R6/man:/usr/man cheers, fab -- | [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED][EMAIL PROTECTED] | 6F7267F5 fingerprint 57 16 C4 ED C9 86 40 7B 1A 69 A1 66 EC FB D2 5E | [EMAIL PROTECTED] gsm: +358 (0)40 707 2468
Re: man -k doesn't work
David Teague wrote: You may have fixed the problem, and not recognize it. If you are getting 'nothing appropriate' that may be the correct answer. For example, on my system, elentari:~[1]man -k ls ls (1) - list contents of directories mkls-lR (8) - Make ls-lR files on FTP server for mirror use mktexlsr (1) - create ls-R databases texhash (1) - create ls-R databases elentari:~[1]man -k xxx xxx: nothing appropriate. elentari:~[1] Try that and compare results. Funny you should suggest using ls because that's what first comes to my fingers when I want to test it. Indeed, man -k ls results in, ls: nothing appropriate. It turns out mandb is failing. When I run mandb as root I get this: Processing manual pages under /usr/man... Updating index cache for path `/usr/man'. Wait...mandb: can't create a temporary filename: Permission denied I don't know enough about how mandb works (even after reading the manpage and documentation) to know why this is happening. Any ideas? -- Brian J. Stults Doctoral Candidate Department of Sociology University at Albany - SUNY Phone: (518) 442-4652 Fax: (518) 442-4936 Web: www.albany.edu/~bs7452
Re: man -k doesn't work
On 5/1/2000 Brian J. Stults wrote: It turns out mandb is failing. When I run mandb as root I get this: Processing manual pages under /usr/man... Updating index cache for path `/usr/man'. Wait...mandb: can't create a temporary filename: Permission denied I don't know enough about how mandb works (even after reading the manpage and documentation) to know why this is happening. Any ideas? check permissions on /tmp mandb is suid man so it does not have root privileges, however one annoying thing i have found is it creates a temp file but for some reason it gets owned by root so when it goes to delete it it gets a operation not permitted (because /tmp has the sticky bit) it seems to work better if you use sudo -u man mandb instead shrug -- Ethan Benson To obtain my PGP key: http://www.alaska.net/~erbenson/pgp/
Re: man -k doesn't work
I'm sorry to ask this question, but did you run mandb as root?
Re: man -k doesn't work
Fabrizio Polacco wrote: On Tue, Jan 04, 2000 at 01:04:49PM -0500, Brian J. Stults wrote: Hi, When I type man -k [anything], I always get this result: [anything]: nothing appropriate and when you try man [anything] what do you get? man [anything] works (for appropriate anythings). If you get a manpage then it is the db to be rebuilt (mandb -c from root), if you get No manual entry for [anything] then [anything] is really not appropriate :-) I tried mandb -c and got: Processing manual pages under /usr/man... Updating index cache for path `/usr/man'. Wait...mandb: can't create a temporary filename: Permission denied I don't know enough about mandb to interpret this correctly. Anyone know what file it is trying to create and where? It is always better to leave that env var unset, unless you have very specific stuff to add there. In any case, /usr/bin/man cannot go there! Use the command manpath to see if this setting is harming you; it should reply: /usr/local/man:/usr/share/man:/usr/X11R6/man:/usr/man Thanks for the advice. I don't remember when or why I added the manpath env var, but I removed it now. I do indeed get the above result from manpath. Thanks. Still can't get man -k to work, though. -- Brian J. Stults Doctoral Candidate Department of Sociology University at Albany - SUNY Phone: (518) 442-4652 Fax: (518) 442-4936 Web: www.albany.edu/~bs7452
Re: man -k doesn't work
Ethan Benson wrote: It turns out mandb is failing. When I run mandb as root I get this: Processing manual pages under /usr/man... Updating index cache for path `/usr/man'. Wait...mandb: can't create a temporary filename: Permission denied I don't know enough about how mandb works (even after reading the manpage and documentation) to know why this is happening. Any ideas? check permissions on /tmp mandb is suid man so it does not have root privileges, however one annoying thing i have found is it creates a temp file but for some reason it gets owned by root so when it goes to delete it it gets a operation not permitted (because /tmp has the sticky bit) it seems to work better if you use sudo -u man mandb instead shrug That worked. Thanks so much! I have really been missing man -k. -- Brian J. Stults Doctoral Candidate Department of Sociology University at Albany - SUNY Phone: (518) 442-4652 Fax: (518) 442-4936 Web: www.albany.edu/~bs7452
man -k doesn't work
Hi, When I type man -k [anything], I always get this result: [anything]: nothing appropriate It doesn't matter what I substitite for anything. I have the environment variable MANPATH set like this in .bash_profile: MANPATH=/usr/bin/man:/usr/man:/usr/share/man:/usr/X11R6/man:/usr/local/man Can someone suggest an answer? Thanks! -- Brian J. Stults Doctoral Candidate Department of Sociology University at Albany - SUNY Phone: (518) 442-4652 Fax: (518) 442-4936 Web: www.albany.edu/~bs7452
Re: man -k doesn't work
I have no MANPATH set on my slink-r4 and everything works fine and when I set it to what you mentioned in your mail, it works as well. Maybe that means that the error is something else. Hope it helps ... - Konrad
