Locate

Check if locate is installed

which locate

If it is installed, it’ll give you the path /usr/bin/locate

Install Locate

yum install locate

OR

apt-get install locate

Update Database

The locate command uses a database of file names and locations. That database is updated frequently via a system cron job.

sudo updatedb

Find

Find is verstile and powerful. We can search files based of the permissions a file has. We can find by modification date or how long ago the file was created. Regex can also be added. Search based on text inside a file..

find /etc -name "motd"

will find files in the /etc directory where file name is “motd”

find /etc -name "motd*"

will find files in the /etc directory where file name starts with ‘motd’

By default, the -name flag is case sensitive. -iname will search by file name, case-insensitively.