Why updatedb doesn't traverse my external HD?

[Marko Vojinovic]

On Friday 23 December 2011 17:12:35 JB wrote:
> Marko Vojinovic <vvmarko <at> gmail.com> writes:
> ...
>       --debug-pruning
>               Write  debugging information about pruning decisions to
> standard error output.
> 
> Try it with manual entry or /etc/cron.daily/mlocate.cron .

Thanks for the suggestion, somehow I overlooked this option in the man page. 
I did a "updatedb --debug-pruning", here goes the relevant part of the output:

<quote>
Checking whether filesystem `/media' is excluded:
 `/', type `rootfs'
 => type matches, dir `/'
 `/proc', type `proc'
 => type matches, dir `/proc'
 `/sys', type `sysfs'
 => type matches, dir `/sys'
 `/dev', type `devtmpfs'
 `/dev/pts', type `devpts'
 => type matches, dir `/dev/pts'
 `/dev/shm', type `tmpfs'
 => type matches, dir `/dev/shm'
 `/run', type `tmpfs'
 => type matches, dir `/run'
 `/', type `ext4'
 `/run', type `tmpfs'
 => type matches, dir `/run'
 `/sys/fs/selinux', type `selinuxfs'
 => type matches, dir `/sys/fs/selinux'
 `/sys/fs/cgroup', type `tmpfs'
 => type matches, dir `/sys/fs/cgroup'
 `/sys/fs/cgroup/systemd', type `cgroup'
 => type matches, dir `/sys/fs/cgroup/systemd'
 `/sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset', type `cgroup'
 => type matches, dir `/sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset'
 `/sys/fs/cgroup/cpu,cpuacct', type `cgroup'
 => type matches, dir `/sys/fs/cgroup/cpu,cpuacct'
 `/sys/fs/cgroup/memory', type `cgroup'
 => type matches, dir `/sys/fs/cgroup/memory'
 `/sys/fs/cgroup/devices', type `cgroup'
 => type matches, dir `/sys/fs/cgroup/devices'
 `/sys/fs/cgroup/freezer', type `cgroup'
 => type matches, dir `/sys/fs/cgroup/freezer'
 `/sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls', type `cgroup'
 => type matches, dir `/sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls'
 `/sys/fs/cgroup/blkio', type `cgroup'
 => type matches, dir `/sys/fs/cgroup/blkio'
 `/sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event', type `cgroup'
 => type matches, dir `/sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event'
 `/proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc', type `autofs'
 => type matches, dir `/proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc'
 `/sys/kernel/security', type `securityfs'
 => type matches, dir `/sys/kernel/security'
 `/sys/kernel/debug', type `debugfs'
 => type matches, dir `/sys/kernel/debug'
 `/media', type `tmpfs'
 => type matches, dir `/media'
...done
Skipping `/media': in prunefs
</quote>

I am not sure how to read this, but it appears that /media somehow matches the 
tmpfs, which gets excluded. So now I have three questions:

(1) Why is /media considered to be tmpfs? AFAIK, it is just a directory under 
my root partition, which is ext4. What am I missing?

(2) How do I fix this? I don't want to remove tmpfs from prunefs. Is there a 
way to reconfigure the /media to not be tmpfs? Or is there any way to force 
updatedb to traverse the contents of /media regardless of pruning rules?

(3) What exactly changed here between F14 and F16? In F14 the same 
configuration used to work, ie. /media was not recognized as tmpfs, AFAIK.

Best, :-)
Marko