Spotlight on mounted server drives
- Thread starter dbyrne
- Start date
You can index them manually if you want to, just as you can index system files and hidden files manually. It isn't recommended though, for different reasons. I'll state the reasons first, and if you don't care, you can skip to the end to get the "instructions" on how to do it manually. 
Remote volumes: contents on these can change without your knowledge or intervention. Other users can change the contents of files, and add or delete files at anytime, and you might not have control over that. To keep the index up to date would require Spotlight to constantly monitor the remote volume, giving you a severe performance degradation on your system.
System and hidden files: System files change a lot. Logs, preferences, caches etc change all the time. To index them every time they change could lead to big performance hits. If you want to index the hidden files, pick the ones that don't change much, e.g. the man pages. Avoid directories and hierarchies that contain preferences, logs and caches that change all the time.
How to force indexing: start Terminal and use the "mdutil" command. Try "man mdutil" and you'll get a short list of options to use with the command. That'll take care of the remote volumes, and this was the easy part.
A more tiresome approach has to be taken when it comes to the hidden files and system files. For that I refer to a hint on MacOSXHints:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2005050222125145&query=spotlight
Finally, my advice on this: don't. Not unless the remote volume is on your own server at home, where noone but you add, change or delete files.
Remote volumes: contents on these can change without your knowledge or intervention. Other users can change the contents of files, and add or delete files at anytime, and you might not have control over that. To keep the index up to date would require Spotlight to constantly monitor the remote volume, giving you a severe performance degradation on your system.
System and hidden files: System files change a lot. Logs, preferences, caches etc change all the time. To index them every time they change could lead to big performance hits. If you want to index the hidden files, pick the ones that don't change much, e.g. the man pages. Avoid directories and hierarchies that contain preferences, logs and caches that change all the time.
How to force indexing: start Terminal and use the "mdutil" command. Try "man mdutil" and you'll get a short list of options to use with the command. That'll take care of the remote volumes, and this was the easy part.
A more tiresome approach has to be taken when it comes to the hidden files and system files. For that I refer to a hint on MacOSXHints:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2005050222125145&query=spotlight
Finally, my advice on this: don't. Not unless the remote volume is on your own server at home, where noone but you add, change or delete files.
3 people are accessing this server Volume all day everyday. Changes would be constant. its a pity it can't index in the evening but i guess that would negate the whole point of spotlight. Hmmm funny how such a good new feature looses its appeal in a network environment. Maybe Pengu's comment will work! Thanks.
Spotlight saves its database in /.Spotlight-V100. That's right, it's in the root folder. You normally don't have access to that on a server, so your Spotlight won't reach it.
This actually isn't all bad though. If you have access to the Spotlight database on the server, others can gain at least partial access to documents you don't want them to know about. Repeated searches with variating query content can reveal more information about the contents of documents than most people realise.
What we probably want is a separate server process, that Spotlight can connect to (e.g. via Bonjour), and where the user privileges are honored in the search results.
This actually isn't all bad though. If you have access to the Spotlight database on the server, others can gain at least partial access to documents you don't want them to know about. Repeated searches with variating query content can reveal more information about the contents of documents than most people realise.
What we probably want is a separate server process, that Spotlight can connect to (e.g. via Bonjour), and where the user privileges are honored in the search results.
OK I've learn't about the little utility called mdutil that makes spotlight look at mounted network volumes..... ldm talks about it here http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050430233117572... but it wasn't mentioned if his computer slowed down too much with constant network activity. Guess i have to try to find out
Also, i wonder where OSX server keeps it .Spotlight-V100 folder, any ideas?
Also, i wonder where OSX server keeps it .Spotlight-V100 folder, any ideas?
I heard Mac OS X Server has Spotlight disabled per default. I'm not yet sure as of now _why_ that is, but more and more, I think I should disable it on my machine (client version, of course) as well.
I think Apple has really done a bad job explaining Spotlight, how it works, how you're intended to use it etc. It's meant to be at the core of the system, invisibly - and it should simply _give_ you the files/mails/SystemPreferences you're looking for, but for many users, Spotlight in 10.4 and 10.4.1 has been a rather bad experience. Doesn't fully index (what, I don't find _all_ my relevant files?) for some, takes up 100% CPU for others, doesn't find files by name easily/correctly... Maybe Apple should've kept Spotlight to themselves for another few months, finish the work on it in the background and make Tiger a smaller update. Ooh. Done ranting. Sorry...
I think Apple has really done a bad job explaining Spotlight, how it works, how you're intended to use it etc. It's meant to be at the core of the system, invisibly - and it should simply _give_ you the files/mails/SystemPreferences you're looking for, but for many users, Spotlight in 10.4 and 10.4.1 has been a rather bad experience. Doesn't fully index (what, I don't find _all_ my relevant files?) for some, takes up 100% CPU for others, doesn't find files by name easily/correctly... Maybe Apple should've kept Spotlight to themselves for another few months, finish the work on it in the background and make Tiger a smaller update. Ooh. Done ranting. Sorry...