Q. Just recently I asked a colleague (whom I consider to be a guru of AIX) what the equivalent of the Linux command locate is on this particular operating system. The equivalent Linux and Solaris commands are previously documented here.
A. Unfortunately, his answer was there is none. But the discussion did not end there. He suggested that I use another command that has a similar function and is quite as flexible as locate.
The commands is whereis (and which_fileset). And this whereis is part of the package bos.rte.commands and bos.compat.links. To determine if whereis is installed on the machine, check as outlined below:
On AIX 5.3:
user@host => which_fileset whereis /usr/ucb/whereis -> /usr/bin/whereis bos.compat.links 5.3.0.0 /usr/bin/whereis bos.rte.commands 5.3.0.0
On AIX 6.1:
user@host => which_fileset whereis /usr/ucb/whereis -> /usr/bin/whereis bos.compat.links 6.1.0.0 /usr/bin/whereis bos.rte.commands 6.1.0.0
The above command is dependent on another package and without that there will be errors as outlined below.
user@host => which_fileset whereis The /usr/lpp/bos/AIX_file_list file does not exist. Please install the "bos.content_list" fileset and try the "which_fileset" command again.
When all is well. Try it out:
user@host => whereis hosts hosts: /etc/hosts.allow /etc/hosts.deny /etc/hosts /etc/hosts.bak /usr/share/man/man5/hosts.5.gz
Did I mention the same command works for Solaris and Linux? It does (given the dependent packages are installed), so add this option on those operating systems too!
