Ubuntu Locate Command is a FAILURE
 

Ok guys im so frustrated rigth now, im not very experienced with linux, but Ive been cracking weps with BT for a couple years and I can dns spoof with ettercap under backtrack.

So, I know that the locate commmand should be able to locate etter.dns and it does in backtrack, well Now Im trying to setup a ftp server running ubuntu server (HARDY)

I am trying to navigate to the directory

/etc/vsftpd.conf

I cannot navigate to it, when im in the root folder I type ls or list and nothing lists, wtf. Shouldnt there be like, Oh I dunno, the whole disk contents from there???

also, I have allready installed this ftp server and I know its running, port 21 is open,

BUT when I try to use find or locate vsftpd.conf I get this crappy error, in fact Locate will not work for anything and its driving my apeshit. Also, in backtrack I can type "nano /etc/vsftpd.conf"
And nano will open the file, NOPE, not in ubuntu apparently thats asking for too much from the guys who wrote ubuntu. I just need to get that file open to edit it with nano so I can get my ftp configured. any help would be soooo much appreciated,

Any idea wtf is going on??

Heres a screenshot of my headache in action.
http://i47.tinypic.com/29pfbif.png

have you run updatedb as root?

No, ive never done that before, But I did run sudo apt-get update and the system didnt appear to want to update like a normal linux OS, is it different in ubuntu??

Plus I cant login as root, when I try to SSH in, it wont accept my password, which is odd because the OS never asked me for a root password during setup, instead it had me create some meaningless useraccount instead.

Hey that works! I ran that updatedb as sudo and the locate command works now. Interesting, thats pretty wierd, whhy is it like that?

THANK YOU not only does my ftp work now, I can edit the conf, I now have a functioning locate commmand, awesome!

THANK YOU AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Don't blame me 'cos I never used Hardy, but it may be discontinued i.e. the repositories are no longer available - even though I have 7.04 on this machine it no longer updates. I'm not sure about logging in as root using SSH, but if I recall correctly I was unable to graphically login as root - used to have to logout to a command line and startx.

can you sudo? or do you su to get a root prompt in a terminal/console? Maybe adding a user to sudoers using visudo might help - see sudo man page - type: man sudo in a terminal, up/down arrows to read, q to exit.

Naw man I was acting like a big baby, lol , I got it figured out. sudo -i reverts a sudoer or admin to root. Easy as pie.