Beyond Linux® From Scratch (systemd Edition) - Version 12.2

Chapter 33. GNOME Libraries and Desktop

Tracker-miners-3.7.3

Introduction to Tracker-miners

The Tracker-miners package contains a set of data extractors for Tracker.

This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS 12.2 platform.

Package Information

Additional Downloads

Tracker-miners Dependencies

Required

gst-plugins-base-1.24.7, Tracker-3.7.3, Exempi-2.6.5, and gexiv2-0.14.3

Recommended

giflib-5.2.2, gst-plugins-good-1.24.7 (runtime), gst-libav-1.24.7 (runtime), ICU-75.1, libexif-0.6.24, libgxps-0.3.2, libseccomp-2.5.5, Poppler-24.08.0, and UPower-1.90.4

Optional

asciidoc-10.2.1, CMake-3.30.2, DConf-0.40.0, FFmpeg-7.0.2, libgsf-1.14.52, NetworkManager-1.48.8, taglib-2.0.1, totem-pl-parser-3.26.6, libcue, libgrss, libitpcdata, libosinfo, and gupnp

Kernel Configuration

Enable the following options in the kernel configuration, then recompile the kernel and reboot if necessary: 

Security options --->
  [*]        Enable different security models                         [SECURITY]
  [*]        Landlock support                                [SECURITY_LANDLOCK]
  # List more Linux Security Modules here (separated with comma) if needed,
  # for example 'landlock,lockdown,smack':
  (landlock) Ordered list of enabled LSMs                                  [LSM]

Installation of Tracker-miners

[Note]

Note

If you plan to run the tests, some timeouts are too short when using spinning disks. There are two places where timeouts are used: first, individual tests inside a group of tests have a default timeout of 10s. This can be changed by setting the environment variable TRACKER_TESTS_AWAIT_TIMEOUT to the desired value when running the tests (see below). Second, a global timeout for a group of tests is fixed at configuration time. The default value in the functional-tests directory (other directories have only short lived tests) may be increased with the following command (replace 200 with a value suitable for your machine): 

sed -i s/120/200/ tests/functional-tests/meson.build

First, fix one issue in the TIFF extractor and another issue in the Landlock sandbox: 

patch -Np1 -i ../tracker-miners-3.7.3-upstream_fixes-1.patch

Install Tracker-miners by running the following commands: 

mkdir build &&
cd    build &&

meson setup --prefix=/usr       \
            --buildtype=release \
            -D man=false        \
            -D miner_rss=false  \
            ..                  &&
ninja

Now, as the root user: 

ninja install

To test the results, issue (adjust the individual test timeout to a value suitable for your machine, see the note above): 

meson configure -D debug=true &&
dbus-run-session env LC_ALL=C.UTF-8 TRACKER_TESTS_AWAIT_TIMEOUT=20 \
                 ninja test &&
rm -rf ~/tracker-tests
[Note]

Note

The tests create files in the user directory (up to 24 MB), so they have to be removed afterwards.

Command Explanations

--buildtype=release: Specify a buildtype suitable for stable releases of the package, as the default may produce unoptimized binaries.

-D man=false: This switch prevents the build process from generating man pages. Omit this switch if you have asciidoc-10.2.1 installed and wish to generate and install the man pages.

-D miner_rss=false: This switch prevents using libgrss for indexing RSS feeds because libgrss is insecure and no longer in BLFS.

-D seccomp=false: This option disables the seccomp system call filter. On some architectures, such as i686 and ARM, the functions that tracker-miners uses are not guarded properly, and tracker-miners will get killed with a SIGSYS as a result. Note that disabling seccomp may cause the system to be compromised worse in the event that a security vulnerability in tracker-miners or its dependencies is exploited.

-D landlock=disabled: This switch disables the Landlock file access sandbox. Use it if you don't want to build the kernel with Landlock support. Note that disabling Landlock may cause the system to be compromised worse in the event that a security vulnerability in tracker-miners or its dependencies is exploited.

-D battery_detection=none: Use this option if you have not installed the recommended dependency upower. Do not use this option if your system has a battery (laptop battery or UPS), or tracker-miners may waste the battery power and lifespan when the A/C power is unavailable.

Contents

Installed Programs: tracker3-daemon, tracker3-extract, tracker3-index, tracker3-info, tracker3-reset, tracker3-search, tracker3-status, and tracker3-tag
Installed Libraries: Several modules under /usr/lib/tracker-miners-3.0
Installed Directories: /usr/lib/tracker-miners-3.0, /usr/libexec/tracker3, and /usr/share/tracker3-miners

Short Descriptions

tracker3-daemon

starts, stops, restarts, and lists daemons responsible for indexing content

tracker3-extract

extracts metadata from a file

tracker3-index

indexes content using the Tracker filesystem miner

tracker3-info

retrieves all information available for a certain file

tracker3-reset

resets the Tracker index and configuration

tracker3-search

searches for content by type or across all types

tracker3-status

provides status and statistics on data that has been indexed

tracker3-tag

adds, removes, and lists tags