CRUFT(8)

💖 CRUFT 💖

okay bestie, buckle up, we're doing a filesystem vibe check ✨

This is the cruft page from section 8 of the System Manager's Manual — yes, the big-girl system administration section, main character energy fr fr 👑

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🌸 NAME 🌸

cruft — Check the filesystem for cruft (missing and unexplained files) 🕵️‍♀️

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

cruft [ FILE ]

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so like. cruft is a program that goes over the Debian packaging system's database, and compares the contents of that with the files actually on your system, and produces a summary of the differences. 💅

It's giving "who are you and why are you in my house" but for files. Not me running this and finding out my /usr is lowkey haunted 🙈

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

• FILE — If a file is provided, cruft-ng will analyze this single file and print matching package(s) name(s). 🎯

Without any option, cruft-ng will analyze the whole system. Yes, the whole entire system. Sit down, hydrate, this one's a journey 🍓

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🧚 FILES 🧚

A user can tune execution by providing extra configuration files:

• /etc/cruft/ignore — Do not process paths listed in this file, this can speed-up matching. Format is one line per path. Example values: /var/schroot/, /var/www/ ... 🚫
• /etc/cruft/filters/* — Rules (glob-patterns) similar that are similar to those built-in into cruft package. The uppercase files are always processed, the lowercase ones are processed when matching package is installed. 🔍
• /etc/cruft/explain/* — Shell scripts that will print-out a list of temporary file belonging to a package. The uppercase files are always processed, the lowercase ones are processed when matching package is installed. 📜

bestie the uppercase/lowercase thing is NOT a typo, it's the whole system: UPPERCASE = always runs, lowercase = only runs when the matching package is installed. iykyk 💅

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🌈 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 🌈

It is possible to get some debugging information from cruft by setting the variable DEBUG. 🐛

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💀 CAVEAT 💀

The cleansing command apt purge '~c' should be run beforehand. Beware that this may cleanse old databases and currently unused settings you would have liked to preserve.

⚠️ okay this is the serious one. That command is cleansing and it does not ask twice — it can yeet old databases and currently unused settings you would have liked to preserve. Read it, mean it, back up first. 😭

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👑 SEE ALSO 👑

Documentation from original cruft package: https://github.com/a-detiste/cruft/blob/master/README

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💜 AUTHOR 💜

This manual page was written by Alexandre Detiste <alexandre@detiste.be>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others).

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and that's the whole page, no notes 🫶

this was CRUFT(8), live from the System Manager's Manual, section 8 — go check your filesystem, bestie, and slay ✨💖🎀