NAME

       incrontab - tables for driving inotify cron (incron)

DESCRIPTION

       An incrontab file contains instructions to the incrond(8) daemon of the general form: "run
       this command on these file events". There are two  categories  of  tables:  system  tables
       (with root privileges) and user tables (with user privileges).

       System  tables  are  (by  default)  located  in /etc/incron.d and may have any names. Each
       system table exists separately inside incron and their watches never collide.

       Each user has their own table, and commands in any given incrontab will be executed as the
       user  who owns the incrontab. System users (such as apache, postfix, nobody etc.) may have
       their own incrontab.

       incrontab files are read when the incrond(8) daemon starts and after any change (incrontab
       file are being hooked when incrond is running).

       Blank lines are ignored. The general line format is the following:

       <path> <mask> <command>

       Where  path  is an absolute filesystem path, mask is an event mask (in symbolic or numeric
       form) and command is an executable file (or a script) with its arguments. See  bellow  for
       event  mask  symbols.  The executable file may be noted as an absolute path or only as the
       name itself (PATH locations are examined).

       Please remember that the same path may occur only once per table (otherwise only the first
       occurrence takes effect and an error message is emitted to the system log).

EVENT SYMBOLS

       These basic event mask symbols are defined:

       IN_ACCESS           File was accessed (read) (*)
       IN_ATTRIB            Metadata changed (permissions, timestamps, extended attributes, etc.)
       (*)
       IN_CLOSE_WRITE      File opened for writing was closed (*)
       IN_CLOSE_NOWRITE    File not opened for writing was closed (*)
       IN_CREATE           File/directory created in watched directory (*)
       IN_DELETE           File/directory deleted from watched directory (*)
       IN_DELETE_SELF           Watched file/directory was itself deleted
       IN_MODIFY           File was modified (*)
       IN_MOVE_SELF        Watched file/directory was itself moved
       IN_MOVED_FROM       File moved out of watched directory (*)
       IN_MOVED_TO         File moved into watched directory (*)
       IN_OPEN             File was opened (*)

       When monitoring a directory, the events marked with an asterisk (*) above  can  occur  for
       files in the directory, in which case the name field in the returned event data identifies
       the name of the file within the directory.

       The IN_ALL_EVENTS symbol is defined as a  bit  mask  of  all  of  the  above  events.  Two
       additional  convenience  symbols  are IN_MOVE, which is a combination of IN_MOVED_FROM and
       IN_MOVED_TO, and IN_CLOSE which combines IN_CLOSE_WRITE and IN_CLOSE_NOWRITE.

       The following further symbols can be specified in the mask:

       IN_DONT_FOLLOW      Don't dereference pathname if it is a symbolic link
       IN_ONESHOT          Monitor pathname for only one event
       IN_ONLYDIR          Only watch pathname if it is a directory

       Additionally, there is a symbol which doesn't appear in the  inotify  symbol  set.  It  it
       IN_NO_LOOP.  This  symbol  disables  monitoring events until the current one is completely
       handled (until its child process exits).

WILDCARDS

       The following wildards may be used inside command specification:

       $$   dollar sign
       $@   watched filesystem path (see above)
       $#   event-related file name
       $%   event flags (textually)
       $&   event flags (numerically)

EXAMPLE

       These are some example rules which can be used in an incrontab file:

       /tmp IN_ALL_EVENTS abcd $@/$# $%

       /usr/bin IN_ACCESS,IN_NO_LOOP abcd $#

       /home IN_CREATE /usr/local/bin/abcd $#

       /var/log 12 abcd $@/$#

       The first line monitors all events on the /tmp directory. When an event occurs it  runs  a
       application  called  'abcd'  with the full path of the file as the first arguments and the
       event flags as the second one.

       The second line monitors accesses (readings) on the /usr/bin  directory.  The  application
       'abcd'  is  run as a handler and the appropriate event watch is disabled until the program
       finishes. The file name (without the directory path) is passed in as an argument.

       The third example is used for monitoring the /home directory for  newly  create  files  or
       directories  (it  practically means an event is sent when a new user is added). This event
       is processed by a program specified by an absolute path.

       And the final line shows how to use numeric event mask instead of textual one.  The  value
       12 is exactly the same as IN_ATTRIB,IN_CLOSE_WRITE.

SEE ALSO

       incrond(8), incrontab(1), incron.conf(5)

AUTHOR

       Lukas   Jelinek   <lukas@aiken.cz>   (please   report   bugs   to  http://bts.aiken.cz  or
       <bugs@aiken.cz>).

COPYING

       This program is free software. It can be used, redistributed  and/or  modified  under  the
       terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2.