trusty (5) incrontab.5.gz

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.