trusty (1) inotifywait.1.gz

Provided by: inotify-tools_3.14-1ubuntu1_amd64 bug

NAME

       inotifywait - wait for changes to files using inotify

SYNOPSIS

       inotifywait [-hcmrq] [-e <event> ] [-t <seconds> ] [--format <fmt> ] [--timefmt <fmt> ] <file> [ ... ]

DESCRIPTION

       inotifywait  efficiently  waits  for changes to files using Linux's inotify(7) interface.  It is suitable
       for waiting for changes to files from shell scripts.  It  can  either  exit  once  an  event  occurs,  or
       continually execute and output events as they occur.

OUTPUT

       inotifywait  will  output  diagnostic  information  on  standard  error and event information on standard
       output.  The event output can be configured, but by default it consists of lines of the following form:

       watched_filename EVENT_NAMES event_filename

       watched_filename
              is the name of the file on which the event occurred.  If the file is a directory, a trailing slash
              is output.

       EVENT_NAMES
              are the names of the inotify events which occurred, separated by commas.

       event_filename
              is  output  only  when  the  event  occurred on a directory, and in this case the name of the file
              within the directory which caused this event is output.

              By default, any special characters in filenames are not escaped in any way.   This  can  make  the
              output  of  inotifywait  difficult  to  parse  in  awk scripts or similar.  The --csv and --format
              options will be helpful in this case.

OPTIONS

       -h, --help
              Output some helpful usage information.

       @<file>
              When watching a directory tree recursively, exclude the specified file from  being  watched.   The
              file  must  be  specified  with  a  relative  or  absolute path according to whether a relative or
              absolute path is given for watched directories.  If a specific path is  explicitly  both  included
              and excluded, it will always be watched.

              Note: If you need to watch a directory or file whose name starts with @, give the absolute path.

       --fromfile <file>
              Read  filenames to watch or exclude from a file, one filename per line.  If filenames begin with @
              they are excluded as described above.  If <file> is `-', filenames are read from  standard  input.
              Use this option if you need to watch too many files to pass in as command line arguments.

       -m, --monitor
              Instead of exiting after receiving a single event, execute indefinitely.  The default behaviour is
              to exit after the first event occurs.

       -d, --daemon
              Same as --monitor, except run in the background logging events to a file that must be specified by
              --outfile. Implies --syslog.

       -o, --outfile <file>
              Output events to <file> rather than stdout.

       -s, --syslog
              Output errors to syslog(3) system log module rather than stderr.

       -r, --recursive
              Watch  all  subdirectories  of  any  directories  passed  as  arguments.   Watches  will be set up
              recursively  to  an  unlimited  depth.   Symbolic  links  are  not   traversed.    Newly   created
              subdirectories will also be watched.

              Warning:  If  you  use  this option while watching the root directory of a large tree, it may take
              quite a while until all inotify watches are established, and events will not be received  in  this
              time.  Also, since one inotify watch will be established per subdirectory, it is possible that the
              maximum amount of inotify watches per user will be reached.  The default maximum is 8192;  it  can
              be increased by writing to /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches.

       -q, --quiet
              If  specified once, the program will be less verbose.  Specifically, it will not state when it has
              completed establishing all inotify watches.

              If specified twice, the program will output nothing at all, except in the case of fatal errors.

       --exclude <pattern>
              Do not process any events whose filename matches the specified POSIX extended regular  expression,
              case sensitive.

       --excludei <pattern>
              Do  not process any events whose filename matches the specified POSIX extended regular expression,
              case insensitive.

       -t <seconds>, --timeout <seconds>
              Exit if an appropriate event has not occurred within <seconds> seconds. If <seconds> is zero  (the
              default), wait indefinitely for an event.

       -e <event>, --event <event>
              Listen  for specific event(s) only.  The events which can be listened for are listed in the EVENTS
              section.  This option can be specified more than once.  If omitted, all events are listened for.

       -c, --csv
              Output in CSV (comma-separated values) format.  This is useful when filenames may contain  spaces,
              since in this case it is not safe to simply split the output at each space character.

       --timefmt <fmt>
              Set  a  time  format  string  as  accepted  by strftime(3) for use with the `%T' conversion in the
              --format option.

       --format <fmt>
              Output in a user-specified format, using printf-like syntax.  The event strings output are limited
              to  around  4000  characters  and will be truncated to this length.  The following conversions are
              supported:

       %w     This will be replaced with the name of the Watched file on which an event occurred.

       %f     When an event occurs within a directory, this will be replaced with the name  of  the  File  which
              caused the event to occur.  Otherwise, this will be replaced with an empty string.

       %e     Replaced with the Event(s) which occurred, comma-separated.

       %Xe    Replaced  with  the  Event(s)  which occurred, separated by whichever character is in the place of
              `X'.

       %T     Replaced with the current Time in the format specified by the --timefmt option, which should be  a
              format string suitable for passing to strftime(3).

EXIT STATUS

       0      The program executed successfully, and an event occurred which was being listened for.

       1      An  error  occurred in execution of the program, or an event occurred which was not being listened
              for.  The latter generally occurs if something happens which forcibly removes the  inotify  watch,
              such as a watched file being deleted or the filesystem containing a watched file being unmounted.

       2      The -t option was used and an event did not occur in the specified interval of time.

EVENTS

       The following events are valid for use with the -e option:

       access A watched file or a file within a watched directory was read from.

       modify A watched file or a file within a watched directory was written to.

       attrib The  metadata  of a watched file or a file within a watched directory was modified.  This includes
              timestamps, file permissions, extended attributes etc.

       close_write
              A watched file or a file within a watched directory was closed, after being  opened  in  writeable
              mode.  This does not necessarily imply the file was written to.

       close_nowrite
              A  watched  file  or a file within a watched directory was closed, after being opened in read-only
              mode.

       close  A watched file or a file within a watched directory was closed, regardless of how it  was  opened.
              Note that this is actually implemented simply by listening for both close_write and close_nowrite,
              hence all close events received will be output as one of these, not CLOSE.

       open   A watched file or a file within a watched directory was opened.

       moved_to
              A file or directory was moved into a watched directory.  This event occurs even  if  the  file  is
              simply moved from and to the same directory.

       moved_from
              A  file  or  directory  was moved from a watched directory.  This event occurs even if the file is
              simply moved from and to the same directory.

       move   A file or directory was moved from or  to  a  watched  directory.   Note  that  this  is  actually
              implemented  simply by listening for both moved_to and moved_from, hence all close events received
              will be output as one or both of these, not MOVE.

       move_self
              A watched file or directory was moved. After this event, the file or directory is no longer  being
              watched.

       create A file or directory was created within a watched directory.

       delete A file or directory within a watched directory was deleted.

       delete_self
              A  watched  file  or  directory  was deleted.  After this event the file or directory is no longer
              being watched.  Note that this event can occur even if it is not explicitly being listened for.

       unmount
              The filesystem on which a watched file or directory resides was unmounted.  After this  event  the
              file  or  directory  is no longer being watched.  Note that this event can occur even if it is not
              explicitly being listened to.

EXAMPLES

   Example 1
       Running inotifywait at the command-line to wait for any file in the  `test'  directory  to  be  accessed.
       After running inotifywait, `cat test/foo' is run in a separate console.

       % inotifywait test
       Setting up watches.
       Watches established.
       test/ ACCESS foo

   Example 2
       A short shell script to efficiently wait for httpd-related log messages and do something appropriate.

       #!/bin/sh
       while inotifywait -e modify /var/log/messages; do
         if tail -n1 /var/log/messages | grep httpd; then
           kdialog --msgbox "Apache needs love!"
         fi
       done

   Example 3
       A  custom  output format is used to watch `~/test'.  Meanwhile, someone runs `touch ~/test/badfile; touch
       ~/test/goodfile; rm ~/test/badfile' in another console.

       % inotifywait -m -r --format '%:e %f' ~/test
       Setting up watches.  Beware: since -r was given, this may take a while!
       Watches established.
       CREATE badfile
       OPEN badfile
       ATTRIB badfile
       CLOSE_WRITE:CLOSE badfile
       CREATE goodfile
       OPEN goodfile
       ATTRIB goodfile
       CLOSE_WRITE:CLOSE goodfile
       DELETE badfile

CAVEATS

       When using inotifywait, the filename that is outputted is not guaranteed to be up to date  after  a  move
       because  it  is  the  inode  that  is  being monitored. Additionally, none of the observed operations are
       guaranteed to have been performed on the filename inotifywait was instructed to monitor in cases when the
       file is known by several names in the filesystem.

BUGS

       There are race conditions in the recursive directory watching code which can cause events to be missed if
       they occur in a directory immediately after that directory is created.  This is probably not fixable.

       It is assumed the inotify event queue will never overflow.

AUTHORS

       inotifywait is written and maintained by Rohan McGovern <rohan@mcgovern.id.au>.

       inotifywait is  part  of  inotify-tools.   The  inotify-tools  website  is  located  at:  http://inotify-
       tools.sourceforge.net/

SEE ALSO

       inotifywatch(1), strftime(3), inotify(7)