NAME
inotifywatch - gather filesystem access statistics using inotify
SYNOPSIS
inotifywatch [-hvzrqf] [-e <event> ] [-t <seconds> ] [-a <event> ] [-d
<event> ] <file> [ ... ]
DESCRIPTION
inotifywatch listens for filesystem events using Linux’s inotify(7)
interface, then outputs a summary count of the events received on each
file or directory.
OUTPUT
inotifywatch will output a table on standard out with one column for
each type of event and one row for each watched file or directory. The
table will show the amount of times each event occurred for each
watched file or directory. Output can be sorted by a particular event
using the -a or -d options.
Some diagnostic information will be output on standard error.
OPTIONS
-h, --help
Output some helpful usage information.
-v, --verbose
Output some extra information on standard error during
execution.
@<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.
-z, --zero
Output table rows and columns even if all elements are zero. By
default, rows and columns are only output if they contain non-
zero elements. Using this option when watching for every event
on a lot of files can result in a lot of output!
--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.
-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. If new directories are
created within watched directories they will automatically 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.
-t <seconds>, --timeout <seconds>
Listen only for the specified amount of seconds. If not
specified, inotifywatch will gather statistics until receiving
an interrupt signal by (for example) pressing CONTROL-C at the
console.
-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.
-a <event>, --ascending <event>
Sort output ascending by event counts for the specified event.
Sortable events include ‘total’ and all the events listed in the
EVENTS section except ‘move’ and ‘close’ (you must use
‘moved_to’, ‘moved_from’, ‘close_write’ or ‘close_nowrite’
instead). The default is to sort descending by ‘total’.
-d <event>, --descending <event>
Sort output descending by event counts for the specified event.
Sortable events include ‘total’ and all the events listed in the
EVENTS section except ‘move’ and ‘close’ (you must use
‘moved_to’, ‘moved_from’, ‘close_write’ or ‘close_nowrite’
instead). The default is to sort descending by ‘total’.
EXIT STATUS
0 The program executed successfully.
1 An error occurred in execution of the program.
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.
EXAMPLE
Watching the ‘~/.beagle’ directory for 60 seconds:
% inotifywatch -v -e access -e modify -t 60 -r ~/.beagle
Establishing watches...
Setting up watch(es) on /home/rohan/.beagle
OK, /home/rohan/.beagle is now being watched.
Total of 302 watches.
Finished establishing watches, now collecting statistics.
Will listen for events for 60 seconds.
total access modify filename
1436 1074 362 /home/rohan/.beagle/Indexes/FileSystemIndex/PrimaryIndex/
1323 1053 270 /home/rohan/.beagle/Indexes/FileSystemIndex/SecondaryIndex/
303 116 187 /home/rohan/.beagle/Indexes/KMailIndex/PrimaryIndex/
261 74 187 /home/rohan/.beagle/TextCache/
206 0 206 /home/rohan/.beagle/Log/
42 0 42 /home/rohan/.beagle/Indexes/FileSystemIndex/Locks/
18 6 12 /home/rohan/.beagle/Indexes/FileSystemIndex/
12 0 12 /home/rohan/.beagle/Indexes/KMailIndex/Locks/
3 0 3 /home/rohan/.beagle/TextCache/54/
3 0 3 /home/rohan/.beagle/TextCache/bc/
3 0 3 /home/rohan/.beagle/TextCache/20/
3 0 3 /home/rohan/.beagle/TextCache/62/
2 2 0 /home/rohan/.beagle/Indexes/KMailIndex/SecondaryIndex/
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
inotifywatch is written by Rohan McGovern <rohan@mcgovern.id.au>.
inotifywatch is part of inotify-tools. The inotify-tools website is
located at: http://inotify-tools.sourceforge.net/
SEE ALSO
inotifywait(1), inotify(7)