NAME
incrond - inotify cron (incron) daemon
SYNOPSIS
incrond [ -f file ] [ -n | -k ]
DESCRIPTION
The inotify cron daemon (incrond) is a daemon which monitors filesystem
events and executes commands defined in system and user tables. It’s
use is generally similar to cron(8).
incrond can be started from /etc/rc, /etc/rc.local and so on. It
daemonizes itself (returns immediately) and doesn’t need to be started
with & and through nohup(1). It can be run on foreground too.
incrond uses two categories of tables incrontab(5). System tables are
usually located in /etc/incron.d and are maintained outside of incron
(e.g. by various applications). These tables work on root rights level
and thus any file may be watched and commands are executed with root
privileges.
User tables are located in /var/spool/incron by default and have names
based on user accounts. These tables use users’ access rights, thus
only files which the user may access are watched. Commands are executed
with users’ privileges.
If a table (incrontab) is changed incrond reacts immediately and
reloads the table. Currently running child processes (commands) are not
affected.
There are two files determining whether an user is allowed to use
incron. These files have very simple syntax - one user name per line.
If /etc/incron.allow exists the user must be noted there to be allowed
to use incron. Otherwise if /etc/incron.deny exists the user must not
be noted there to use incron. If none of these files exists there is no
other restriction whether anybody may use incron. Location of these
files can be changed in the configuration.
The daemon itself is currently not protected against looping. If a
command executed due to an event causes the same event it leads to an
infinite loop unless a flag mask containing IN_NO_LOOP is specified.
Please beware of this and do not allow permission for use incron to
unreliable users.
-n (or --foreground) option causes running on foreground. This is
useful especially for testing, debugging and optimization.
-k (or --kill) option terminates a running instance of incrond.
-f <FILE> (or --config=<FILE>) option specifies another location for
the configuration file (/etc/incron.conf is used by default).
Environment variables: For system tables, the default (the same as for
incrond itself) environment variable set is used. The same applies to
root’s table. For non-root user tables, the whole environment is
cleared and then only these variables are set: LOGNAME, USER, USERNAME,
SHELL, HOME and PATH. The variables (except PATH) take values from the
user database (e.g. /etc/passwd). The PATH variable is set to
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin.
SEE ALSO
incrontab(1), incrontab(5), incron.conf(5)
BUGS
incrond is currently not resistent against looping. Recursive
monitoring (whole subtrees) has not been implemented yet.
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.