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inotifywait(1)							inotifywait(1)

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  ino‐
       tify(7)	interface.   It	 is  suitable for waiting for changes to files
       from shell scripts.  It can either exit once an event occurs,  or  con‐
       tinually 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  config‐
       ured, 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	speci‐
	      fied 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.	  Sym‐
	      bolic  links  are	 not  traversed.  Newly created subdirectories
	      will also be watched.

	      Warning: If you use this option while watching the  root	direc‐
	      tory  of	a large tree, it may take quite a while until all ino‐
	      tify 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 ino‐
	      tify  watches  per user will be reached.	The default maximum is
	      8192; it	can  be	 increased  by	writing	 to  /proc/sys/fs/ino‐
	      tify/max_user_watches.

       -q, --quiet
	      If  specified  once, the program will be less verbose.  Specifi‐
	      cally, 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 lis‐
	      tened  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.  Oth‐
	      erwise, 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	which‐
	      ever 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	speci‐
	      fied 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 direc‐
	      tory 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

BUGS
       There are race conditions in  the  recursive  directory	watching  code
       which  can cause events to be missed if they occur in a directory imme‐
       diately 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@mcgov‐
       ern.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)

inotifywait 3.14		March 14, 2010			inotifywait(1)
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