inotifywatch(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OUTPUT | OPTIONS | EXIT STATUS | EVENTS | EXAMPLE | CAVEATS | BUGS | AUTHORS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

inotifywatch(1)          General Commands Manual         inotifywatch(1)

NAME         top

       inotifywatch, fsnotifywatch - gather filesystem access statistics
       using inotify or fanotify

SYNOPSIS         top

       inotifywatch [-hvzrPqfIFS] [-e <event> ] [-t <seconds> ] [-a
       <event> ] [-d <event> ] <file> [ ... ]

       fsnotifywatch [-hvzrPqfIFS] [-e <event> ] [-t <seconds> ] [-a
       <event> ] [-d <event> ] <file> [ ... ]

DESCRIPTION         top

       inotifywatch listens for filesystem events using Linux's
       inotify(7) interface by default, then outputs a summary count of
       the events received on each file or directory.

       fsnotifywatch is similar to inotifywatch but it is using Linux's
       fanotify(7) interface by default. If explicitly specified, it
       uses the inotify(7) interface.

OUTPUT         top

       inotifywatch and fsnotifywatch 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         top

       -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 for the subset of files whose
              filenames match the specified POSIX regular expression,
              case sensitive.

       --excludei <pattern>
              Do not process any events for the subset of files whose
              filenames match the specified POSIX regular expression,
              case insensitive.

       --include <pattern>
              Process events only for the subset of files whose
              filenames match the specified POSIX regular expression,
              case sensitive.

       --includei <pattern>
              Process events only for the subset of files whose
              filenames match the specified POSIX 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.

       -P, --no-dereference
              Do not follow symlinks.

       -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'.

       -I, --inotify
              Watch using inotify (default for inotifywatch).

       -F, --fanotify
              Watch using fanotify (default for fsnotifywatch).
              fanotify support for reporting events with inotify
              compatible information was added in kernel v5.9.  With
              older kernels the command will fail.  As of kernel v5.12,
              fanotify requires admin privileges.

       -S, --filesystem
              Watch entire filesystem of any directories passed as
              arguments using fanotify.

EXIT STATUS         top

       0      The program executed successfully.

       1      An error occurred in execution of the program.

EVENTS         top

       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 writable 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         top

       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/

CAVEATS         top

       When using inotifywatch, 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
       inotifywatch was instructed to monitor in cases when the file is
       known by several names in the filesystem.

BUGS         top

       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         top

       inotifywatch was started by Rohan McGovern, and is currently
       maintained by Eric Curtin and Radu Voicilas.
       https://www.openhub.net/p/inotify-tools/contributors/summary
       gives you a more complete list of contributors.

       inotifywatch is part of inotify-tools.  The inotify-tools website
       is located at:
       https://github.com/inotify-tools/inotify-tools/wiki 

SEE ALSO         top

       inotifywait(1), inotify(7)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the inotify-tools (command-line programs
       providing a simple interface to inotify) project.  Information
       about the project can be found at 
       ⟨https://github.com/rvoicilas/inotify-tools/wiki⟩.  If you have a
       bug report for this manual page, send it to
       inotify-tools-general@lists.sourceforge.net.  This page was
       obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://github.com/rvoicilas/inotify-tools.git⟩ on 2024-06-14.
       (At that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found
       in the repository was 2024-05-21.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
       is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

inotifywatch 4.23.9.0          2023-09-23                inotifywatch(1)

Pages that refer to this page: inotifywait(1)inotify(7)