linux-toradex.git/include/linux/inotify.h, branch v2.6.16.15

[PATCH] inotify: add two inotify_add_watch flags

2005-12-12T16:57:43+00:00

The below patch lets userspace have more control over the inodes that
inotify will watch.  It introduces two new flags.

        IN_ONLYDIR -- only watch the inode if it is a directory.
        This is needed to avoid the race that can occur when we want to be
        sure that we are watching a directory.

        IN_DONT_FOLLOW -- don't follow a symlink.  In combination
        with IN_ONLYDIR we can make sure that we don't watch the target of
        symlinks.

The issues the flags fix came up when writing the gnome-vfs inotify
backend.  Default behaviour is unchanged.

Signed-off-by: John McCutchan 
Acked-by: Robert Love 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

[PATCH] inotify: fix event loss on hardlinked files

2005-09-07T23:57:39+00:00

People have run into a problem when they do this:

watch (file1, all_events);
watch (file2, some_events);

if file2 is a hard link to file1, some events will be missed because by
default we replace the mask.  The patch below adds a flag IN_MASK_ADD which
will cause inotify to add to the existing mask if present.

Signed-off-by: John McCutchan 
Signed-off-by: Robert Love 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

[PATCH] inotify: add MOVE_SELF event

2005-08-15T16:50:31+00:00

This adds a MOVE_SELF event to inotify.  It is sent whenever the inode
you are watching is moved.  We need this event so that we can catch
something like this:

 - app1:
	watch /etc/mtab

 - app2:
	cp /etc/mtab /tmp/mtab-work
	mv /etc/mtab /etc/mtab~
	mv /tmp/mtab-work /etc/mtab

app1 still thinks it's watching /etc/mtab but it's actually watching
/etc/mtab~.

Signed-off-by: John McCutchan 
Signed-off-by: Robert Love 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

[PATCH] inotify

2005-07-13T03:38:38+00:00

inotify is intended to correct the deficiencies of dnotify, particularly
its inability to scale and its terrible user interface:

        * dnotify requires the opening of one fd per each directory
          that you intend to watch. This quickly results in too many
          open files and pins removable media, preventing unmount.
        * dnotify is directory-based. You only learn about changes to
          directories. Sure, a change to a file in a directory affects
          the directory, but you are then forced to keep a cache of
          stat structures.
        * dnotify's interface to user-space is awful.  Signals?

inotify provides a more usable, simple, powerful solution to file change
notification:

        * inotify's interface is a system call that returns a fd, not SIGIO.
	  You get a single fd, which is select()-able.
        * inotify has an event that says "the filesystem that the item
          you were watching is on was unmounted."
        * inotify can watch directories or files.

Inotify is currently used by Beagle (a desktop search infrastructure),
Gamin (a FAM replacement), and other projects.

See Documentation/filesystems/inotify.txt.

Signed-off-by: Robert Love 
Cc: John McCutchan 
Cc: Christoph Hellwig 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds