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https://github.com/ar-/incron

cron-like daemon which handles filesystem events
https://github.com/ar-/incron

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cron-like daemon which handles filesystem events

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README 

        
inotify cron system

===================



(c) Andreas Altair Redmer, 2014, 2015  

    Lukas Jelinek, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2012



Content

=======

1. About

2. Install a binary version

3. Obtain the source code

4. Requirements

5. How to build

6. How to use

7. Bugs, suggestions

8. Licensing



1. About

========

This program is the "inotify cron" system. It consist of a daemon and

a table manipulator. You can use it a similar way as the regular cron.

The difference is that the inotify cron handles filesystem events

rather than time periods.



This project was kicked off by Lukas Jelinek in 2006 and then 

unfortunatally abandoned in 2012. Upstream development and 

bug-tracking/fixing continued in 2014 on GitHub:

https://github.com/ar-/incron .



2. Install a binary version

===========================

On Debian and Ubuntu based systems you can install this software with

sudo apt-get install incron



On all other Linux based systems you have to build it from source.



3. Obtain the source code

=========================

You can download the latest stable version from 

https://github.com/ar-/incron/archive/master.tar.gz



You can download older versions from 

https://github.com/ar-/incron/releases



4. Requirements

===============

* Linux kernel 2.6.13 or later (with inotify compiled in)

* inotify headers (inotify.h, sometimes inotify-syscalls.h) installed in

  /sys. The most common place is /usr/include/sys.

* GCC 4.x compiler (probably works also with GCC 3.4, possibly with

  older versions too)



  

5. How to build

===============

Short:



make -j8 && sudo make install



Long:

This software does not contain a standard

portable build mechanism. There is only a Makefile which may be

modified manually. On many Linux systems you need not to change

anything.



Please review the Makefile BEFORE you type 'make'. Especially

check the PREFIX and other common variables. If done you can

now build the files ('make').



The binaries must be of course installed as root.



If you want to use (after editing) the example configuration

file simply rename it from /etc/incron.conf.example to

/etc/incron.conf (you can also use -f  for one-time

use of a custom configuration file).



Making a release of the source tree relies on the 'VERSION' file.

The file should contain only a simple version string such as '0.5.9'

or (if you wish) something more comlex (e.g. '0.5.9-improved').

The doxygen program must be installed and its control file 'Doxygen'

created for generating the API documentation.



6. How to use

=============

The incron daemon (incrond) must be run under root (typically from

runlevel script etc.). It loads the current user tables and hooks

them for later changes.



The incron table manipulator may be run under any regular user

since it SUIDs. For manipulation with the tables use basically

the same syntax as for the crontab program. You can import a table,

remove and edit the current table.



The user table rows have the following syntax:

   



Where:



   is a filesystem path (currently avoid whitespaces!)

   is a symbolic (see inotify.h; use commas for separating

         symbols) or numeric mask for events

   is an application or script to run on the events



The command may contain these wildcards:



  $$ - a dollar sign

  $@ - the watched filesystem path (see above)

  $# - the event-related file name

  $% - the event flags (textually)

  $& - the event flags (numerically)



The mask may additionaly contain a special symbol loopable=true which

disables events occurred during the event handling (to avoid loops).

It also may contain recursive=false to ignore sub-directories.

The mask can also be extended by dotdirs=true which will include 

dotdirectories (hidden directories and hidden files) into the search.



**Example 1**: You need to run program 'abc' with the full file path as

an argument every time a file is changed in /var/mail. One of

the solutions follows:



/var/mail IN_CLOSE_WRITE abc $@/$#



Example 2: You need to run program 'efg' with the full file path as

the first argument and the numeric event flags as the second one.

It have to monitor all events on files in /tmp. Here is it:



/tmp IN_ALL_EVENTS efg $@/$# $&



Since 0.4.0 also system tables are supported. They are located in

/etc/incron.d and their commands use root privileges. System tables

are intended to be changed directly (without incrontab).



Some parameters of both incrontab and incrond can be changed by

the configuration. See the example file for more information.



Example 3: You need to run program 'playmp3' with the full file path as

an argument every time a MP3 file is moved to in /home/u1/Music. One of

the solutions follows:



/home/u1/Music/*.mp3 IN_MOVED_TO playmp3 $@/$#



Example 4: You need to observe the directory /etc/ 

recursively and report every change in the syslog. One of

the solutions follows:



/etc/ IN_CLOSE_WRITE echo $@/$# | logger



Example 5: You need to observe the directory /etc/apache

but exclude the sub-directories and report every change in the syslog.

One of the solutions follows:



/etc/apache IN_CLOSE_WRITE,recursive=false echo $@/$# | logger



Example 6: You need to observe the directory /home/user1

recursively, including all the hidden sub-directories and hidden files

(dotfiles/dotdirectories) and report every change in the syslog.

One of the solutions follows:



/home/user1 IN_CLOSE_WRITE,dotdirs=true echo $@/$# | logger



7. Bugs, suggestions

====================

incrond is currently not resistent against looping.



If you find a bug or have a suggestion how to improve the program,

please use the bug tracking system at 

https://github.com/ar-/incron/issues.



8. Licensing

============

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or

modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License,

version 2  (see LICENSE-GPL).



Some parts may be also covered by other licenses.

Please look into the source files for detailed information.