Monitor changes to a file

[Kurt Granroth]

I tried a script using incron last night and it implied that it was 
happening exactly when SpiderOak was starting up.  I say "implied" 
because it effectively fork-bombed me (lesson learned: don't use 
IN_ALL_EVENTS) and my log file was all corrupted when I had to reboot.

On 3/1/11 9:19 AM, Dazed_75 wrote:
> Given that you said "... corrupting or rewriting a critical file _just
> before_ it runs", would it be worth renaming, removing or changing
> permissions on the file just before that to see what fails or logs an error?
>
> Larry
>
> On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 8:14 AM, Alex Dean <alex at crackpot.org
> <mailto:alex at crackpot.org>> wrote:
>
>
>     On Feb 28, 2011, at 5:33 PM, Kurt Granroth wrote:
>
>      > Maybe incron (cron version of inotify) could trigger a script
>     that runs 'stat' on the file.  Still wouldn't give me the "who", though.
>
>     At first glance, I thought inotify would be perfect for this.  But
>     (as you say) it doesn't appear that inotify events contain any
>     information about which process performed the change which trigged
>     the event.
>
>     struct inotify_event {
>             __s32 wd;             /* watch descriptor */
>             __u32 mask;           /* watch mask */
>             __u32 cookie;         /* cookie to synchronize two events */
>             __u32 len;            /* length (including nulls) of name */
>             char name[0];        /* stub for possible name */
>     };
>     http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8478?page=0,1
>
>     There are some handy-looking tools in
>     https://github.com/rvoicilas/inotify-tools/wiki/.  Seems like you
>     should be able to write a shell script to wait for a modification
>     event on your file, and run stat or lsof when the file is changed.
>       That's not perfect, since the modifying process might be done by
>     the time lsof actually runs, but it seems like it's worth a try.
>
>     alex
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> --
> Dazed_75 a.k.a. Larry
>
> The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain
> occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive.
>    - Thomas Jefferson
>
>
>
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