[TriLUG] How reliable is inotifywait?

[James Toebes via TriLUG]

Have you checked out incron?   Similar to cron,  but runs on inodes.  
You can easily define script that run when a file is added, deleted....


On 3/10/24 18:41, Ken VanDine via TriLUG wrote:
> In my experience it's very reliable.  We use it in Ubuntu to determine when
> the display server is up before starting the installer.
>
> https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-core-desktop-installer/blob/00cb18b0b2512bb81986c6259d5561fc5a9e3976/launcher/launcher#L57
>
> Cheers,
> Ken
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 10, 2024, 6:09 PM Steve Litt via TriLUG <trilug at trilug.org>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> The inotifywait program waits until a specific file event happens in a
>> specific directory or file, and then terminates. So it enables
>> file-driven event driven programs.
>>
>> I'd like to wake up the instant a file appears in a directory.
>> Something like the following:
>>
>> inotifywait -e create -e moved_to -t 30 /tmp/pager
>>
>> The preceding waits 30 seconds, except if a file is created in or moved
>> to /tmp/pager, it quits waiting and terminates immediately.
>>
>> I use it to combine polling with an event driven, so if for some reason
>> the event (moved_to or create) doesn't quit and terminate immediately,
>> it will still quit and terminate at the end of 30 seconds.
>>
>> I can significantly simplify my program if I changed -t 30 to t -1,
>> where -1 stands for "forever". False positives aren't a problem: They
>> would just start another cycle. But false negatives, where a file is
>> created or moved into /tmp/pager but fails to quit and terminate, would
>> really mess me up in this particular situation.
>>
>> So what do you think, is inotifywait reliable?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> SteveT
>>
>> Steve Litt
>>
>> Autumn 2023 featured book: Rapid Learning for the 21st Century
>> http://www.troubleshooters.com/rl21
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