Documentation: move dnotify.txt to filesystems/
I'm inclined to think dnotify belongs in filesystems/. Signed-off-by: J. Bruce Fields <bfields@citi.umich.edu> Acked-by: Randy Dunlap <randy.dunlap@oracle.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
This commit is contained in:
committed by
Linus Torvalds
parent
4a6b88ca3d
commit
e9b1a4d160
@@ -32,6 +32,8 @@ directory-locking
|
||||
- info about the locking scheme used for directory operations.
|
||||
dlmfs.txt
|
||||
- info on the userspace interface to the OCFS2 DLM.
|
||||
dnotify.txt
|
||||
- info about directory notification in Linux.
|
||||
ecryptfs.txt
|
||||
- docs on eCryptfs: stacked cryptographic filesystem for Linux.
|
||||
ext2.txt
|
||||
|
99
Documentation/filesystems/dnotify.txt
Normal file
99
Documentation/filesystems/dnotify.txt
Normal file
@@ -0,0 +1,99 @@
|
||||
Linux Directory Notification
|
||||
============================
|
||||
|
||||
Stephen Rothwell <sfr@canb.auug.org.au>
|
||||
|
||||
The intention of directory notification is to allow user applications
|
||||
to be notified when a directory, or any of the files in it, are changed.
|
||||
The basic mechanism involves the application registering for notification
|
||||
on a directory using a fcntl(2) call and the notifications themselves
|
||||
being delivered using signals.
|
||||
|
||||
The application decides which "events" it wants to be notified about.
|
||||
The currently defined events are:
|
||||
|
||||
DN_ACCESS A file in the directory was accessed (read)
|
||||
DN_MODIFY A file in the directory was modified (write,truncate)
|
||||
DN_CREATE A file was created in the directory
|
||||
DN_DELETE A file was unlinked from directory
|
||||
DN_RENAME A file in the directory was renamed
|
||||
DN_ATTRIB A file in the directory had its attributes
|
||||
changed (chmod,chown)
|
||||
|
||||
Usually, the application must reregister after each notification, but
|
||||
if DN_MULTISHOT is or'ed with the event mask, then the registration will
|
||||
remain until explicitly removed (by registering for no events).
|
||||
|
||||
By default, SIGIO will be delivered to the process and no other useful
|
||||
information. However, if the F_SETSIG fcntl(2) call is used to let the
|
||||
kernel know which signal to deliver, a siginfo structure will be passed to
|
||||
the signal handler and the si_fd member of that structure will contain the
|
||||
file descriptor associated with the directory in which the event occurred.
|
||||
|
||||
Preferably the application will choose one of the real time signals
|
||||
(SIGRTMIN + <n>) so that the notifications may be queued. This is
|
||||
especially important if DN_MULTISHOT is specified. Note that SIGRTMIN
|
||||
is often blocked, so it is better to use (at least) SIGRTMIN + 1.
|
||||
|
||||
Implementation expectations (features and bugs :-))
|
||||
---------------------------
|
||||
|
||||
The notification should work for any local access to files even if the
|
||||
actual file system is on a remote server. This implies that remote
|
||||
access to files served by local user mode servers should be notified.
|
||||
Also, remote accesses to files served by a local kernel NFS server should
|
||||
be notified.
|
||||
|
||||
In order to make the impact on the file system code as small as possible,
|
||||
the problem of hard links to files has been ignored. So if a file (x)
|
||||
exists in two directories (a and b) then a change to the file using the
|
||||
name "a/x" should be notified to a program expecting notifications on
|
||||
directory "a", but will not be notified to one expecting notifications on
|
||||
directory "b".
|
||||
|
||||
Also, files that are unlinked, will still cause notifications in the
|
||||
last directory that they were linked to.
|
||||
|
||||
Configuration
|
||||
-------------
|
||||
|
||||
Dnotify is controlled via the CONFIG_DNOTIFY configuration option. When
|
||||
disabled, fcntl(fd, F_NOTIFY, ...) will return -EINVAL.
|
||||
|
||||
Example
|
||||
-------
|
||||
|
||||
#define _GNU_SOURCE /* needed to get the defines */
|
||||
#include <fcntl.h> /* in glibc 2.2 this has the needed
|
||||
values defined */
|
||||
#include <signal.h>
|
||||
#include <stdio.h>
|
||||
#include <unistd.h>
|
||||
|
||||
static volatile int event_fd;
|
||||
|
||||
static void handler(int sig, siginfo_t *si, void *data)
|
||||
{
|
||||
event_fd = si->si_fd;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
int main(void)
|
||||
{
|
||||
struct sigaction act;
|
||||
int fd;
|
||||
|
||||
act.sa_sigaction = handler;
|
||||
sigemptyset(&act.sa_mask);
|
||||
act.sa_flags = SA_SIGINFO;
|
||||
sigaction(SIGRTMIN + 1, &act, NULL);
|
||||
|
||||
fd = open(".", O_RDONLY);
|
||||
fcntl(fd, F_SETSIG, SIGRTMIN + 1);
|
||||
fcntl(fd, F_NOTIFY, DN_MODIFY|DN_CREATE|DN_MULTISHOT);
|
||||
/* we will now be notified if any of the files
|
||||
in "." is modified or new files are created */
|
||||
while (1) {
|
||||
pause();
|
||||
printf("Got event on fd=%d\n", event_fd);
|
||||
}
|
||||
}
|
Reference in New Issue
Block a user