[PATCH] inotify
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 <rml@novell.com>
Cc: John McCutchan <ttb@tentacle.dhs.org>
Cc: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
diff --git a/fs/Kconfig b/fs/Kconfig
index f93fd41b..5d0c4be 100644
--- a/fs/Kconfig
+++ b/fs/Kconfig
@@ -359,6 +359,19 @@
If you don't know whether you need it, then you don't need it:
answer N.
+config INOTIFY
+ bool "Inotify file change notification support"
+ default y
+ ---help---
+ Say Y here to enable inotify support and the /dev/inotify character
+ device. Inotify is a file change notification system and a
+ replacement for dnotify. Inotify fixes numerous shortcomings in
+ dnotify and introduces several new features. It allows monitoring
+ of both files and directories via a single open fd. Multiple file
+ events are supported.
+
+ If unsure, say Y.
+
config QUOTA
bool "Quota support"
help