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inotify: notify IN_DELETE_SELF when file is deleted or inode deleted ?

DISCUSSION Pierre PEIFFER 2 participants 2 messages Jun 29, 2012 – Jul 6, 2012

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Pierre PEIFFER

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#0 lore raw

Hi,

By playing with inotify (on user side) to know whether the file I'm using is deleted by someone else, I have noted that I do not receive the IN_DELETE_SELF event, exactly because I'm using it. By checking into kernel area, I see that at unlink(), an IN_ATTRIB event is sent, but IN_DELETE_SELF is, indeed, sent only when the inode is deleted.

But such IN_ATTRIB event doesn't tell to the user what has changed among permissions, timestamps, link count, etc...
So it doesn't much help. Of course, I have noted that I can monitor the parent directory for IN_DELETE and then check which file has been deleted; few more stuff to do but it works, no pb.

But I'm still wondering after reading in the man.:
IN_DELETE_SELF Watched file/directory was itself deleted.
Is this really the expected behavior ? Shouldn't the kernel trig such event at unlink() ? Or is inotify clearly inode oriented ?

Thanks,

Pierre

PS: keep me in cc, I'm not subscribed to the list.

#1 lore raw

It is inode oriented. Makes it a pain to work with, but that's how it is. Sorry!

Quoted 29 lines · Pierre PEIFFER

Hi,

By playing with inotify (on user side) to know whether the file I'm using is deleted by someone else, I have noted that I do not receive the IN_DELETE_SELF event, exactly because I'm using it. By checking into kernel area, I see that at unlink(), an IN_ATTRIB event is sent, but IN_DELETE_SELF is, indeed, sent only when the inode is deleted.

But such IN_ATTRIB event doesn't tell to the user what has changed among permissions, timestamps, link count, etc...
So it doesn't much help. Of course, I have noted that I can monitor the parent directory for IN_DELETE and then check which file has been deleted; few more stuff to do but it works, no pb.

But I'm still wondering after reading in the man.:
IN_DELETE_SELF Watched file/directory was itself deleted.
Is this really the expected behavior ? Shouldn't the kernel trig such event at unlink() ? Or is inotify clearly inode oriented ?

Thanks,

Pierre

PS: keep me in cc, I'm not subscribed to the list.
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