iwatch (1)

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NAME

iwatch - a realtime filesystem monitor / monitor any changes in directories/files specified

SYNOPSIS

iwatch [options]

DESCRIPTION

This manual page documents briefly the iwatch command. iWatch is a realtime filesystem monitoring program. It's a simple perl script to monitor changes in specific directories/files and send email notification immediately. It reads the dir/file list from xml config file and needs inotify support in kernel (Linux Kernel >= 2.6.13).

OPTIONS

Usage for daemon mode of iWatch:

iwatch [-d] [-f <config file>] [-v] [-p <pid file>]

In the daemon mode iWatch has the following options:

-d

Execute the application as daemon. iWatch will run in foregroud without this option.

-f <configfile.xml>

Specify alternative configuration file. Default is /etc/iwatch/iwatch.xml.

-p <pidfile>

Specify an alternate pid file (default: /var/run/iwatch.pid)

-v

Be verbose.

Usage for command line mode of iWatch:

iwatch [-c command] [-e event[,event[,..]]] [-h|--help] [-m <email address>] [-r] [-s <on|off>] [-t <filter string>] [-v] [--version] [-x exception] [-X <regex string as exception>] <target>

In the command line mode iWatch has the following options:

-c <command>

You can specify a command to be executed if an event occurs. For details about the string format take a look at /usr/share/doc/iwatch/README.gz.

-C <charset>

Specify the charset (default is utf-8).

-e <event[,event[,..]]>

Events list. For details about possible events take a look at /usr/share/doc/iwatch/README.gz.

-h, --help

Print help message.

-m <emailaddress>

Contact point's email address. Without this option, iwatch will not send any email notification (obviously).

-r

Recursivity of the watched directory.

-s on|off

Enable or disable reports to the syslog (default is off/disabled).

-t <filter>

Filter string (regex) to compare with the filename or directory name.

-x <exception file or directory>

Specify the file or directory which should not be watched.

-X <regex string as exception>

Specify a regex string as exception.

USAGE EXAMPLES

% iwatch /tmp

Monitor changes in /tmp directory with default events.

% iwatch -r -e access,create -m root@localhost -x /etc/mail /etc

Monitor only access and create events in /etc directory recursively with /etc/mail as exception and send email notification to cahya@localhost.

% iwatch -r -c (w;ps -ef)|mail -s '%f was changed' root@localhost /bin

Monitor /bin directory recursively and execute the command.

% iwatch -r -X '.svn' ~/projects

Monitor ~/projects directory recursively, but exclude any .svn directories inside. This can't be done with a normal '-x' option since '-x' can only exclude the defined path.

AUTHOR

iwatch was written by Cahya Wirawan <cahya@gmx.at>.

This manual page was written by Michael Prokop <mika@debian.org> for the Debian project (but may be used by others).

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