incrontab(5) incron documentation incrontab(5)
NAME
incrontab - tables for driving inotify cron (incron)
DESCRIPTION
An incrontab file contains instructions to the incrond(8) daemon of the
general form: "run this command on these file events". There are two
categories of tables: system tables (with root privileges) and user ta-
bles (with user privileges).
System tables are (by default) located in /etc/incron.d and may have any
names. Each system table exists separately inside incron and their
watches never collide.
Each user has their own table, and commands in any given incrontab will
be executed as the user who owns the incrontab. System users (such as
apache, postfix, nobody etc.) may have their own incrontab.
incrontab files are read when the incrond(8) daemon starts and after any
change (incrontab file are being hooked when incrond is running).
Blank lines are ignored. The general line format is the following:
<path> <mask> <command>
Where path is an absolute filesystem path, mask is an event mask (in
symbolic or numeric form) and command is an executable file (or a
script) with its arguments. See below for event mask symbols. The exe-
cutable file may be noted as an absolute path or only as the name itself
(PATH locations are examined).
Please remember that the same path may occur only once per table (other-
wise only the first occurrence takes effect and an error message is
emitted to the system log). Please not that the * wildcard is allowed
to observe a range of files.
EVENT SYMBOLS
These basic event mask symbols are defined:
IN_ACCESS File was accessed (read) (*)
IN_ATTRIB Metadata changed (permissions, timestamps, extended
attributes, etc.) (*)
IN_CLOSE_WRITE File opened for writing was closed (*)
IN_CLOSE_NOWRITE File not opened for writing was closed (*)
IN_CREATE File/directory created in watched directory (*)
IN_DELETE File/directory deleted from watched directory (*)
IN_DELETE_SELF Watched file/directory was itself deleted
IN_MODIFY File was modified (*)
IN_MOVE_SELF Watched file/directory was itself moved
IN_MOVED_FROM File moved out of watched directory (*)
IN_MOVED_TO File moved into watched directory (*)
IN_OPEN File was opened (*)
When monitoring a directory, the events marked with an asterisk (*)
above can occur for files in the directory, in which case the name field
in the returned event data identifies the name of the file within the
directory.
The IN_ALL_EVENTS symbol is defined as a bit mask of all of the above
events. Two additional convenience symbols are IN_MOVE, which is a com-
bination of IN_MOVED_FROM and IN_MOVED_TO, and IN_CLOSE which combines
IN_CLOSE_WRITE and IN_CLOSE_NOWRITE.
The following further symbols can be specified in the mask:
IN_DONT_FOLLOW Don't dereference pathname if it is a symbolic link
IN_ONESHOT Monitor pathname for only one event
IN_ONLYDIR Only watch pathname if it is a directory
Additionally, there is a symbol which doesn't appear in the inotify sym-
bol set. It is loopable=true. This symbol disables monitoring events un-
til the current one is completely handled (until its child process ex-
its). Also, there is the symbol recursive=false. This symbol limits the
observation on the specified directory and does not include subdirecto-
ries. Finally, there is also the symbol dotdirs=true. This symbol will
include the hidden directories (where the names starts with a dot) in
the observation.
WILDCARDS
The following wildards may be used inside command specification:
$$ dollar sign
$@ watched filesystem path (see above)
$# event-related file name
$% event flags (textually)
$& event flags (numerically)
EXAMPLE
These are some example rules which can be used in an incrontab file:
/tmp IN_ALL_EVENTS abcd $@/$# $%
/usr/bin IN_ACCESS,loopable=true abcd $#
/home IN_CREATE /usr/local/bin/abcd $#
/home IN_CREATE,dotdirs=true /usr/local/bin/abcd $#
/home IN_CREATE,recursive=false /usr/local/bin/abcd $#
/var/log 12 abcd $@/$#
The first line monitors all events on the /tmp directory. When an event
occurs it runs a application called 'abcd' with the full path of the
file as the first arguments and the event flags as the second one.
The second line monitors accesses (readings) on the /usr/bin directory.
The application 'abcd' is run as a handler and the appropriate event
watch is disabled until the program finishes. The file name (without the
directory path) is passed in as an argument.
The third example is used for monitoring the /home directory for newly
create files or directories (it practically means an event is sent when
a new user is added). This event is processed by a program specified by
an absolute path.
The fourth example is the third example, but it will include hidden di-
rectories in the observation.
The fifth example is the third example, but it will exclude sub-directo-
ries from the observation.
And the final line shows how to use numeric event mask instead of tex-
tual one. The value 12 is exactly the same as IN_ATTRIB,IN_CLOSE_WRITE.
SEE ALSO
incrond(8), incrontab(1), incron.conf(5)
AUTHOR
Andreas Altair Redmer <altair.ibn.la.ahad.sy@gmail.com> (please report
bugs to https://github.com/ar-/incron/issues ). Lukas Jelinek
<lukas@aiken.cz> .
COPYING
This program is free software. It can be used, redistributed and/or mod-
ified under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2.
Lukas Jelinek 0.5.12 incrontab(5)
Generated by dwww version 1.16 on Tue Dec 16 07:13:12 CET 2025.