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authorAnton Altaparmakov <aia21@cantab.net>2005-07-13 23:09:23 +0100
committerAnton Altaparmakov <aia21@cantab.net>2005-07-13 23:09:23 +0100
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+ inotify
+ a powerful yet simple file change notification system
+
+
+
+Document started 15 Mar 2005 by Robert Love <rml@novell.com>
+
+(i) User Interface
+
+Inotify is controlled by a set of three sys calls
+
+First step in using inotify is to initialise an inotify instance
+
+ int fd = inotify_init ();
+
+Change events are managed by "watches". A watch is an (object,mask) pair where
+the object is a file or directory and the mask is a bit mask of one or more
+inotify events that the application wishes to receive. See <linux/inotify.h>
+for valid events. A watch is referenced by a watch descriptor, or wd.
+
+Watches are added via a path to the file.
+
+Watches on a directory will return events on any files inside of the directory.
+
+Adding a watch is simple,
+
+ int wd = inotify_add_watch (fd, path, mask);
+
+You can add a large number of files via something like
+
+ for each file to watch {
+ int wd = inotify_add_watch (fd, file, mask);
+ }
+
+You can update an existing watch in the same manner, by passing in a new mask.
+
+An existing watch is removed via the INOTIFY_IGNORE ioctl, for example
+
+ inotify_rm_watch (fd, wd);
+
+Events are provided in the form of an inotify_event structure that is read(2)
+from a inotify instance fd. The filename is of dynamic length and follows the
+struct. It is of size len. The filename is padded with null bytes to ensure
+proper alignment. This padding is reflected in len.
+
+You can slurp multiple events by passing a large buffer, for example
+
+ size_t len = read (fd, buf, BUF_LEN);
+
+Will return as many events as are available and fit in BUF_LEN.
+
+each inotify instance fd is also select()- and poll()-able.
+
+You can find the size of the current event queue via the FIONREAD ioctl.
+
+All watches are destroyed and cleaned up on close.
+
+
+(ii) Internal Kernel Implementation
+
+Each open inotify instance is associated with an inotify_device structure.
+
+Each watch is associated with an inotify_watch structure. Watches are chained
+off of each associated device and each associated inode.
+
+See fs/inotify.c for the locking and lifetime rules.
+
+
+(iii) Rationale
+
+Q: What is the design decision behind not tying the watch to the open fd of
+ the watched object?
+
+A: Watches are associated with an open inotify device, not an open file.
+ This solves the primary problem with dnotify: keeping the file open pins
+ the file and thus, worse, pins the mount. Dnotify is therefore infeasible
+ for use on a desktop system with removable media as the media cannot be
+ unmounted.
+
+Q: What is the design decision behind using an-fd-per-device as opposed to
+ an fd-per-watch?
+
+A: An fd-per-watch quickly consumes more file descriptors than are allowed,
+ more fd's than are feasible to manage, and more fd's than are optimally
+ select()-able. Yes, root can bump the per-process fd limit and yes, users
+ can use epoll, but requiring both is a silly and extraneous requirement.
+ A watch consumes less memory than an open file, separating the number
+ spaces is thus sensible. The current design is what user-space developers
+ want: Users initialize inotify, once, and add n watches, requiring but one fd
+ and no twiddling with fd limits. Initializing an inotify instance two
+ thousand times is silly. If we can implement user-space's preferences
+ cleanly--and we can, the idr layer makes stuff like this trivial--then we
+ should.
+
+ There are other good arguments. With a single fd, there is a single
+ item to block on, which is mapped to a single queue of events. The single
+ fd returns all watch events and also any potential out-of-band data. If
+ every fd was a separate watch,
+
+ - There would be no way to get event ordering. Events on file foo and
+ file bar would pop poll() on both fd's, but there would be no way to tell
+ which happened first. A single queue trivially gives you ordering. Such
+ ordering is crucial to existing applications such as Beagle. Imagine
+ "mv a b ; mv b a" events without ordering.
+
+ - We'd have to maintain n fd's and n internal queues with state,
+ versus just one. It is a lot messier in the kernel. A single, linear
+ queue is the data structure that makes sense.
+
+ - User-space developers prefer the current API. The Beagle guys, for
+ example, love it. Trust me, I asked. It is not a surprise: Who'd want
+ to manage and block on 1000 fd's via select?
+
+ - You'd have to manage the fd's, as an example: Call close() when you
+ received a delete event.
+
+ - No way to get out of band data.
+
+ - 1024 is still too low. ;-)
+
+ When you talk about designing a file change notification system that
+ scales to 1000s of directories, juggling 1000s of fd's just does not seem
+ the right interface. It is too heavy.
+
+Q: Why the system call approach?
+
+A: The poor user-space interface is the second biggest problem with dnotify.
+ Signals are a terrible, terrible interface for file notification. Or for
+ anything, for that matter. The ideal solution, from all perspectives, is a
+ file descriptor-based one that allows basic file I/O and poll/select.
+ Obtaining the fd and managing the watches could have been done either via a
+ device file or a family of new system calls. We decided to implement a
+ family of system calls because that is the preffered approach for new kernel
+ features and it means our user interface requirements.
+
+ Additionally, it _is_ possible to more than one instance and
+ juggle more than one queue and thus more than one associated fd.
+