On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 5:55 AM Steve French <smfrench@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > Currently the inotify interface in the kernel can only be used for > local file systems (unlike the previous change notify API used years > ago, and the change notify interface in Windows and other OS which is > primarily of interest for network file systems). > > I wanted to discuss the VFS changes needed to allow inotify requests > to be passed into file systems so network and cluster file systems (as > an example in the SMB3 case this simply means sending a > SMB3_CHANGE_NOTIFY request to the server, whether Samba or Cloud > (Azure) or Mac or Windows or Network Appliance - all support the API > on the server side, the problem is that the network or cluster fs > client isn't told about the request to wait on the inotify event). > Although user space tools can use file system specific ioctls to wait > on events, it is obviously preferable to allow network and cluster > file systems to wait on events using the calls which current Linux > GUIs use. > > This would allow gnome file manager GUI for example to be > automatically updated when a file is added to an open directory window > from another remote client. > > It would also fix the embarrassing problem noted in the inotify man page: > > "Inotify reports only events that a user-space program triggers > through the filesystem > API. As a result, it does not catch remote events that occur > on network filesystems." > > but that is precisely the types of notifications that are most useful > ... users often are aware of updates to local directories from the > same system, but ... automatic notifications that allow GUIs to be > updated on changes from **other** clients is of more value (and this > is exactly what the equivalent API allows on other OS). > > The changes to the Linux VFS are small. > > Miklos has already posted an RFC patch: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-fsdevel/20190507085707.GD30899@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/ Did you try it? You also did not answer Miklos' question: does the smb protocol support whole filesystem (or subtree) notifications? (or just per-directory notifications)? Thanks, Amir.
