Filesystem notification series by Michael Kerrisk

Filesystem notification APIs provide a mechanism by which applications can be informed when events happen within a filesystem. To date, Linux has acquired three different filesystem notification APIs. This article series looks at the differences between the APIs, and considers what lessons have been learned during their design—and what lessons remain to be learned.

• Filesystem notification, part 1: An overview of dnotify and inotify — A brief description of the original filesystem notification API, dnotify, and its limitations, along with an introduction to the inotify API and a discussion of the ways in which it improves on dnotify.
• Filesystem notification, part 2: A deeper investigation of inotify — At first glance, inotify appears to provide a complete solution for reliably monitoring the state of a filesystem. However, even when using inotify, this task still presents many challenges.