inotify.pl - script to daemonize a Linux::Inotify2 handler

inotify.pl --config=inotify.cfg

Script harness for Workflow::Inotify::Handler classes. This is typically launched as a daemon by the inotifyd script or using a systemctl service description.

See Workflow::Inotify::Handler

The inotify.pl script reads a .ini style configuration file and installs handlers implemented by Perl classes to process kernel events generated from file or directory changes. Using Linux::Inotify2, the script instantiates one or more handlers which process directory events and then daemonizes this script.

The configuration file is a .ini style configuration file consisting of a [global] section and one or more sections named using the convention: [watch_{name}] where {name} is the snake case representation of the directory to watch.

Boolean values in the configuration file can be set as '0', '1', 'true', 'false', 'on', 'off', 'yes', or 'no'. Take your pick.

Example:

[global]
daemonize = yes
logfile = /var/log/inotify.log
block = yes
perl5lib = $HOME/lib/perl5

[watch_tmp]
dir = /tmp
mask = IN_MOVED_TO | IN_CLOSE_WRITE
handler = Workflow::Inotify::Handler

Sections are described below.

• [global]

  The global section contains configuration values used throughout the script. All of the values in the global section are optional.

  • sleep

    Amount of time in seconds to sleep after polling for a watch event.

  • block

    Boolean that indicates if the watcher should block waiting for an event. If you set block to a false value, you should also consider a sleep value.

    default: true

  • logfile

    Name of a file that will receive all STDERR and STDOUT messages.

  • perl5lib

    One or more paths to add to @INC. Paths should be ':' separated.

    Example:

      perl5lib = $HOME/lib/perl5:/usr/local/lib/perl5
    

    Words that begin with '$' are interpretted to be environment variables (for this variable only). You can also use '~' to denote your home directory ($HOME) if it is defined.

  • verbose

    Output messages at beginning of script.

    default: true

  • daemonize

    Boolean that indicates whether the script should be daemonize using Proc::Daemon.

    default: false

• [watch_{name}]

  The watch section contains settings for the directories to watch.

  • dir

    Directory to watch.

    Example:

      [watch_example]
    
      dir =  I</var/spool/junk>.
    

  • mask

    One or more inotify event names as described in man 7 inotify. These events should be pipe delimited (as in "oring" them together).

    Example:

      mask = IN_MOVED_FROM | IN_MOVED_TO
    

    These are also described in Workflow::Inotify::Handler.

  • handler

    The name of a Perl class that has at least a handler() method. This handler will be called with a Linux::Inotify::Event object.

    Example:

      handler = Workflow::Inotify::Handler
    

    A typical handler might look something like this:

      package MyHandler;
      
      use strict;
      use warnings;
      
      use Data::Dumper;
    
      use parent qw(Workflow::Inotify::Handler);
      
      sub new {
        my ( $class, @args ) = @_;
      
        return $class->SUPER::new(@args);
      }
      
      sub handler {
        my ( $self, $event ) = @_;
      
        return print {*STDERR} Dumper( [ event => $event ] );
      }
    

    1;

You can create a section in the configuration file that is named for the handler class. For example, if your handler class is Workflow::S3::Uploader, then create a section in the configuration file named workflow_s3_uploader. Place any values you wish in that section. The configuration object is passed to your handler's new() method so you can access the values as needed. The configuration object is an instance of Config::IniFiles.

If you use the parent class Workflow::Inotify::Handler, its new() method will automatically create setters and getters for these values.

See Workflow::Inotify::Handler for more details.

This documentation refers to version 1.0.6

https://github.com/rlauer6/perl-Workflow-Inotify.git

Rob Lauer - rlauer6@comcast.net

Linux::Inotify2, Config::IniFiles, Workflow::Inotify::Handler