Re: g_file_monitor_directory on remote NFSv4

[Alexander Larsson <alexl redhat com>]

On Fri, 2009-09-11 at 13:56 -0400, Dr. Michael J. Chudobiak wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I have a quick question about g_file_monitor_directory. I want to 
> monitor a remote NFSv4 folder for new files.
> 
> Using g_file_monitor_directory, it seems that I can detect new files 
> only if the new file is created from the same machine that the code is 
> running on (for example, the NFS server is "server1", my monitor code is 
> on "client2", and another app on "client2" creates the new file).
> 
> If a third computer ("client3") creates a new file in this shared 
> folder, g_file_monitor_directory does not detect it.
> 
> Is that expected, or a bug? Is there a way to catch these third-computer 
> events?
> 
> This is on Fedora 11.

File notification requests eventually end up in the kernel, normally via
the inotify API (or dnotify for older kernels). It is then up to the
kernel to deliver change notification events. 

I don't know much about the NFSv4 protocol, but if it contains requests
for change notification then i guess inotify could be extended to
support these. If not, then this just isn't possible.