Re: [Tracker] Linux kernel watchless file notification

[Jamie McCracken <jamiemcc blueyonder co uk>]

On Mon, 2008-04-07 at 11:45 +1000, Ian Howson wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> I'm working on a file synchronization app right now and am running into some 
> of the same issues as Tracker w.r.t. inotify, the limited number of inotify 
> watches and recursive directory watching.
>
> I notice that your code uses all of the inotify watches except about 500. This 
> obviously leads to problems with other programs (like mine) that want to use 
> exactly the same technique to receive notifications for large directory 
> trees :-)
>
> I also saw the 'Linux kernel watchless file notification system for Tracker' 
> on the Tracker Summer Of Code Proposals page:
>
> http://live.gnome.org/Tracker/SoC
>
> and was wondering:
> - has any progress been made on this project apart from the proposal, and
> - do you need any help on the kernel notification thing?
>
> I'm willing to supervise people, offer design help, testing, implement the 
> thing - whatever. I just want to see an efficient file notification system in 
> widespread use soon, and I'm sure there are a lot more applications that can 
> benefit from such a system.

well to do the kernel thingy we need a generic kernel notification
thingy that only root can read

then we need to modify libc to make use of said notification thingy as
kernel team will not allow resolution of file descriptors to file paths
within the kernel

jamie