Python – pyinotify – Observe Files and Directories – open, close, delete

sudo pip install pyinotify

Example

a@a:~$ vim notify_test.py

import pyinotify

class MyEventHandler(pyinotify.ProcessEvent):
    def process_IN_ACCESS(self, event):
        print "ACCESS event:", event.pathname

    def process_IN_ATTRIB(self, event):
        print "ATTRIB event:", event.pathname

    def process_IN_CLOSE_NOWRITE(self, event):
        print "CLOSE_NOWRITE event:", event.pathname

    def process_IN_CLOSE_WRITE(self, event):
        print "CLOSE_WRITE event:", event.pathname

    def process_IN_CREATE(self, event):
        print "CREATE event:", event.pathname

    def process_IN_DELETE(self, event):
        print "DELETE event:", event.pathname

    def process_IN_MODIFY(self, event):
        print "MODIFY event:", event.pathname

    def process_IN_OPEN(self, event):
        print "OPEN event:", event.pathname

def main():
    # watch manager
    wm = pyinotify.WatchManager()
    wm.add_watch('/var/log', pyinotify.ALL_EVENTS, rec=True)

    # event handler
    eh = MyEventHandler()

    # notifier
    notifier = pyinotify.Notifier(wm, eh)
    notifier.loop()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Test

python notify_test.py

Results

MODIFY event: /var/log/auth.log
MODIFY event: /var/log/syslog
MODIFY event: /var/log/syslog
MODIFY event: /var/log/auth.log
MODIFY event: /var/log/auth.log
MODIFY event: /var/log/syslog
MODIFY event: /var/log/auth.log
MODIFY event: /var/log/syslog

References

1. http://www.saltycrane.com/blog/2010/04/monitoring-filesystem-python-and-pyinotify/