VFS event hooks in Linux

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

in nt, ChangeNotify events occur on "objects", and can occur recursively.
an "object" can be a file, directory, printer, registry entry, process,
partition etc.

On Tue, 29 Jun 1999, Richard Gooch wrote:

> Jeremy Allison writes:
> > Richard Gooch wrote:
> > > 
> > > Following on from some private discussions, it's been brought to my
> > > attention that Samba would benefit from VFS event hooks. Could someone
> > > please explain what level of support is useful?
> > 
> > ChangeNotify is the SMB call Samba uses to return to a Windows
> > client that a directory tree has been modified and should be
> > re-scanned by the client.
> 
> So if somewhere deep in a directory tree a change is made, the SMB
> client will rescan the *entire* tree?

yes.  if the smb client has file /directory handles open on that tree, for
example, say a user has "explorer.exe" open, viewing but otherwise doing
absolutely nothing, on a share.
 
> > ChangeNotify can act just on one directory, or on a complete tree
> > (realistically it is only used on a per-directory basis).