_index.md

onfilechange

A Shell script that watches a given fileobject or multiple fileobjects (=files or directories). If one of the watched fileobject changes then a given command will be exxecuted. It loops permanently; you need to stop it by Ctrl + C and/ or can use it as systemd watcher daemon.

It uses stat for wide compatibility but can enable inotifywatch to check a file change by an event.

Institute for Medical Education; University of Bern

Source: https://git-repo.iml.unibe.ch/iml-open-source/onfilechange
License: GNU GPL 3.0
Docs: https://os-docs.iml.unibe.ch/onfilechange/

Why?

You can use it to trigger actions that are not allowed by another user.

Scenario:

A web developer has access with a non privileged user to maintain an application ... and on an update you want to allow him to restart the web service without sudo permissions.

Start the onfilechange to watch a defined file as root:

onfilechange.sh -f /var/www/touch2restart_httpd -c "systemctl restart httpd"