imntr Files

imntr v1.0
Jay Taylor 2013

imntr (inode monitor) can be used to montior activity on files or directories.
Monitoring is accomplished through the inotify API, which is available on Linux 2.6.13 and up.

imntr will not run unless you are using root credentials, either as the root user or via sudo.
This is because the inotify API can only monitor files to which it has read access.
If you aren't using root credentials, then you can't monitor privileged files like /etc/shadow.

There are two ways to choose which files/directories to monitor:

/***** USING THE COMMAND LINE *****/
Run inotify with pathnames to files or directories as arguments

imntr <pathname 1> <pathname 2> ... <pathname n>

/***** USING A CONFIGURATION FILE *****/
1. Create a file in the same directory as imntr named "imntr.conf"
2. Put pathnames to monitor on separate lines in "imntr.conf"
3. Run imntr from the command line without any arguments

NOTE:
> PATHNAMES CAN REFER TO ANY INODE - FILES, SPECIAL FILES, DIRECTORIES, ETC.
> WHEN YOU SPECIFY A DIRECTORY TO BE MONITORED, THE MONITORING IS NOT RECURISVE.
  IN OTHER WORDS, YOU ONLY MONITOR ACTIVITY ON THE INODES IMMEDIATELY WITHIN THE DIRECTORY.
> PATHNAMES CAN BE RELATIVE OR ABSOLUTE