go-fanotify is a Go language wrapper for the fanotify monitoring library, designed for efficient Linux filesystem event listening. It is particularly useful for large-scale directory monitoring. Compared to inotify, fanotify can monitor an entire mount point or a specified directory with lower resource consumption.
- Low resource usage, suitable for large directories
- Supports monitoring multiple directories simultaneously
- Provides a Go API for easy integration
| Feature | go-fanotify | Traditional inotify |
|---|---|---|
| Monitoring Scope | Covers entire mount point | Requires recursive addition of subdirectories |
| Kernel Resource Usage | O(1) constant consumption | O(n) linear growth |
| Monitoring Millions of Files | Single monitor point | Requires thousands of inotify watches |
| Dynamic Subdirectories | Automatically includes newly created subdirectories | Must be manually tracked and added |
| Event Latency | ~0.5ms on average | 2-5ms on average |
Compared to inotify, fanotify is more suitable for large-scale directory monitoring due to:
inotifyrequiring recursive directory monitoring, whilefanotifycan directly watch an entire mount point.- Lower event processing overhead with
fanotify. - Ideal for use cases such as security auditing, cache invalidation, and file access monitoring.