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FANOTIFY_INIT(2) Linux Programmer's Manual FANOTIFY_INIT(2)

NAME
fanotify_init - create and initialize fanotify group

SYNOPSIS
#include <fcntl.h> /* Definition of O_* constants */
#include <sys/fanotify.h>

int fanotify_init(unsigned int flags, unsigned int event_f_flags);

DESCRIPTION
For an overview of the fanotify API, see fanotify(7).

fanotify_init() initializes a new fanotify group and returns a file descriptor for the event queue associated with the group.

The file descriptor is used in calls to fanotify_mark(2) to specify the files, directories, mounts, or filesystems for which fanotify events shall be created.
These events are received by reading from the file descriptor. Some events are only informative, indicating that a file has been accessed. Other events can be
used to determine whether another application is permitted to access a file or directory. Permission to access filesystem objects is granted by writing to the
file descriptor.

Multiple programs may be using the fanotify interface at the same time to monitor the same files.

In the current implementation, the number of fanotify groups per user is limited to 128. This limit cannot be overridden.

Calling fanotify_init() requires the CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability. This constraint might be relaxed in future versions of the API. Therefore, certain additional
capability checks have been implemented as indicated below.

The flags argument contains a multi-bit field defining the notification class of the listening application and further single bit fields specifying the behavior
of the file descriptor.

If multiple listeners for permission events exist, the notification class is used to establish the sequence in which the listeners receive the events.

Only one of the following notification classes may be specified in flags:

FAN_CLASS_PRE_CONTENT
This value allows the receipt of events notifying that a file has been accessed and events for permission decisions if a file may be accessed. It is in‐
tended for event listeners that need to access files before they contain their final data. This notification class might be used by hierarchical storage
managers, for example.

FAN_CLASS_CONTENT
This value allows the receipt of events notifying that a file has been accessed and events for permission decisions if a file may be accessed. It is in‐
tended for event listeners that need to access files when they already contain their final content. This notification class might be used by malware de‐
tection programs, for example.

FAN_CLASS_NOTIF
This is the default value. It does not need to be specified. This value only allows the receipt of events notifying that a file has been accessed. Per‐
mission decisions before the file is accessed are not possible.

Listeners with different notification classes will receive events in the order FAN_CLASS_PRE_CONTENT, FAN_CLASS_CONTENT, FAN_CLASS_NOTIF. The order of notifica‐
tion for listeners in the same notification class is undefined.

The following bits can additionally be set in flags:

FAN_CLOEXEC
Set the close-on-exec flag (FD_CLOEXEC) on the new file descriptor. See the description of the O_CLOEXEC flag in open(2).

FAN_NONBLOCK
Enable the nonblocking flag (O_NONBLOCK) for the file descriptor. Reading from the file descriptor will not block. Instead, if no data is available,
read(2) fails with the error EAGAIN.

FAN_UNLIMITED_QUEUE
Remove the limit of 16384 events for the event queue. Use of this flag requires the CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability.

FAN_UNLIMITED_MARKS
Remove the limit of 8192 marks. Use of this flag requires the CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability.

FAN_REPORT_TID (since Linux 4.20)
Report thread ID (TID) instead of process ID (PID) in the pid field of the struct fanotify_event_metadata supplied to read(2) (see fanotify(7)).

FAN_ENABLE_AUDIT (since Linux 4.15)
Enable generation of audit log records about access mediation performed by permission events. The permission event response has to be marked with the
FAN_AUDIT flag for an audit log record to be generated.

FAN_REPORT_FID (since Linux 5.1)
This value allows the receipt of events which contain additional information about the underlying filesystem object correlated to an event. An additional
record of type FAN_EVENT_INFO_TYPE_FID encapsulates the information about the object and is included alongside the generic event metadata structure. The
file descriptor that is used to represent the object correlated to an event is instead substituted with a file handle. It is intended for applications
that may find the use of a file handle to identify an object more suitable than a file descriptor. Additionally, it may be used for applications monitor‐
ing a directory or a filesystem that are interested in the directory entry modification events FAN_CREATE, FAN_DELETE, and FAN_MOVE, or in events such as
FAN_ATTRIB, FAN_DELETE_SELF, and FAN_MOVE_SELF. All the events above require an fanotify group that identifies filesystem objects by file handles. Note
that for the directory entry modification events the reported file handle identifies the modified directory and not the created/deleted/moved child ob‐
ject. The use of FAN_CLASS_CONTENT or FAN_CLASS_PRE_CONTENT is not permitted with this flag and will result in the error EINVAL. See fanotify(7) for ad‐
ditional details.

FAN_REPORT_DIR_FID (since Linux 5.9)
Events for fanotify groups initialized with this flag will contain (see exceptions below) additional information about a directory object correlated to an
event. An additional record of type FAN_EVENT_INFO_TYPE_DFID encapsulates the information about the directory object and is included alongside the
generic event metadata structure. For events that occur on a non-directory object, the additional structure includes a file handle that identifies the
parent directory filesystem object. Note that there is no guarantee that the directory filesystem object will be found at the location described by the
file handle information at the time the event is received. When combined with the flag FAN_REPORT_FID, two records may be reported with events that occur
on a non-directory object, one to identify the non-directory object itself and one to identify the parent directory object. Note that in some cases, a
filesystem object does not have a parent, for example, when an event occurs on an unlinked but open file. In that case, with the FAN_REPORT_FID flag, the
event will be reported with only one record to identify the non-directory object itself, because there is no directory associated with the event. Without
the FAN_REPORT_FID flag, no event will be reported. See fanotify(7) for additional details.

FAN_REPORT_NAME (since Linux 5.9)
Events for fanotify groups initialized with this flag will contain additional information about the name of the directory entry correlated to an event.
This flag must be provided in conjunction with the flag FAN_REPORT_DIR_FID. Providing this flag value without FAN_REPORT_DIR_FID will result in the error
EINVAL. This flag may be combined with the flag FAN_REPORT_FID. An additional record of type FAN_EVENT_INFO_TYPE_DFID_NAME, which encapsulates the in‐
formation about the directory entry, is included alongside the generic event metadata structure and substitutes the additional information record of type
FAN_EVENT_INFO_TYPE_DFID. The additional record includes a file handle that identifies a directory filesystem object followed by a name that identifies
an entry in that directory. For the directory entry modification events FAN_CREATE, FAN_DELETE, and FAN_MOVE, the reported name is that of the cre‐
ated/deleted/moved directory entry. For other events that occur on a directory object, the reported file handle is that of the directory object itself
and the reported name is '.'. For other events that occur on a non-directory object, the reported file handle is that of the parent directory object and
the reported name is the name of a directory entry where the object was located at the time of the event. The rationale behind this logic is that the re‐
ported directory file handle can be passed to open_by_handle_at(2) to get an open directory file descriptor and that file descriptor along with the re‐
ported name can be used to call fstatat(2). The same rule that applies to record type FAN_EVENT_INFO_TYPE_DFID also applies to record type
FAN_EVENT_INFO_TYPE_DFID_NAME: if a non-directory object has no parent, either the event will not be reported or it will be reported without the directory
entry information. Note that there is no guarantee that the filesystem object will be found at the location described by the directory entry information
at the time the event is received. See fanotify(7) for additional details.

FAN_REPORT_DFID_NAME
This is a synonym for (FAN_REPORT_DIR_FID|FAN_REPORT_NAME).

The event_f_flags argument defines the file status flags that will be set on the open file descriptions that are created for fanotify events. For details of
these flags, see the description of the flags values in open(2). event_f_flags includes a multi-bit field for the access mode. This field can take the follow‐
ing values:

O_RDONLY
This value allows only read access.

O_WRONLY
This value allows only write access.

O_RDWR This value allows read and write access.

Additional bits can be set in event_f_flags. The most useful values are:

O_LARGEFILE
Enable support for files exceeding 2 GB. Failing to set this flag will result in an EOVERFLOW error when trying to open a large file which is monitored
by an fanotify group on a 32-bit system.

O_CLOEXEC (since Linux 3.18)
Enable the close-on-exec flag for the file descriptor. See the description of the O_CLOEXEC flag in open(2) for reasons why this may be useful.

The following are also allowable: O_APPEND, O_DSYNC, O_NOATIME, O_NONBLOCK, and O_SYNC. Specifying any other flag in event_f_flags yields the error EINVAL (but
see BUGS).

RETURN VALUE
On success, fanotify_init() returns a new file descriptor. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS
EINVAL An invalid value was passed in flags or event_f_flags. FAN_ALL_INIT_FLAGS (deprecated since Linux kernel version 4.20) defines all allowable bits for
flags.

EMFILE The number of fanotify groups for this user exceeds 128.

EMFILE The per-process limit on the number of open file descriptors has been reached.

ENOMEM The allocation of memory for the notification group failed.

ENOSYS This kernel does not implement fanotify_init(). The fanotify API is available only if the kernel was configured with CONFIG_FANOTIFY.

EPERM The operation is not permitted because the caller lacks the CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability.

VERSIONS
fanotify_init() was introduced in version 2.6.36 of the Linux kernel and enabled in version 2.6.37.

CONFORMING TO
This system call is Linux-specific.

BUGS
The following bug was present in Linux kernels before version 3.18:

* The O_CLOEXEC is ignored when passed in event_f_flags.

The following bug was present in Linux kernels before version 3.14:

* The event_f_flags argument is not checked for invalid flags. Flags that are intended only for internal use, such as FMODE_EXEC, can be set, and will conse‐
quently be set for the file descriptors returned when reading from the fanotify file descriptor.