summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/README
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to 'README')
-rw-r--r--README29
1 files changed, 29 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/README b/README
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7c13988
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README
@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+ inotail - inotify enhanced tail
+o===============================o
+
+inotail is a replacement for the 'tail' program found in the base installation
+of every Linux/UNIX system. It makes use of the inotify infrastructure in recent
+versions of the Linux kernel to speed up tailing files in the follow mode (the
+'-f' option). Standard tail polls the file every second by default while inotail
+listens to special events sent by the kernel through the inotify API to
+determine whether a file needs to be reread.
+
+Currently inotail is not fully compatible to neither POSIX or GNU tail but might
+be in the future.
+
+Requirements
+------------
+- Linux kernel 2.6.13 or higher with CONFIG_INOTIFY enabled
+- Standard C Library (tested with GNU libc but might work with others too)
+
+License
+-------
+inotail is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2
+or later. You can find the full text in the file LICENSE in the source tree of
+inotail.
+
+The files inotify.h and inotify-syscalls.h were taken from the source tree of
+the Linux kernel and slightly altered. Both are licensed under the terms of the
+GNU General Public License version 2.
+
+-- Tobias Klauser <tklauser@distanz.ch>