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Old 09-03-2017, 09:26 AM   #1
mauserme
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How to find what files are being accessed the most times.


Hello, I am new to Linux. I was just assigned to the Unix team at my work and am trying to keep my head above water.
I was tasked to attempt to find a solution to the following issue.
We need to find out which files on a mount point are being accessed the most by users (RHEL 6.9) and how many times these files are being accessed in a given period (week, month, ect.) They want it all wrapped up in a nice and neat report.
I looked at the FIND command, the auditctl utility and am a bit confused.
Does anyone have any thoughts on how to efficiently pull this data together?

Thank you!!!
 
Old 09-03-2017, 11:23 PM   #2
chrism01
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I'd probably use https://linux.die.net/man/1/inotifywait to generate the results, and then post process the results, probably in Perl but bash/sed/awk would work also.
You could even go just Perl with http://search.cpan.org/~mlehmann/Lin...22/Inotify2.pm to get results.

HTH & Welcome to LQ
 
Old 09-04-2017, 02:47 AM   #3
MadeInGermany
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No, inotify takes some kernel resource to monitor a certain file. If this is a directory, it will not monitor its existing contents.
Better is auditing/auditctl, if the number of files is high/unknown and the purpose is security or billing (you must not miss a single file-open!). Auditing can generate tons of log data!
If the purpose is usage/statistic then it's often sufficient to check the last access/atime of the files. This can be done with "find -atime". A recent access means it is likely the file is accessed frequently, without exact tracking.
On recent Linux atime is only updated once per day; if this is too unprecise then the file system must be mounted with strictatime option.

Last edited by MadeInGermany; 09-04-2017 at 02:59 AM.
 
Old 09-04-2017, 04:05 AM   #4
aragorn2101
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mauserme View Post
We need to find out which files on a mount point are being accessed the most by users (RHEL 6.9) and how many times these files are being accessed in a given period (week, month, ect.) ...
RHEL has intrinsic tools for this purpose as RHEL is designed for large servers.

Please read carefully: https://access.redhat.com/documentat..._auditing.html
and give it a try.

If you run into trouble, please paste the full command and any output error messages here using the CODE construct.
 
Old 09-04-2017, 07:10 AM   #5
mauserme
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Thank you for the replies chrism01, madeingermany and aragorn2101! I will read over your suggestions and give them a try!
 
Old 09-04-2017, 07:20 AM   #6
Shadow_7
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Debian has some sort of FAM aka file alteration manager. Although I've never really used it, just noticed it running a few times. I don't know if RHEL has an equivalent, never used it.
 
  


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