Does fschange use inotify / ReadDirectoryChangesW or similar?

[southeringtonp]

Does Splunk make full use of operating system specific features when monitoring for changed files?

In particular, I'm thinking of the inotify subsystem on Linux, and ReadDirectoryChangesW() or similar when running on Windows.

If these are used, how does that impact the pollPeriod setting in inputs.conf? Can pollPeriod be omitted or set to a significantly higher value to improve performance?

I'm primarily thinking of fschange, but the question could also be applicable to monitor:// inputs.

[gkanapathy · Accepted solution]

It does not. There has been some talk I have heard from Splunk engineers that (on platforms where this is applicable) that the input processors may some day be enhanced to use OS notifications like this, but the current ones do not.