home-watcher

home-watcher is a Linux utility that monitors your home directory for file creation activities outside of the XDG Base Directory Specification and logs these interactions into an SQLite database. It's useful for finding out which applications keep creating random files with such incredibly descriptive names such as -6000., .swo, and .serverauth.11972 🤔.

Usage

Home Watcher will need to run as root to access the Linux Audit system, but does not need any arguments.

sudo home-watcher

Options

Note: Common user directories like Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Videos, Desktop, and Music are excluded by default.

Installation

NixOS

{ config, pkgs, ... }:

{
  imports =
    [
      (import (builtins.fetchGit {
        url = "https://github.com/QazCetelic/home-watcher.git";
        rev = "e897e69c9d869d6a6a736b0f08823d683e6de106";
      } + "/nix/home-watcher.nix"))
    ];

  services.home-watcher = {
    enable = true;
    user = "your_user";
  };
}

Other Linux

1. Build from source
   Clone the repository and compile the Rust project:

   git clone https://github.com/QazCetelic/home-watcher.git
   cd home-watcher
   cargo build --release
   

   The compiled binary will be available in the target/release directory.

2. Install the binary
   Move the binary to a directory in your PATH, such as /usr/local/bin:

   sudo mv target/release/home-watcher /usr/local/bin/
   

3. (Optional) Install the systemd service to automatically start it on startup
   Make sure to change <USER> in home-watcher.service

   sudo cp ./home-watcher.service /etc/systemd/system/home-watcher.service
   sudo systemctl enable home-watcher.service --now
   

Database

The database contains an files table with the following data:

Contributing

If you find bugs, have suggestions, or want to contribute features, feel free to open an issue or submit a pull request.