Automount being triggered frequently (even with inotify)

[Ataraxy (Tom Hale)]

I have most of my syncthing folders on an external HDD.

I’ve noticed that when it is plugged in and supposedly idle it is hot.

When it’s not plugged in, I get journal entries such as:

Dec 03 13:34:35 svelte systemd[1]: media-backup.automount: Got automount request for /media/backup, triggered by 987 (syncthing)
Dec 03 13:34:35 svelte systemd[1]: media-backup.automount: Got automount request for /media/backup, triggered by 985 (syncthing)
Dec 03 13:34:37 svelte systemd[1]: media-backup.automount: Got automount request for /media/backup, triggered by 987 (syncthing)
Dec 03 13:34:38 svelte systemd[1]: media-backup.automount: Got automount request for /media/backup, triggered by 987 (syncthing)
Dec 03 13:34:39 svelte systemd[1]: media-backup.automount: Got automount request for /media/backup, triggered by 991 (syncthing)
Dec 03 13:34:44 svelte systemd[1]: media-backup.automount: Got automount request for /media/backup, triggered by 985 (syncthing)
Dec 03 13:34:45 svelte systemd[1]: media-backup.automount: Got automount request for /media/backup, triggered by 991 (syncthing)
Dec 03 13:34:48 svelte systemd[1]: media-backup.automount: Got automount request for /media/backup, triggered by 735 (syncthing)
Dec 03 13:34:48 svelte systemd[1]: media-backup.automount: Got automount request for /media/backup, triggered by 987 (syncthing)
Dec 03 13:34:49 svelte systemd[1]: media-backup.automount: Got automount request for /media/backup, triggered by 991 (syncthing)
Dec 03 13:34:55 svelte systemd[1]: media-backup.automount: Got automount request for /media/backup, triggered by 991 (syncthing)
Dec 03 13:34:58 svelte systemd[1]: media-backup.automount: Got automount request for /media/backup, triggered by 984 (syncthing)
Dec 03 13:34:58 svelte systemd[1]: media-backup.automount: Got automount request for /media/backup, triggered by 991 (syncthing)
Dec 03 13:35:00 svelte systemd[1]: media-backup.automount: Got automount request for /media/backup, triggered by 987 (syncthing)
Dec 03 13:35:06 svelte systemd[1]: media-backup.automount: Got automount request for /media/backup, triggered by 987 (syncthing)
Dec 03 13:35:08 svelte systemd[1]: media-backup.automount: Got automount request for /media/backup, triggered by 735 (syncthing)
Dec 03 13:35:09 svelte systemd[1]: media-backup.automount: Got automount request for /media/backup, triggered by 735 (syncthing)
Dec 03 13:35:10 svelte systemd[1]: media-backup.automount: Got automount request for /media/backup, triggered by 984 (syncthing)
Dec 03 13:35:16 svelte systemd[1]: media-backup.automount: Got automount request for /media/backup, triggered by 991 (syncthing)
Dec 03 13:35:18 svelte systemd[1]: media-backup.automount: Got automount request for /media/backup, triggered by 734 (syncthing)

Yes, that’s every few seconds.

I have inotify running:

$ pgrep -a syncthing
9351 /usr/bin/syncthing-inotify -logflags=0
9353 /usr/bin/syncthing -no-browser -no-restart -logflags=0

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How can I prevent this polling of my disk and/or get inotify to do its job?

[calmh (Jakob Borg)]

inotify needs to poll for it appearing again when it’s not mounted.

[Ataraxy (Tom Hale)]

Every minute or so would create a lot less noise than every ~5 seconds.

How can this polling time be changed?

[calmh (Jakob Borg)]

I don’t know how that works in syncthing-inotify, sorry. When using the syncthing-internal fs notifications in the future this would be set by the scan interval somehow. (In the meantime I’d argue that it’s the logging that is excessive, not performing a single stat call every now and then to see if a folder is available. )