Make FileAlterationObserver to observe remote directory

Question

How to make FileAlterationObserver to observe a remote directory?

This can accept a String path or a Java File. Both the cases it will look for the directory in local context. I have a directory in remote server file system.

It would be also helpful if anyone tell me how to create a new File object referring to the file in the remote directory.

Example:

File file = new File("remote directory path");

Wattage

Answer 1

You cannot.

• The File object cannot refer to an SFTP file.
• There's no way to have the SFTP server notify you on changes in a remote file/directory (the protocol itself does not have a mechanism for that).

All you can do is to use JSch (or other) SFTP interface to check for changes in regular intervals yourself.

Galosh

Thank you. after all it was very simple, later I discovered it. Create a thread which will be running once for every 10 sec and use the Jsch API to perform a ls on a direcory and check for the added or removed files. – Wattage