Linux Filesystem which tracks changes?

Question

Is there a linux filesystem which tracks changes?

In my use case in 99% of all cases new files get created. Changes to files are rare, but if they happen, they should be tracked.

In my case the files are mostly small. Most of the are smaller then 5 MByte.

Non-root users should not be able to modify the history/versions of a file.

Additional required features:

• supports Linux
• open source

Answer 1

gitfs should fit your needs:

• tracks changes: Yes, in a git repo
• mostly small files: Perfect. Huge files might be problematic, though.
• Non-root users should not be able to modify the history/versions of a file: Fits. Git is just used as backend, and mounted as file system. So only normal file system operations should be possible unless the user has direct write access to the repo – which you can prevent easily.
• supports Linux: Yes.
• open source: Yes.

Additional hints: if the underlying repo is owned by root and resides on the local machine, tig is a great text-mode client to browse the history by anyone having at least read access to the repo. If you want to host it on a different machine, Gitea is a very easy way to do that (I use it on a BananaPi; it's very light on resources).