changes to macOS folder does not trigger inotify in Linux guest (parallels shared folder)

[CharlB]

My use case is this: I have source code on my macOS filesystem, which I edit there using an IDE. That same code is transpiled and executed in a Linux guest, via Parallels Shared Folders (PSF). In the Linux guest, tools like node are using inotify to know when to re-run the compilation.
The problem: Changes on the macOS side are NOT triggering any inotify events in the Linux guest, so the watchers don't know when to recompile.
I can also reproduce this issue using the Linux tool inotifywait. Creating a new file from macOS on the shared folder does not trigger any events.
Interestingly, changes initiated from the Linux host on the macOS hosted PSF *do* trigger inotify events.

 

[AJ_4]

I have exactly the same problem (in my case building a Jekyll based site running the server in my linux VM and editing from my Mac with --livereload enabled).
Host: macOS 12.0.1 (21A559)
Parallels Desktop: 17.1.4 (51567)
Guest: Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS

Just as others have described, if I edit one of the markdown files (e.g. using vim) on my Linux VM the running Jekyll dev server sees the change and reloads the files for the browser. If I edit the same files using IntelliJ IDEA on my MacBook Pro host, the changes are not seen, and the site pages remain cached and unchanged.

I'd strongly prefer to keep my servers rolling on the linux guest system(s). I don't particularly want to install the libraries on OSX. With this not working however, I either need to do my editing on the linux guest (ok, but very suboptimal) or install the Ruby stuff on OSX (which I've tried to avoid).

Will this be fixed?

 

[GregB11]

I've got the same issue here and I'd really like a fix for this one.

 

[AJ_4]

It's 2025, I'm on Parallels version 20.2.0 (55872), running an M1 OSX host and Ubuntu 20.04 as my Linux guest.
This problem is still a huge pain - I'm currently working on a Nuxt application that provides auto-loading. I have a script I run to touch files (rather than restart my Nuxt application every time) after I edit them in my IDE on my Mac. Is there a better solution?

 

[AJ_4]

Is there a better solution?

For what it's worth, I finally just broke down and installed nvm, node, and npm on OSX. These are simple to deal with on the Mac, so I've completely circumvented the problem. Nevertheless, I'd have preferred to keep all my dev environments fully on linux. So, I'd still love to see a fix.