strace can do it (Linux). Watch out for "open", "read","write","unlink" in the output - these are some of the filesystem operations. inotifywatch (from inotif

strace can do it (Linux). Watch out for "open", "read","write","unlink" in the output - these are some of the filesystem operations. inotifywatch (from inotify-tools) can show you changes made to files in a particular directory.