linuxgeek: [LINUX_Newbies] Monitor a directory at web host

Hi guys,

I'm trying to come up with a way to monitor a directory in my account
at my web host and copy any files that get created there into another
directory so I can investigate them later.

Here is the reason. I have a Cron job running that notifies me of
any changes in the files or directories in my account. I keep seeing
that one of the mail accounts keeps having mail files come through it
but that mail is never downloaded by my email program and it is never
there when I go there and check it with cPanel.

My web site has been hacked a couple of times and I want to find out
what is going on with this mail account.

I have Linux shared web hosting and I don't think I have shell access.

I have thought about doing a cron job something like this.

watch cp -r /mail/mydomain.com/username/* /mail/backup_directory/

But I don't know how to turn it off after a few hours. And it would
be better not to copy the same file every 2 seconds. Plus there are
probably other issues I'm not even aware of.

Any thoughts, ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Matt