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dotlock(1)			  User Manuals			      dotlock(1)

NAME
     lbdb_dotlock - Lock mail spool files.

SYNOPSIS
     lbdb_dotlock [-t|-f|-u|-d] [-r retries] file

DESCRIPTION
     dotlock  implements the traditional mail spool file locking method: To lock
     file, a file named file.lock is created.

OPTIONS
     -t     Just try.  dotlock won't actually lock a file, but inform the invok-
	    ing process if it's at all possible to lock file.

     -f     Force the lock.  If another process holds a lock on file longer than
	    a certain amount of time, dotlock will break that lock  by	removing
	    the lockfile.

     -u     Unlock.  dotlock will remove file.lock.

     -d     Delete.   dotlock  will lock file, remove it if it has length 0, and
	    afterwards remove file.lock.

     -r retries
	    This command line option tells dotlock to try locking retries  times
	    before  giving  up	or  (if invoked with the -f command line option)
	    break a lock.  The default value is 5.  dotlock waits one second be-
	    tween successive locking attempts.

FILES
     file.lock
	    The lock file dotlock generates.

SEE ALSO
     fcntl(2), flock(2), lockfile(1), lbdb-fetchaddr(1)

DIAGNOSTICS
     dotlock gives all diagnostics in its return values:

     0 - DL_EX_OK
	    The program was successful.

     1 - DL_EX_ERROR
	    An unspecified error such as bad command line  parameters,	lack  of
	    system memory and the like has occurred.

     3 - DL_EX_EXIST
	    The  user  wants  to  lock	a  file which has been locked by another
	    process already.  If dotlock is invoked with the -f command line op-
	    tion, dotlock won't generate this error, but break other  processes'
	    locks.

     4 - DL_EX_NEED_RPIVS
	    This  return  value only occurs if dotlock has been invoked with the
	    -t command line option.  It means that dotlock will have to use  its
	    group mail privileges to lock file.

     5 - DL_EX_IMPOSSIBLE
	    This  return  value only occurs if dotlock has been invoked with the
	    -t command line option.  It means that dotlock  is	unable	to  lock
	    file.

NOTES
     dotlock tries to implement an NFS-safe dotlocking method which was borrowed
     from lockfile(1).

     If the user can't open file for reading with his normal privileges, dotlock
     will  return  the	DL_EX_ERROR  exit value to avoid certain attacks against
     other users' spool files. The code carefully avoids  race	conditions  when
     checking  permissions;  for  details  of  all this see the comments in dot-
     lock.c.

HISTORY
     dotlock is part of the Mutt mail user agent package.  It has  been  created
     to avoid running mutt with group mail privileges.

AUTHOR
     Thomas Roessler <roessler@guug.de>

Unix				  JANUARY 2016			      dotlock(1)

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<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=lbdb_dotlock&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+15.1.quarterly>

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