Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)

FreeBSD Manual Pages

  
 
  

home | help
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
	      invoking 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 between 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
	      option,  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 bor-
       rowed 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	condi-
       tions  when  checking permissions; for details of all this see the com-
       ments in	dotlock.c.

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

AUTHOR
       Thomas Roessler <roessler@guug.de>

Unix				 JANUARY 2016			    dotlock(1)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=lbdb_dotlock&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+15.0>

home | help