NAME
lockmail - create mail lock files
SYNOPSIS
lockmail [-r] [-t timeout] {lockfile} {program} [argument...]
DESCRIPTION
lockmail is a helper utility for working with mailbox files. Mailbox
files must be locked to prevent other applications from modifying the
mailbox at the same time. Different system use different locking
conventions. lockmail uses two of the most common locking mechanisms
in use, which should work reliably on most systems.
lockfile is the pathname to an existing mailbox file. By default,
lockmail tries to lock the mailbox every five seconds (if the mailbox
is already locked), and will give up after three minutes. After the
mailbox is succesfully locked, lockmail runs program as a child
process, with any optional arguments. When program terminates, lockmail
removes the mailbox lock, and terminates itself.
OPTIONS
-r
If a regular lock fails, try a read-only lock. Use this option to
lock mailbox files in a read-only directory.
-t timeout
If the lock attempt fails, try again for up to timeout seconds. The
actual timeout is rounded up to the next five second interval (a
lock attempt is tried every five seconds).
DESCRIPTION
This section briefly describes the locking mechanism used by lockmail.
lockmail uses three different locking conventions in order to maximize
compatibility with other mail software: C-Client folder locks,
dot-locks, and file locks.
C-Client folder locks
Mail software based on the C-Client library creates lock files named
/tmp/.dddddd.iiiiii. Here, dddddd and iiiiii are the device number and
the inode number of the mailbox file (the st_dev and st_ino fields in
the inode), in hexadecimal. If the process ID saved in the C-Client
folder lock file is not valid, lockmail concludes that it´s a stale
lock file, and will remove it.
Note
A race condition exists where a C-Client process is killed after it
creates a lock file, but before saving its process ID in the lock file.
The race window is very small, but it exists. The C-Client library does
not appear to ever clear out the lock file.
lockmail attempts to resolve this race condition by deleting
zero-length lock files that are at least five minutes old.
dot-locks
lockmail also creates, and honors dot-lock files. Dot-lock files are
first created as temporary files, then linked to lockfile.lock. The
link operation fails if the dot-lock file already exists. lockmail
uses an enhanced method of dot-locking, where its process ID, and the
name of the server where lockmail is running is also saved in its
dot-lock file. If the operation fails due to an existing dot-lock file
that was created by another lockmail process on the same server, and
the process ID no longer exists, this stale dot-lock file is removed
immediately. In all other situations a dot-lock file older than five
minutes is considered stale, and removed.
Note
A failure to create a dot-lock file is silently ignored if the reason
for the failure is because lockmail does not have the write permission
in the dot-lock file´s directory. The incoming mail spool directory
(usually /var/mail) typically does not have global write permissions,
so the attempt to create the dot-lock file in the spool directory will
fail, and lockmail will be content with using file-locking only.
File locks
The final locking mechanism lockmail uses is the operating system´s
file locking facility. If lockmail fails to obtain all three locks,
lockmail will sleep for five seconds and try again. The only exception
is a failure to create a dot-lock because of no write access to the
dot-lock file´s directory, which is ignored. If lockmail still fails to
obtain all required locks in the amount of time specified by the -t
option (or its default value), lockmail will terminate with the
EX_TEMPFAIL exit code.
lockmail runs program after obtaining the last file lock, waits until
program terminates, and releases all locks. program must terminate
before any of the locks obtained by lockmail expire, and are considered
stale. lockmail will then terminate with the same exit code as
program.
EXIT STATUS
lockmail terminates with the same exit status as program lockmail
terminates with the EX_TEMPFAIL exit status if it was unable to obtain
a lock, or if program was killed by a signal.
SEE ALSO
maildrop(1)[1], sendmail(8).
NOTES
1. maildrop(1)
maildrop.html