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.\" DSTART
.\"
.\" maildrop - mail delivery agent with filtering abilities
.\"
.\" Copyright 1998, Double Precision Inc.
.\"
.\" This program is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
.\" License. See COPYING for additional information.
.\" DEND
.TH dotlock 1 "August 31, 1998" "Double Precision, Inc." ""
.\" $Id: dotlock.html 1.1 1998/04/23 00:25:22 mrsam Exp $
.SH NAME
dotlock \- create lock files
.br
.br
.SH "SYNOPSIS
dotlock [-f] lock-file program [arg] [arg] ...
.br
.br
.SH "DESCRIPTION
The \fIdotlock\fP program creates a lock file that's compatible with \fImaildrop\fP,
and other mail software, then runs a program. When the program terminates,
the lock file is removed.
.PP
Because a mailbox file can only be accessed by one program at a time,
a lock file must be used by all programs who need to use the mailbox file.
Otherwise, while one program uses a mailbox file, another program can write
to it, resulting a corrupted mailbox. \fIdotlock\fP creates a dot-lock file
by default. Specifying the -f option will create an flock lock instead
(the file is opened, and the flock() system call is used to obtain a lock
on the file).
.PP
Please note that you must specify the full name of the lock file, including
the ".lock" extension. Therefore, to lock /var/spool/mail/user,
you must specify /var/spool/mail/user.lock as the lock file. If
you omit the .lock extension, you'll end up deleting your mail!
.br
.br
.SH "SEE ALSO
sendmail(8), maildrop(1)
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