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  4. flock(1)

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FLOCK(1) User Commands FLOCK(1)

NAME

flock - manage locks from shell scripts

SYNOPSIS

flock [options] <file|directory> <command> [command args]
flock [options] <file|directory> -c <command>
flock [options] <file descriptor number>

DESCRIPTION

This utility manages flock(2) locks from within shell scripts or the command line.

The first and second forms wrap the lock around the executing a command, in a manner similar to su(1) or newgrp(1). It locks a specified file or directory, which is created (assuming appropriate permissions), if it does not already exist. By default, if the lock cannot be immediately acquired, flock waits until the lock is available.

The third form uses open file by file descriptor number. See examples how that can be used.

OPTIONS

Obtain a shared lock, sometimes called a read lock.
Obtain an exclusive lock, sometimes called a write lock. This is the default.
Drop a lock. This is usually not required, since a lock is automatically dropped when the file is closed. However, it may be required in special cases, for example if the enclosed command group may have forked a background process which should not be holding the lock.
Fail rather than wait if the lock cannot be immediately acquired. See the -E option for the exit code used.
Fail if the lock cannot be acquired within seconds. Decimal fractional values are allowed. See the -E option for the exit code used. The zero number of seconds is interpreted as --nonblock.
Close the file descriptor on which the lock is held before executing command . This is useful if command spawns a child process which should not be holding the lock.
The exit code used when the -n option is in use, and the conflicting lock exists, or the -w option is in use, and the timeout is reached. The default value is 1.
Pass a single command, without arguments, to the shell with -c.
Print a help message.
Show version number and exit.

EXAMPLES

Set exclusive lock to directory /tmp and the second command will fail.
Set shared lock to directory /tmp and the second command will not fail. Notice that attempting to get exclusive lock with second command would fail.
Grab the exclusive lock "local-lock-file" before running echo with 'a b c'.
(

# ... commands executed under lock ...
) 9>/var/lock/mylockfile
The form is convenient inside shell scripts. The mode used to open the file doesn't matter to flock; using > or >> allows the lockfile to be created if it does not already exist, however, write permission is required. Using < requires that the file already exists but only read permission is required.
[ "${FLOCKER}" != "$0" ] && exec env FLOCKER="$0" flock -en "$0" "$0" "$@" || :
This is useful boilerplate code for shell scripts. Put it at the top of the shell script you want to lock and it'll automatically lock itself on the first run. If the env var $FLOCKER is not set to the shell script that is being run, then execute flock and grab an exclusive non-blocking lock (using the script itself as the lock file) before re-execing itself with the right arguments. It also sets the FLOCKER env var to the right value so it doesn't run again.

EXIT STATUS

The command uses sysexits.h return values for everything else but an options -n or -w failures which return either the value given by the -E option, or 1 by default.

AUTHOR

H. Peter Anvin

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2003-2006 H. Peter Anvin.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

SEE ALSO

flock(2)

AVAILABILITY

The flock command is part of the util-linux package and is available from Linux Kernel Archive.

September 2011 util-linux