Subject: Re: autoconfig & fcntl/lockf

From: [email-masked] (Stephen R. van den Berg)
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 1994 20:09:59 +0200

Steve Krans - PRA <[email-masked]> wrote:
>While compiling pm 3.05, I noticed that the autoconfig chose to use
>dotlocking & flock rather than fcntl & lockf.  I'm running on
>SunOS 4.1.3 & NFS, and I was wondering if someone (Stephen?) could
>explain why these are considered unusable by autoconfig.

Several things:
1. SunOS's own /bin/mail uses dotlocking & flock().
2. fcntl() and lockf() both use (they're practically the same system
   call on SunOS) the infamous lockd, which provides file locking
   across the network (or at least that's what they would like to have us
   believe).  The lockd is known for its many bugs, and therefore the
   autoconf lockingtests try to exercise it a bit, apparently the
   lockingtests found out (not surprisingly) that on your system the
   lockd is indeed buggy.

   You can look in the autoconf.h file generated during the
   compilation to get the summary information about the lockingtests.
   For the full story you'd have to look in src/lock.log .

   v3.06 will provide a small legenda with which you can interpret the
   lock.log file.

-- 
Sincerely,                                  [email-masked]
           Stephen R. van den Berg (AKA BuGless).

In this signature, the concluding three words `were left out'.