On Fri, 17 Nov 2006 19:09:33 +0100, Kurt Roeckx <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Anyway, from the linux/Documentation/locks.txt file: >1.2.1 Typical Problems - Sendmail >--------------------------------- >Because sendmail was unable to use the old flock() emulation I believe flock() *emulation* is no longer used in 2.6 kernels. >installations use fcntl() instead of flock(). This is true of Slackware 3.0 >for example. This gave rise to some other subtle problems if sendmail was >configured to rebuild the alias file. Sendmail tried to lock the aliases.dir >file with fcntl() at the same time as the GDBM routines tried to lock this >file with flock(). With pre 1.3.96 kernels this could result in deadlocks that, >over time, or under a very heavy mail load, would eventually cause the kernel >to lock solid with deadlocked processes. Then I have to wonder why sendmail is still configured to use fcntl() when running on linux. Sounds like the modern kernel implementation of flock() would be better.
