GNU Mailutils
	General-Purpose Mail Package	Official GNU Software

• Main
• Downloads
• Documentation
• Wiki

3.21 dotlock

A stand-alone mailbox-locking utility. It is the default program used by mailutils if the locking.type configuration statement is set to external (see external locking type).

The program usage syntax is:

# To lock mbox:
dotlock options mbox
# To unlock it:
dotlock -u options mbox

By default the program implements the ‘dotlock’ locking (see dotlock locking type). This can be changed either in the configuration file, or via the command line options.

The following common configuration statements affect the behavior of dotlock:

The program understands the following command line options:

-d

--debug

Print details of failure reasons to stderr.

-f[n]

--force[=n]

If a lock file exists and is more than n minutes old, forcibly remove it and re-lock the mailbox. Default n is 10 minutes.

-p

--pid-check

Check if the PID of lock owner is still active. If not, break the lock.

-r n

--retry=n

Number of times to retry acquiring the lock, if it is held by another process. The default is 10 times.

-t n

--delay=n

Sets delay in seconds between two successive locking attempts. The default is 1 second.

-u

--unlock

Unlock the mailbox.