usermin - procmail and file lock

[Marcos R. <we...@al...>]

I noticed that if I use procmail (usemin module) to do a filter, it won't
do file locking using default (it does if I select another lock file)

the first line will show something like:

:OH

and not:

:0H:

is there any reason *not* to use file locking when delivering to a
"folder" (actually a file ;)...


of course.. I could be looking at "old" stuff!!!! perhaps there are
important variations if you use v 2 or > !!!

the procmail faq states:

-----------
Rule of thumb: Use file locking when delivering to a file. Don't use file
locking when delivering to /dev/null (because then it doesn't matter if
the message gets mangled, and you might not have the permission to acquire
a lock on a device), forwarding to another address, or piping into a
program. A pipeline which ends up appending to a file should still use a
lock, of course, since there is the same race condition as when delivering
straight to a file.

Rule of index finger: Using an unnecessary extra lock seldom hurts. (When
it does hurt, you'll notice. :^)
----------

also, in the " quick reference guide" ... :

----------
Locking
If you wonder about locking, the FAQ has an explanation for newbies.

:0 flags
No locking.
You don't need locking on forwarding recipes and often not on pipelines
(except when they end up saving to a file).

:0 flags:
Let Procmail figure out lock file to use.
This should basically always be used when saving to a file, either
directly or via a pipeline with >>

:0 flags:lockfile
Name a lock file to use. Alternatively, use the LOCKFILE pseudovariable to
create a regional lock.
If you're a newbie, you probably don't need named locks
----------------



cheers!
Marcos