LOCKSPOOL(1)               OpenBSD Reference Manual               LOCKSPOOL(1)

NAME
     lockspool - lock user's system mailbox

SYNOPSIS
     lockspool [username]

DESCRIPTION
     lockspool is useful for a client mail program to attain proper locking.
     lockspool obtains a username.lock for the calling user and retains it
     until stdin is closed or a signal like SIGINT, SIGTERM, or SIGHUP is
     received.  Additionally, the superuser may specify the name of a user in
     order to lock a different mailbox.

     If lockspool is able to create the lock file, ``1'' is written to stdout,
     otherwise ``0'' is written and an error message is written to stderr.
     lockspool will try up to 10 times to get the lock (sleeping for a short
     period in between tries).

     Typical usage is for a user mail agent (such as mail(1)) to open a pipe
     to lockspool when it needs to lock the user's mail spool.  Closing the
     pipe will cause lockspool to release the lock.

FILES
     /var/mail/username.lock  user's mail lock file

EXIT STATUS
     The lockspool utility exits 0 on success, and 1 if an error occurs.

SEE ALSO
     mail(1), mail.local(8), sendmail(8)

HISTORY
     The lockspool program appeared in OpenBSD 2.4.

OpenBSD 4.9                    September 3, 2010                   OpenBSD 4.9