Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!pacbell.com!ucsd!usc!wuarchive!rex!ames!mindcraft.com!karish
From: karish@mindcraft.com (Chuck Karish)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: Cnews expire problem... need help
Summary: locking
Message-ID: <660852555.23022@mindcraft.com>
Date: 10 Dec 90 18:09:13 GMT
References: <1990Dec7.130639.15803@bnr.ca> <660596702.10086@mindcraft.com> <1990Dec8.190114.15171@sceard.Sceard.COM> <660770337.20986@mindcraft.com> <1990Dec10.015743.28094@sceard.Sceard.COM>
Organization: Mindcraft, Inc.
Lines: 18

Henry Spencer and David Lawrence have each pointed out to me that my
previous remarks about Cnews locking were incomplete.

doexpire and newsrun each lock against another instance of themselves
when they start up.  There's a separate mechanism that locks the
whole article filing system, by creating a file called $NEWSCTL/LOCK.
This is invoked by the expire and relaynews programs, but only during
critical periods in their execution.

I submit that it's wise to use this mechanism when hacking on the
history file by hand.  It's easier than changing the cron entry for
expire, as Henry suggested, and it locks relaynews, too.

Note that people won't be able to post articles while this lock is set.
-- 

	Chuck Karish		karish@mindcraft.com
	Mindcraft, Inc.		(415) 323-9000