Re: flock and fcntl(F_SETLK)

Alan Cox (alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk)
Mon, 20 Jul 1998 00:01:30 +0100 (BST)

> fcntl(F_SETLK) uses the f_op->lock(), so why doesn't flock() have a
> similar hook in the file system?
>
> This inconsistency makes flock() broken when using network file
> systems that have proper locking (like AFS). How is this supposed to
> be implemented in network file systems?

The semantics of flock not locking on network file systems go back to
SunOS and make some sense. flock() gives you a locking scheme that is
local and fast, lockf/fcntl locks give you slow but networked NFS locks.

Alan

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