robust locking

[Michel Fingerhut]

Randal Schwartz writes:
>Isn't the proper solution something like lockf?  Or is that a BSD-ism [...]

Unfortunately it (lockf) may be a BSD-ism, but not common to all BSD systems.
I tried using it on a local network of 4.3BSD+NFS, SunOS3.5 and Ultrix3.0,
all BSD or derived from it, and claiming to have lockf.  While the 4.3 and
Sun could lock each other correctly, Ultrix did not.  Nor could it be locked.
But then... should one be surprized?