---
name: "maildrop.dotlock"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "maildrop"
version: "0.54a-2"
release: "Debian 2.1 (Slink)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/maildrop.dotlock"
---

# maildrop.dotlock(1)

create lock files

## NAME

dotlock - create lock files\
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## SYNOPSIS

dotlock \[-f\] lock-file program \[arg\] \[arg\] ...\
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## DESCRIPTION

The *dotlock* program creates a lock file that's compatible with *maildrop*, and other mail software, then runs a program. When the program terminates, the lock file is removed.

Because a mailbox file can only be accessed by one program at a time, a lock file must be used by all programs who need to use the mailbox file. Otherwise, while one program uses a mailbox file, another program can write to it, resulting a corrupted mailbox. *dotlock* creates a dot-lock file by default. Specifying the -f option will create an flock lock instead (the file is opened, and the flock() system call is used to obtain a lock on the file).

Please note that you must specify the full name of the lock file, including the ".lock" extension. Therefore, to lock /var/spool/mail/user, you must specify /var/spool/mail/user.lock as the lock file. If you omit the .lock extension, you'll end up deleting your mail!\
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## SEE ALSO

[sendmail(8)](/sendmail/8.md), [maildrop(1)](/maildrop/1.md)