Apache::Session::Lock::File - Provides mutual exclusion using flock



NAME

Apache::Session::Lock::File - Provides mutual exclusion using flock


SYNOPSIS

 use Apache::Session::Lock::File;
 
 my $locker = new Apache::Session::Lock::File;
 
 $locker->acquire_read_lock($ref);
 $locker->acquire_write_lock($ref);
 $locker->release_read_lock($ref);
 $locker->release_write_lock($ref);
 $locker->release_all_locks($ref);
 $locker->clean($dir, $age);


DESCRIPTION

Apache::Session::Lock::File fulfills the locking interface of Apache::Session. Mutual exclusion is achieved through the use of temporary files and the flock function.


CONFIGURATION

The module must know where to create its temporary files. You must pass an argument in the usual Apache::Session style. The name of the argument is LockDirectory and its value is the path where you want the lockfiles created. Example:

 tie %s, 'Apache::Session::Blah', $id, {LockDirectory => '/var/lock/sessions'}

If you do not supply this argument, temporary files will be created in /tmp.


NOTES

This module does not unlink temporary files, because it interferes with proper locking. THis can cause problems on certain systems (Linux) whose file systems (ext2) do not perform well with lots of files in one directory. To prevent this you should use a script to clean out old files from your lock directory. The meaning of old is left as a policy decision for the implementor, but a method is provided for implementing that policy. You can use the clean method of this module to remove files unmodified in the last $age seconds. Example:

 my $l = new Apache::Session::Lock::File;
 $l->clean('/var/lock/sessions', 3600) #remove files older than 1 hour


AUTHOR

This module was written by Jeffrey William Baker <jwbaker@acm.org>.


SEE ALSO

the Apache::Session manpage

 Apache::Session::Lock::File - Provides mutual exclusion using flock