flock(): removing locked file without race condition?

c, flock

Solution

Sorry if I reply to a dead question:

After locking the file, open another copy of it, fstat both copies and check the inode number, like this:

lockfile = "/tmp/some_name.lock";

    while(1) {
        fd = open(lockfile, O_CREAT);
        flock(fd, LOCK_EX);

        fstat(fd, &st0);
        stat(lockfile, &st1);
        if(st0.st_ino == st1.st_ino) break;

        close(fd);
    }

    do_something();

    unlink(lockfile);
    flock(fd, LOCK_UN);

This prevents the race condition, because if a program holds a lock on a file that is still on the file system, every other program that has a leftover file will have a wrong inode number.

I actually proved it in the state-machine model, using the following properties:

If P_i has a descriptor locked on the filesystem then no other process is in the critical section.

If P_i is after the stat with the right inode or in the critical section it has the descriptor locked on the filesystem.

Problem

I'm using flock() for inter-process named mutexes (i.e. some process can decide to hold a lock on "some_name", which is implemented by locking a file named "some_name" in a temp directory: ``` lockfile = "/tmp/some_name.lock"; fd = open(lockfile, O_CREAT); flock(fd, LOCK_EX); do_something(); unlink(lockfile); flock(fd, LOCK_UN); ``` The lock file should be removed at some point, to avoid filling the temp directory with hundreds of files. However, there is an obvious race condition in this code; example with processes A, B and C: ``` A opens file A locks file B opens file A unlinks file A unlocks file B locks file (B holds a lock on the deleted file) C opens file (a new file one is created) C locks file (two processes hold the same named mutex !) ``` Is there a way to remove the lock file at some point without introducing this race condition ?

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