NAME

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

SYNOPSIS

        use Apache::Session::Lock::File;

        my $locker = Apache::Session::Lock::File->new;

        $locker->acquire_read_lock($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

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

   acquire_read_lock
       Will do nothing if write lock is in effect, only set readlock flag to true.

   release_read_lock
       Will do nothing if write lock is in effect, only set readlock flag to false.

   Win32 and Cygwin
       Windows cannot escalate lock, so all locks will be exclusive.

       release_read_lock not supported - it is not used by Apache::Session.

       When deleting files, they are not locked (Win32 only).

AUTHOR

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

SEE ALSO

       Apache::Session