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authorJulian Andres Klode <jak@debian.org>2017-01-29 13:46:09 +0100
committerGuillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>2018-05-04 04:13:19 +0200
commit0615492cb4c79d1f552e49f4a10dbfc959f03b9c (patch)
tree95bf8375b31e89bd402bcb9536bb5378abf855c5 /man/dpkg.man
parent2d7566140335d5338e5a98278d4df762936f67f4 (diff)
downloaddpkg-0615492cb4c79d1f552e49f4a10dbfc959f03b9c.tar.gz
libdpkg: Introduce frontend locking
Currently, in order to run dpkg, frontends have to release the database lock before invoking dpkg and re-acquire it afterwards, leaving a short time where the database is unlocked and a different dpkg process or frontend could lock it. Frontend locking addresses the problem by creating a "lock-frontend" file that is acquired by the frontend and not released for dpkg invocations. Thus, multiple frontends cannot race for the database lock. This change extends the frontend lock to dpkg itself, acquiring it whenever the variable DPKG_FRONTEND_LOCKED is not set, so that a user manually running dpkg or a frontend not supporting this protocol cannot interfere with a currently running frontend. [guillem@debian.org: - Add documentation. - Rename frontend lock file. - Fix error strings. ] Signed-off-by: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'man/dpkg.man')
-rw-r--r--man/dpkg.man4
1 files changed, 4 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/man/dpkg.man b/man/dpkg.man
index 4f6f14bb9..fdaa87b1c 100644
--- a/man/dpkg.man
+++ b/man/dpkg.man
@@ -888,6 +888,10 @@ Currently only used by \fB\-\-list\fP.
Sets the color mode (since dpkg 1.18.5).
The currently accepted values are: \fBauto\fP (default), \fBalways\fP and
\fBnever\fP.
+.TP
+.B DPKG_FRONTEND_LOCKED
+Set by a package manager frontend to notify dpkg that it should not acquire
+the frontend lock (since dpkg 1.19.1).
.SS Internal environment
.TP
.B DPKG_ROOT