A lockfile utility that uses kernel locking, rather than just creating a lockfile, so that in the event of system shutdown, app being killed, or whatever, other apps are not blocked by the undeleted lockfile. Feature set includes: multiple lockfiles, wait-time to obtain lock, kill lockfile owner, run a script on lock failure, run app with specified user/group, 'nohup', fork into background and create lockfiles 'close on exec' so they are not inheritied by child processes.
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Recent Releases
5.020 Jun 2026 03:15
major feature:
'no su' (no new privs) is now the default '-su' option added to allow specifying a program can su.
Added support for limiting child processes, or user-owned processes.
Added support for limiting memory, files open, file size.
Added support for specifying 'seccomp' secure levels.
4.215 Apr 2025 21:25
minor bugfix:
Error with building when no system-wide libuseful installed.
mv LICENCE to LICENSE.
4.028 Jan 2025 03:15
major feature:
Add -nopriv/-nosu/-P flag to prevent priviledge elevation on linux.
Better de/warning messages/logs.
Added CHANGELOG.
Added manpage.
1.014 Feb 2019 11:43
minor feature:
This release adds the '-C' 'close on exec' flags, for those rare situations when you don't want all processes run under the lock to inherit the lockfile (like when launching something out of a cron job that will be long-running).
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