Show HN: Linux CLI tool to provide mutex locks for long running bash ops
19 comments
·July 17, 2025sluongng
yjftsjthsd-h
Nit: Probably https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/flock.1.html (shell command, not the underlying libc function)
anitil
This was my first thought and I suppose flock(1) could be used to recreate a lot of this. But it does come with some other quality-of-life improvements like being able to list all currently-used locks, having a lock holdable by N processes etc.
Zacru
Because that's a syscall ;) https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/flock.1.html is the command line manual.
I would say one good reason is that
waitlock myapp &
JOB_PID=$!
# ... do exclusive work ...
kill $JOB_PID
(; flock -n 9 || exit 1; # ... commands executed under lock ...; ) 9>/var/lock/mylockfilepermalac
Flock can be used in a single line for example for cronjobs.
Flock -s file && script.
Pretty simple. (I forgot the argument, I think is -s..
bigattichouse
just pushed a change so now it's:
waitlock myapp & #... do stuff waitlock --done myapp
ethan_smith
flock is indeed built-in: `flock -xn /tmp/mylock.lock -c "echo running locked command"` does mutex locking in bash. Your tool might offer better ergonomics or features beyond flock's capabilities?
teddyh
We already have lockfile: <https://manpages.debian.org/stable/procmail/lockfile.1.en.ht...>.
forrestthewoods
I don’t know the exact threshold at which you should use a real programming language instead of a bash script. But this type of work definitely exceeds it.
bigattichouse
Sometimes you have a cron job that takes longer than it should (but inconsistently so), and another cron job that clobbers what that cron job is doing.
anitil
While in general I'd agree, this isn't necessarily just for bash scripts. It could just wrap the execution of another program allowing higher-level logic to handle concurrency and the low-level program to do it's one-at-a-time job
asddfgg55
Useful project, I love all things terminal, so I also enjoyed your project.
eddythompson80
You enjoyed the project because you love the terminal?
bigattichouse
Good enough for me. I created the project because I love terminal, and wanted to make something using Claude (to learn how this tool works, strictly for personal enrichment) that solves a small problem I had with some overlapping cron job management.
null
Been exploring claude and spec-based coding, I think it turned out fairly successful. It's just a simple unix-style tool that gives you a single command to use in bash scripts to simplify mutex or semaphore locking of execution.