>> that there would be no need for locking.  or are you trying to guard
>> against to instances of newsyslog running simultaneously not stepping
>> on each other's toes?
>
>Yes, trying to guard.

well...in that case, i'd be of the opinion that since (a) it's usually
only run from cron and (b) it is at bext *VERY* infrequently run by
hand (by no one i know), and (c) it also doesn't take long to do the
actual rotation (although the compression probably takes a good chunk
of time), that a simple lock that indicates that newsyslog is running
would be sufficient.  something to guard the "critical section" from
separate instances.

>>    alias hup 'kill -HUP `head -1 /var/run/\!$.pid`'
>
>FWIW newsyslog(8) does something functionally equivalent (in C).

i expected as much.

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