Java file locking on a network

Question

This is perhaps similar to previous posts, but I want to be specific about the use of locking on a network, rather than locally. I want to write a file to a shared location,

Answer 1

This can't be reliably done on a network file system. As long as your application is the only application that accesses the file, it's best to implement some kind of cooperative locking process (perhaps writing a lock file to the network filesystem when you open the file). The reason that is not recommended, however, is that if your process crashes or the network goes down or any other number of issues happen, your application gets into a nasty, dirty state.