I have multiple applications running in one virtual machine. I have multiple virtual machines running on one server. And I have multiple servers. They all share a file using a shared folder on linux. The file is read and written by all applications. During the write process no application is allowed to read this file. The same for writing: If an application is reading the file no application is allowed to write it.
How do I manage to synchronize the applications so they will wait for the write process to finish before they read, and vice versa? (the applications inside a vm have to be synchronized and also applications across servers)
Curent implementation uses "file semaphores". If the file is about to be written the application tries to "acquire" the semaphore by creating an additional file (lets name it "file.semaphore") in the shared folder. If the "file.semaphore" file already exists this means the semaphore is already locked by a different application. This approach has the problem that I cannot make sure that the "file exists"-test and "create file"- operation are executed atomic. This way it is possible that two applications test for the "file.semaphore" file, see it does not exist and try to create the file at the same time.
You can use NIO locking capabilities. See FileChannel#lock().
However, this will work only if underlying filesystem supports locking over the network. Recent NFS should support it. Probably, Samba supports them too, but can’t say for sure.
See article for example.
Have a look at the Javadocs for the createNewFile() method - it specifically states that creating files is not a reliable method for synchronization, and recommends the FileLock class instead (it's another package in java.nio.channels so is essentially the same as what Ivan Dubrov is suggesting).
This would imply that your identification of the problem is accurate, and no amount of playing around will solve this with traditional file creation. My first thought was to check the return code from createNewFile(), but if the Javadocs say it's not suitable then it's time to move on.
Need to combine file locking for protection between JVM's with synchronization within threads of a given JVM. See the answer by cyber-monk here
I am also trying to determine the best way to solve this problem for a similar situation (less participating processes, but still same underlying problem). If you haven't been able to employ the file locking scheme suggested by Ivan (e.g. system|language|network service does not support it), maybe you could designate one of the participants as a referee. All participants write unique semaphores, call them "participant#.request" when they want the file. The referee polls the file system for these semaphores. When he sees one, he writes back "participant#.lock", and deletes the request. If he happens to see multiple at the "same time" he selects one at random (or first by file modification time) and deletes only their request. Then, the participant issued the lock knows they can access the file safely. When the participant is done with the file, they delete their own lock. While there is a lock in place, no other locks are issued by the referee. Any requests that are present after the user deletes their lock could be served a new lock without issuing a new request, so you could have the other users poll for their lock after sending the request. Probably this is what the locking mechanism is doing anyway, except maybe for the ability to manage the lock as a queue that comes with requests being processed in the order they are received (i.e. if the referee uses modification time). Also, since you're in charge of the referee you could set timeouts to locks, allowing him issue timeout semaphores to the process that is hogging the file and then remove the lock (hoping of course that if that process with the lock died, it did so nicely).
来源：https://stackoverflow.com/questions/320159/howto-synchronize-file-access-in-a-shared-folder-using-java-or-readwritelock-o