Brew fails if flock is not implemented: -e:1:in `flock': Function not implemented (Errno::ENOSYS)

[sjackman]

From @ningzhai on October 9, 2016 10:23

As problem issued in the title.
Following is how I installed the linuxbrew:

git clone https://github.com/Linuxbrew/brew.git linuxbrew
echo "#linuxbrew" >>~/.bash_profile
echo "export PATH=$PWD/linuxbrew/bin:\$PATH" >>~/.bash_profile
echo "export MANPATH=$PWD/linuxbrew/share/man:\$MANPATH" >>~/.bash_profile
echo "export INFOPATH=$PWD/linuxbrew/share/info:\$INFOPATH" >>~/.bash_profile
PATH=$(getconf PATH)
source ~/.bash_profile

When I want to install the first software through brew, that is "brew install hello", I got following error:

-e:1:in `flock': Function not implemented (Errno::ENOSYS)
        from -e:1
Error: Another active Homebrew process is already in progress.
Please wait for it to finish or terminate it to continue.
Error: Failed to install vendor Ruby.

Somebody can help me ?

Copied from original issue: Linuxbrew/legacy-linuxbrew#1110

[sjackman]

@ningzhai Which operating system are you running? Please report the output of brew config

[alienzj]

Hi,
I have also encountered this error. There is my configuration: $ brew config

HOMEBREW_VERSION: 1.0.7-8-gd5f4afad7
ORIGIN: https://github.com/Linuxbrew/brew.git
HEAD: d5f4afad76b31a61b9cf22e77da71be2a9ceb892
Last commit: 11 hours ago
Core tap ORIGIN: https://github.com/Linuxbrew/homebrew-core
Core tap HEAD: b7ca722c79156fb190df3daaf04ebf069a44ec18
Core tap last commit: 8 hours ago
HOMEBREW_PREFIX: /share/backup/zhujie/.linuxbrew
HOMEBREW_REPOSITORY: /share/backup/zhujie/.linuxbrew
HOMEBREW_CELLAR: /share/backup/zhujie/.linuxbrew/Cellar
HOMEBREW_BOTTLE_DOMAIN: https://linuxbrew.bintray.com
CPU: octa-core 64-bit dothan
Homebrew Ruby: 2.3.1 => /ifs1/ST_META/USER/wangzhifeng1/software/ruby/bin/ruby
Clang: N/A
Git: 2.10.0 => /home/zhujie/workdir/software/git/bin/git
Perl: /share/app/perl-5.22.0/bin/perl
Python: /share/app/python-2.7.10/bin/python
Ruby: /ifs1/ST_META/USER/wangzhifeng1/software/ruby/bin/ruby
Java: 1.8.0_102
Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-504.16.2.el6.x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
OS: CentOS release 6.6 (Final)
OS glibc: 2.12
OS gcc: 4.4.7
Linuxbrew glibc: N/A
Linuxbrew gcc: N/A
Linuxbrew xorg: N/A

Please help me!
Thanks very much! :)

[sjackman]

Do you know what type of file system you're on? It doesn't appear to support the flock operation.

-e:1:in `flock': Function not implemented (Errno::ENOSYS)

Please report the output of

mount | grep ifs1

[sjackman]

@rwhogg Brew fails if flock is not implemented for that file system. It should fail with a better error message. brew doctor should check for this. It should fall back to an alternative locking system when flock is not available. (all wish list and notes to self)

[alienzj]

$ mount | grep ifs1
isilon1.sz.local:/ifs/data/ST_META on /ifs1/ST_META type nfs (rw,tcp,soft,intr,lookupcache=positive,vers=3,sloppy,addr=_._._._)

It is nfs file system.

[sjackman]

Your two options are

1. enable support for flock on your NFS server
2. hack up Linuxbrew to use an alternative lock other than flock and submit a PR

[sjackman]

@LovelornPig @macmanes You can change the lock dir to a filesystem that supports flock like for example /tmp/$USER/linuxbrew by hacking up Library/Homebrew/config.rb. There's no environment variable to configure this setting. 😕 The default value is

HOMEBREW_LOCK_DIR = HOMEBREW_PREFIX/"var/homebrew/locks"

See https://github.com/Linuxbrew/brew/blob/master/Library/Homebrew/config.rb#L27

[sjackman]

@michaelmhoffman suggested that you make $(brew --prefix)/var/homebrew/locks a symlink to a file system that supports flock. 😎

[mschubert]

Note that there are some packages that do not respect the specified locking dir and try to lock files in Cellar. An example of this is glibc-2.19 and Cellar/glibc/2.19/lib/locale.

Moving and linking this directory to a file system that supports locking and rerunning brew postinstall glibc solves this issue, but there may be other packages that do the same.

[sjackman]

Thanks for the heads up, Michael. brew doctor should check that the FS of $(brew --prefix) and $(brew --cellar) supports flock. A PR would be welcome if you're interested.

[mschubert]

The way my current computing cluster is set up is that there is only 1 GiB of storage available with flock support and more without. Cellar is too large to be moved to the first file system, so just checking for support wouldn't solve the issue for me.

So my setup is that both $(brew --prefix) and $(brew --cellar) are on /noflock/somewhere (due to storage constraints) and I created a /flock/lockdir to link $(brew --prefix)/var/homebrew/locks to.

Hence, brew doctor checking whether $(brew --cellar) supports flock would fail in my case. Ideally, I would like to see no file locks in $(brew --cellar) but only $(brew --prefix)/var/homebrew/locks.