We're working on an application in which it appears it would be far more efficient to share data between Asterisk and external applications by simultaneously accessing and updating astdb. While the current asterisk/db.c code uses ast_mutex_lock and unlock pairs to protect the integrity of astdb from multiple Asterisk threads, this of course does nothing to protect astdb from external (i.e. non-Asterisk) apps. Does the list have any thoughts about the advisability (or inadvisability) of modifying db.c to use flock instead of ast_mutex_lock? As an aside I am aware that one could use AGI or an external SQL database for such data sharing; I would just prefer to avoid such overhead or complications in this situation. One could even envision making this a configuration option (i.e. "astdb shared"). Thoughts and flames please. George Pajari netVOICE communications www.netvoice.ca www.ip-centrex.ca