In UNIX environments, if you are accessing SAS files across NFS, errors similar to the following might be written to the SAS log:

   ERROR: A lock is not available for libref.file.DATA, lock held by another process

   ERROR: A lock is not available for libref.file.DATA, lock held by process nnnn.

   UNABLE TO OPEN/READ MESSAGE FILE USING THE -MSG PATHS

   ERROR: User does not have appropriate authorization level for file #C00001.CORE.CATALOG.
   FATAL: Unable to initialize the options subsystem.
   (SASXKINI): PHASE 3 KERNEL INITIALIZATION FAILED.
   UNABLE TO INITIALIZE THE SAS KERNEL

Files that can be affected include SAS data sets and SAS log files.

One cause of this message is malfunctioning UNIX file locking.

You can test to determine whether UNIX file locking is causing problems by invoking SAS with the FILELOCKS option set to a value of NONE:

   sas -filelocks none

Set -FILELOCKS NONE only as a test.
If more than one process attempts to update a SAS data set while the setting is in effect, data corruption can occur.

If setting -FILELOCKS NONE enables you to invoke a SAS session without errors, ask your UNIX system administrator to recycle the daemons rpc.statd, rpc.lockd, and nlockmgr on both the host and on the NFS client.

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