A simple distributed lock implementation using Redis

When you want to make sure only one process modifies a given resource at a time you need a lock.
When you have more than one pod running in production to your server in your Kubernetes, you can't lock only in memory, you need a distributed lock.

Implementation using redlock

import Redis from 'ioredis';
import Redlock from 'redlock';

const redis = new Redis(config.REDIS_HOST);

export const redlock = new Redlock([redis], {
  retryCount: 15,
});

export const lock = async (key: string, duration: number) => {
  try {
    const lockAcquired = await redlock.acquire([key], duration);

    return {
      unlock: async () => {
        try {
          await lockAcquired.release();
        } catch (err) {
        }
      },
    };
  } catch (err) {
    return {
      error: 'Unable to get lock',
      unlock: () => {},
    };
  }
};

Usage

const { error, unlock } = await lock('lockKey');

  // error trying to get
  if (error) {
    return { success: false, error: String(error) };
  }

  try {
    // modify a shared resource

    await unlock();

    return result;
  } catch (err) {
    await unlock();

    return { success: false, error: String(err) };
  }

Use cases

You can use a distributed lock to update the balance of a ledger account.
You can use it to avoid two processes consuming the same API at the same time.

In Conclusion

Distributed locks are one of many possible approaches to handle concurrency to shared resources. You could use a conditional put. Use a queue to process just one event at a time.
Investigate and discover what is the best solution for your specific scenario.

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