Nitrox,
As I indicated in my first post. Using a lock file by itself, regardless of type, will not guarantee only a single copy of a script is running in Unix. This is because it is possible to delete a file that is locked. Using the /tmp directory most likely increases the odds of deletion by its nature. The subsequent instance of the script is able to create and lock the new file - and now you have two copies running. You really need to have multiple methods for validation and checking the
process table is a good place to start.
Cheers - L~R