Locks on VOB objects

Access controls on VOB objects are intended to provide a long-lived access-control mechanism. Temporary access control is also provided through explicit locks on individual VOB objects.

You can use the cleartool lock command to restrict or prohibit changes at various levels. At the lowest level, you can lock an individual element, or even an individual branch of an element. At the highest level, you can lock an entire VOB, preventing all modifications to it.

When an object is locked, it cannot be modified by anyone, even a privileged user or the user who created the lock. (But these users have permission to unlock the object.) The lock command accepts an exception list that specifies which users can modify the object while it is locked.

Locking type objects

You can lock type objects to prevent changes to the instances of those types. For example:

You can lock the branch type main to all but a select group of users. This group can then perform integration or release-related cleanup work on the main branches of all elements. All other users can continue to work, but must do so on branches other than main.
Locking a label type prevents anyone from creating or moving an instance of that label type. Labeling all the element versions used in a particular release, and then locking that label, provides an easy way to re-create the release later.