alock File Keeps LDAP (slapd) from Starting Up

["Ramseyer, Ken" <ken.ramseyer@lmco.com>]

We have just recently moved from Red Hat's Linux Fedora Core 4 to Red
Hat's Linux Enterprise OS.  In the process of moving to a new OS, we
changed from OpenLDAP version 2.2.23 to version 2.3.20.  Now, every time
we start slapd, along with the standard *.dbb files, it creates an
"alock" file in the LDAP directory.  If we kill (kill -9) slapd and
restart slapd, LDAP works fine; however, if we reboot the hardware unit
the "alock" file keeps LDAP from starting up.  After rebooting, if we
delete the "alock" file, LDAP can be restarted and it works fine.  We
are running with Berkeley DB (libdb4.2), and libsasl2.0.20 (or SASL
2.1.20).  Who creates, updates, and deletes the "alock" file (OpenLDAP
or Berkeley DB)?  Before we moved to a new OS and OpenLDAP, we never saw
the "alock" file appear in the LDAP directory.  Now the "alock" file
shows up all the time.  Can we just delete the "alock" file before we
start slapd?

Thanks,
  Ken