can a berkeley database be opened and accessed from multiple programs at the same time?
Some documentation seems to think you can use the same database concurrently from multiple processes as well as from multiple threads. Specifically:
"Multiple processes, or multiple threads in a single process, can all use the database at the same time as each uses the Berkeley DB library. Low-level services like locking, transaction logging, shared buffer management, memory management, and so on are all handled transparently by the library."
A cursory read did not shed any light on what BDB uses to control access from multiple processes, but if filesystem locks are used, access from multiple processes on a network filesystems may well be problematic.