An approach for providing exclusive access to a resource shared by a plurality of processes in a computer system. The approach includes a computer processor retrieving a process identifier for a first process attempting to access the resource, where the process identifier is uniquely assigned to each process of the plurality of processes requiring the resource with the computer system. The approach includes the computer processor using the process identifier for the first process and a mutual exclusion object that includes a lock position allowing exclusive access to the resource and a wait position for a next process to attain the lock position to provide exclusive access to the resource.