diff --git a/include/dba.php b/include/dba.php
index b9e6c32d56..1fff51f3d1 100644
--- a/include/dba.php
+++ b/include/dba.php
@@ -806,6 +806,28 @@ class dba {
 		return self::e($sql, $param);
 	}
 
+	/**
+	 * @brief Locks a table for exclusive write access
+	 *
+	 * This function can be extended in the future to accept a table array as well.
+	 *
+	 * @param string $table Table name
+	 *
+	 * @return boolean was the lock successful?
+	 */
+	static public function lock($table) {
+		return self::e("LOCK TABLES `".self::$dbo->escape($table)."` WRITE");
+	}
+
+	/**
+	 * @brief Unlocks all locked tables
+	 *
+	 * @return boolean was the unlock successful?
+	 */
+	static public function unlock() {
+		return self::e("UNLOCK TABLES");
+	}
+
 	/**
 	 * @brief Starts a transaction
 	 *
diff --git a/src/Util/Lock.php b/src/Util/Lock.php
index e8fa03f784..1a33e819f0 100644
--- a/src/Util/Lock.php
+++ b/src/Util/Lock.php
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ class Lock {
 		$start = time();
 
 		do {
-			dba::p("LOCK TABLE `locks` WRITE");
+			dba::lock('locks');
 			$lock = dba::select('locks', array('locked', 'pid'), array('name' => $fn_name), array('limit' => 1));
 
 			if (dbm::is_result($lock)) {
@@ -57,7 +57,7 @@ class Lock {
 				$got_lock = true;
 			}
 
-			dba::p("UNLOCK TABLES");
+			dba::unlock();
 
 			if (!$got_lock) {
 				sleep($wait_sec);