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Interprocess Communication

Interprocess communication allows processes to communicate and share resources. There are several challenges to address, including how processes can access shared resources without interfering with each other or creating race conditions. Some solutions to these challenges include mutual exclusion through locks and semaphores, which allow only one process at a time to access critical sections of shared code or data. Semaphores in particular provide a way for processes to synchronize access to shared resources and ensure proper ordering of dependent processes.

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Sanjay Shah
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37 views

Interprocess Communication

Interprocess communication allows processes to communicate and share resources. There are several challenges to address, including how processes can access shared resources without interfering with each other or creating race conditions. Some solutions to these challenges include mutual exclusion through locks and semaphores, which allow only one process at a time to access critical sections of shared code or data. Semaphores in particular provide a way for processes to synchronize access to shared resources and ensure proper ordering of dependent processes.

Uploaded by

Sanjay Shah
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION

• Processes need to communicate with other processes.

• Shell pipeline - output of the first process passed to the


second process.
Issues

• How one process can pass information to another.

• Two processes do not get into each other's way


when engaging in critical activities
(two processes each try to grab the last IOOK of memory).

• proper sequencing when dependencies are present


process A produces data and process B prints
B has to wait until A has produced some data
Race Conditions
• Processes may share common storage
•each one can read and write.
When a process wants to print a file,
it enters the file name in special spooler directory.
Printer daemon, periodically checks for any files to be printed
•Two or more processes are reading or writing shared data
•final result depends on who runs precisely when
Critical Sections

• Prohibit more than one process from reading and writing


the shared data at the same time.

• mutual exclusion
if one process is using a shared variable or file

• the other processes excluded from doing the same thing


part of the program where the shared memory is accessed
critical region or section.

• To avoid race conditions


no two processes ever in their critical regions at same time
Conditions for Parallel Processes

1. No two processes simultaneously inside their critical regions.

2. No assumptions about speeds or the number of CPUs.

3. No process outside critical region may block other processes.

4. No process should wait forever to enter critical region.


Solutions – Mutual Exclusion

Disabling Interrupts.

• disable just after entering critical region.

• re-enable just before leaving it


no clock interrupts can occur.

• CPU will not be switched to another process


turn off interrupts – end of system
Shared memory access by another processor
multiprocessor system

• List of ready processes inconsistent – race condition


Lock Variables

• single, shared, (lock) variable - initially 0

• process entering critical region


first tests the lock

• 0, the process sets it to 1


enters critical region.

already 1, the process just waits until it becomes 0

0 - no process critical region


1 - some process in critical region

 
Lock

• Currently 0.

• Before one process sets to 1


another process scheduled
sets to 1.

• First process runs again & also sets to 1.

• Two processes in critical region.

 
Strict Alteration
• One process much slower
process 0 quickly complete the loop.

• Violation condition
Process 0 blocked by a process not in critical region.
Peterson’s Solution
• both processes call enter-region
• process 1 stores last - turn is 1
TSL Instruction

• TEST AND SET LOCK


reads memory word into a register
stores a nonzero value at that memory address

• Reading and storing are indivisible


no other processor can access the memory word
until the instruction is finished.

• CPU locks the memory bus

• LOCK:XCHG
 

 
Setting & Clearing Locks using TSL
Busy Waiting

• Process in a loop.

• Waiting for entering critical Region.

• Approach wastes CPU time.


Priority Inversion Problem

• H runs when in ready state.

• L in critical region.

• H becomes ready and begins waiting.

• L never scheduled while H running.

• L never leaves critical region.

• H loops forever.

• Block instead of wasting CPU time.

 
Procedure – Consumer Problem

• Two processes – common shared buffer

• Full buffer – procedure sleeps

• Awakened if consumer removes one or more

• Consumer asleep – empty buffer

• Race condition – variable count – no. of items in buffer

• count 0, consumer sleeps

 
Fatal Race Condition
Fatal Race Condition

• count read as 0.

• Scheduler stops consumer before blocked by sleep

• producer puts an item and calls wakeup.

• consumer not yet asleep, wakeup signal lost.

• consumer resumes , goes to sleep.

• producer fills buffer, sleeps forever.

 
Terms Related to Concurrency
Semaphore

• A semaphore 0 - no wakeups

• some positive value - one or more wakeups pending

• Special variable for signaling – s – integer

• SemSignal (s) – to transmit a signal via s

• SemWait (s) - to receive signal via s

 
Semaphore Operations

1. Initialized to a nonnegative integer value

2. semWait decrements the value


Process executing semWait blocks on -ve value

3. semSignal increments the value.


Binary Semaphore

1. Initialized to 0 or 1

2. semWaitB blocks the process, if 0.


if 1, changed to 0 and process continues.

3. if 0, process blocked by semWaitB unblocked.


If no process is blocked, changed to 1.
Semaphore Mechanism
Semaphore Mechanism
Process Accessing Shared Data
Solution to Infinite Buffer
A Scenario
Semaphore Uses

1.Mutual Exclusion
●
only one process at a time will be reading or writing the
buffer and the associated variables

2. Synchronization
●
certain event sequences do or do not occur
●
Producer stops running when the buffer is full
●
Consumer stops running when it is empty.
Solution for Infinite Buffer
Finite Circle Buffer
Solution Bounded Buffer

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