1

GURU NANAK COLLEGE

Department of BCA
Operating System

Process Synchronization
UNIT II: Process Synchronization: Critical-Section problem - Synchronization
Hardware – Semaphores – Classic Problems of Synchronization – Critical Region –
Monitors.

Deadlock : Characterization – Methods for handling Deadlocks – Prevention,

Avoidance, and Detection of Deadlock - Recovery from deadlock.

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 2

Contents

• What is Process Synchronization and why it is needed

• The Critical Section Problem
• Peterson’s Solution
• Synchronization Hardware
• Semaphores
• Applications of Semaphores
• Classical Problems of Synchronizations
• Synchronization Examples
• Monitors
• Atomic Transactions
• References

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 3

What is Process Synchronization

• Several Processes run in an Operating System
• Some of them share resources due to which problems like
data inconsistency may arise
• For Example: One process changing the data in a
memory location where another process is trying to read
the data from the same memory location. It is possible
that the data read by the second process will be
erroneous

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 4

Producer Consumer Problem

(or Bounded-Buffer Problem)

Producer Consumer
(process (process B)
A)
Buffer

• Problem: To ensure that the Producer should not add

DATA when the Buffer is full and the Consumer
should not take data when the Buffer is empty

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 5

Solution for Producer Consumer Problem

• Using Semaphores (In computer science, particularly in operating systems,

a semaphore is a variable or abstract data type that is used for controlling access, by
multiple processes, to a common resource in a concurrent system such as
a multiprogramming operating system.)

• Using Monitors (In concurrent programming, a monitor is a synchronization

construct that allows threads to have both mutual exclusion and the ability to wait
(block) for a certain condition to become true)

• Atomic Transactions (Atomic read-modify-write access to shared variables is

avoided, as each of the two Count variables is updated only by a single thread. Also,
these variables stay incremented all the time; the relation remains correct when their
values wrap around on an integer overflow)

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 6

Race Condition

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

What if T5 happened before T4?
 7

Critical Section Problem

• A section of code, common to n cooperating
processes, in which the processes may be
accessing common variables.

A Critical Section Environment contains:

• Entry Section Code requesting entry into the critical section.

• Critical Section Code in which only one process can execute at

any one time.

• Exit Section The end of the critical section, releasing or allowing

others in.

• Remainder Section Rest of the code AFTER the critical section.

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 8

Critical Section Problem

The critical section must ENFORCE ALL THREE
of the following rules:

• Mutual Exclusion: No more than one process can

execute in its critical section at one time.

• Progress: If no one is in the critical section and

someone wants in, then those processes not in their
remainder section must be able to decide in a finite
time who should go in.

• Bounded Wait: All requesters must eventually be

let into the critical section
G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
 9

Critical Section Problem

ENTRY SECTION

CRITICAL SECTION

EXIT SECTION

REMAINDER SECTION

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 10
Peterson’s Solution
• To handle the problem of Critical Section (CS), Peterson gave
an algorithm with a bounded waiting.

• Suppose there are N processes (P1, P2, … PN) and each of

them at some point need to enter the Critical Section.

• A FLAG[] array of size N is maintained which is by default false

and whenever a process need to enter the critical section it has
to set its flag as true, i.e. suppose Pi wants to enter so it will set
FLAG[i]=TRUE

• There is another variable called TURN which indicates the

process number which is currently to enter into the CS. The
process that enters into the CS while exiting would change the
TURN to another number from among the list of ready
processes G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
 1
1

PETERSON’S SOLUTION

FLAG[i] =
false

• If turn is 2 (say) then P2 enters the CS and while exiting

sets the turn as 3 and thus P3 breaks out of wait loop
G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
 12

Synchronization Hardware
• Problems of Critical Section are also solvable by hardware.

• Uniprocessor systems disables interrupts while a Process Pi is

using the CS but it is a great disadvantage in multiprocessor
systems

• Some systems provide a lock functionality where a Process

acquires a lock while entering the CS and releases the lock after
leaving it. Thus another process trying to enter CS cannot enter
as the entry is locked. It can only do so if it is free by acquiring
the lock itself

• Another advanced approach is the Atomic Instructions (Non-

Interruptible instructions).
G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
 13

MUTEX LOCKS
• As the synchronization hardware solution is not easy to
implement from everyone, a strict software approach
called Mutex Locks was introduced. In this approach, in
the entry section of code, a LOCK is acquired over the
critical resources modified and used inside critical
section, and in the exit section that LOCK is released.

• As the resource is locked while a process executes its

critical section hence no other process can access it

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 14
Semaphores
• It is a integer variable for which only two ( atomic )
operations are defined, the wait and signal operations.

• Variable or abstract data type used to control access to a

common resource by multiple processes in concurrent
systems.
• Synchronization tool, does not require busy waiting.
WAIT ( S ): SIGNAL ( S ):
while ( S <= 0 ); //do no S = S + 1;
operation
G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
S = S - 1;
Semaphores (Cont..)

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 17

Semaphores as general
Synchronization Tool
• TYPES
Semaphores are mainly of two types:
1. Binary Semaphore
It is a special form of semaphore used for implementing mutual
exclusion, hence it is often called Mutex. A binary semaphore is
initialized to 1 and only takes the value 0 and 1 during execution of
a program.

2. Counting Semaphores
These are used to implement bounded concurrency.

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

Synchronization Tool (Cont..)

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 15

Semaphores
• FORMAT:
wait ( mutex ); // Mutual exclusion: mutex init to 1.
CRITICAL SECTION
signal( mutex );
REMAINDER

• Note that not only must the variable-changing steps ( S-- and
S++ ) be indivisible, it is also necessary that for the wait
operation when the test proves false that there be no
interruptions before S gets decremented. It S okay, however,
for the busy loop to be interrupted when the test is true, which
prevents the system from hanging forever

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 16

Semaphores
• Properties (Characteristics)

1. Simple
2. Works with many processes
3. Can have many different critical sections
with different semaphores
4. Each critical section has unique access semaphores
5. Can permit multiple processes into the critical section at
once, if desirable.

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 18

Semaphores
• Semaphores can be used to force synchronization (precedence )
if the preceding process does a signal at the end, and the
follower does wait at beginning. For example, here we want P1
to execute before P2.

P1: P2:
statement 1; wait (synch );
signal ( synch ); statement 2;

• To prevent looping, we redefine the semaphore structure as:

typedef struct {
int value;
struct process *list; //linked list of PTBL waiting on
} SEMAPHORE; S

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 19

Semaphores
SEMAPHORE s; SEMAPHORE s;
wait(s) { signal(s) {
s.value = s.value - 1; s.value = s.value + 1;
if ( s.value < 0 ) { if ( s.value <= 0 ) {
add this process to s.L; remove a process P from s.L;
block; wakeup(P);
} }
} }

• It's critical that these be atomic - in uniprocessors we can

disable interrupts, but in multiprocessors other
mechanisms for atomicity are needed.

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 20

Semaphores
• DEADLOCK

• One important problem that can arise when using semaphores to block
processes waiting for a limited resource is the problem of deadlocks, which
occur when multiple processes are blocked, each waiting for a resource that
can only be freed by one of the other ( blocked ) processes, as illustrated in
the following example.

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 Deadlock

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 21

Semaphores
STARVATION

• Another problem to consider is that of starvation, in

which one or more processes gets blocked forever, and
never get a chance to take their turn in the critical section.
For example, in the semaphores above, we did not
specify the algorithms for adding processes to the waiting
queue in the semaphore in the wait( ) call, or selecting
one to be removed from the queue in the signal( ) call. If
the method chosen is a FIFO queue, then every process
will eventually get their turn, but if a LIFO queue is
implemented instead, then the first process to start
waiting could starve.

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 Starvation

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 Classical Problems of Synchronization

• Bounded buffer problem

• Readers and writers problem
• Dinning philosopher problem

• This is the main 3 problem occur the problem

is in synchronization.
• These problems solved by using Semaphore
variable.
G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
 22

The Bounded-buffer Problem

• This is a generalization of the producer-consumer problem
where in access is controlled to a shared group of buffers of a
limited size. (Producer consumer problem to solve bounded
buffer problem)
• In this solution, the two counting semaphores "full" and
"empty" keep track of the current number of full and empty
buffers respectively ( and initialized to 0 and N respectively. )
The binary semaphore mutex controls access to the critical
section. The producer and consumer processes are nearly
identical - One can think of the producer as producing full
buffers, and the consumer producing empty buffers.
• N buffers, each can hold one item.
• Semaphore, mutexG.Kiruthiga,
initialized=1
Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
 23
Full=0,
mutex=1,
empty=1 The Bounded-buffer Problem

CONSUMER

PRODUCER

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 24

The Readers-writers Problem

• THE READERS/WRITERS PROBLEM:

• This is the same as the Producer / Consumer problem except - we now

can have many concurrent readers and one exclusive writer.

• Locks:are shared (for the readers) and exclusive (for the writer).

Two possible ( contradictory ) guidelines can be used:

1. No reader is kept waiting unless a writer holds the lock (the readers
have precedence).

2. If a writer is waiting for access, no new reader gains access (writer

has precedence).

• ( NOTE: starvation can occur on either of these rules if they are followed
rigorously.)
G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
 25

The Readers-writers Problem

Reader:
do {
wait( mutex ); /* Allow 1 reader in
readcount = readcount + 1; entry*/
if readcount == 1 then wait(wrt ); /* 1st reader locks writer */
signal( mutex );
/* reading is performed */
wait( mutex );
readcount = readcount - 1;
if readcount == 0 then signal(wrt ); /*last reader frees writer */
signal( mutex );
} while(TRUE);

Writer:
do {
wait( wrt ); THE READERS/WRITERS PROBLEM:
/* writing is performed BINARY_SEMAPHOR wrt = 1;
*/ signal( wrt ); E mutex = 1;
BINARY_SEMAPHOR readcount = 0;
} while(TRUE); E
G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
int
 26

Dining Philosophers Problem

• Five philosophers sitting at a round dining
table to eat
• Each one has got a plate and one chopstick at
the right side of each plate
• To start eating each of them need a plate
and two chopsticks
• Thus, clearly there will be a deadlock and
starvation because of the limited number of
chopsticks

• This can be solved by either:

• Allow only 4 philosophers to be hungry at
a time
• Allow pickup only if both chopsticks are
available. ( Done in critical section )
• Odd # philosopher always picks up left
chopstick 1st, even # philosopher
always picks up right chopstick 1st
G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
 27

Dining Philosophers Problem

• One possible solution, as shown in the following code section, is to
use a set of five semaphores ( chopsticks[ 5 ] ), and to have each
hungry philosopher first wait on their left chopstick ( chopsticks[ i ] ),
and then wait on their right chopstick ( chopsticks[ ( i + 1 ) % 5 ] )

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

Solution for Dinning philosopher
Problem

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 28

Synchronization Examples

• SYNCHRONIZATION IN
WINDOWS

• SYNCHRONIZATION IN
LINUX

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 29

Monitors
• High-level synchronization construct that allows the safe
sharing of an abstract data type among concurrent
processes.

• Semaphores can be very useful for solving concurrency

problems, but only if programmers use them
properly. If even one process fails to abide by the
proper use of semaphores, either accidentally or
deliberately, then the whole system breaks down.

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 30

Monitors
• A monitor is essentially a
class, in which all data is
private, and with the special
restriction that only one
method within any given
monitor object may be
active at the same time.

• An additional restriction is
that monitor methods may
only access the shared data
within the monitor and any
data passed to them as
parameters, i.e. they cannot
access any data external to
the monitor.

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 31

Monitors
• In order to fully realize the potential of monitors, we
need to introduce one additional new data type,
known as a condition.

• A variable of type condition has only two legal

operations, wait and signal. I.e. if X was defined
as type condition, then legal operations would be
X.wait( ) and X.signal( )

• The wait operation blocks a process until some

other process calls signal, and adds the blocked
process onto a list associated with that condition.

• The signal process does nothing if there are no

processes waiting on that condition. Otherwise it
wakes up exactly one process from the
condition's list of waiting processes. ( Contrast
this with counting semaphores, which always
affect the semaphore on a signal call. )

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 32

Atomic Transactions
• Database operations frequently need to carry out atomic
transactions, in which the entire transaction must either
complete or not occur at all.

• The classic example is a transfer of funds, which involves

withdrawing funds from one account and depositing them into
another - Either both halves of the transaction must complete,
or neither must complete.

• Operating Systems can be viewed as having many of the same

needs and problems as databases, in that an OS can be said
to manage a small database of process-related information. As
such, OSs can benefit from emulating some of the techniques
originally developed for databases.
G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
 33

Atomic Transactions
• FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES – A C I D

• Atomicity – to outside world, transaction happens

indivisibly

• Consistency – transaction preserves system invariants

• Isolated – transactions do not interfere with each other

• Durable – once a transaction “commits,” the changes are

permanent
G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
 Deadlocks
• A Process request the resources, the resources are
not available at that time, so the process enter into
the waiting state.
• The requesting resources are held by another
waiting process, both are in waiting state, this
situation is said to be dead lock.

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 Bridge Crossing Example

• Traffic only in one direction.

• Each section of a bridge can be viewed as a resource.
• If a deadlock occurs, it can be resolved if one car backs
up (preempt resources and rollback).
• Several cars may have to be backed up if a deadlock
occurs.
• Starvation is possible.

G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 The Deadlock Problem
• A set of blocked processes each holding a resource and
waiting to acquire a resource held by another process in
the set.
• Example
– System has 2 tape drives.
– P1 and P2 each hold one tape drive and each needs
another one.
• Example
– semaphores A and B, initialized to 1
P0 P1
wait (A); wait(B)
waitG.Kiruthiga,
(B); Associate
Operating System Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
Concepts wait(A)
 Deadlock Characterization
Deadlock can arise if four conditions hold simultaneously.

• Mutual exclusion: only one process at a time can use a

resource.
• Hold and wait: a process holding at least one resource is
waiting to acquire additional resources held by other
processes.
• No preemption: a resource can be released only voluntarily
by the process holding it, after that process has completed its
task.
• Circular wait: there exists a set {P0, P1, …, P0} of waiting
processes such that P0 is waiting for a resource that is held by
P1, P1 is waiting for a resource that is held by
P2, …, Pn–1 is waiting for a resource that is held by
Pn, and P0 is waiting for a resource that is held by P0.
G.Kiruthiga, Associate
Operating System Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
Concepts
 System Model
• Resource types R1, R2, . . ., Rm
CPU cycles, memory space, I/O devices
• Each resource type Ri has Wi instances.
• Each process utilizes a resource as follows:
– request
– use
– release

G.Kiruthiga, Associate
Operating System Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
Concepts
 Resource-Allocation Graph
• set
A V ofis vertices V and a set
partitioned intoof edges E.
two types:
– P = {P1, P2, …, Pn}, the set consisting of all the processes in
the system.

– R = {R1, R2, …, Rm}, the set consisting of all resource types in

the system.
• request edge – directed edge P1 → Rj
• assignment edge – directed edge Rj → Pi

G.Kiruthiga, Associate
Operating System Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
Concepts
 Resource-Allocation Graph (Cont.)
• Process

• Resource Type with 4 instances

• Pi requests instance of Rj
Pi
Rj

• Pi is holding an instance of Rj
Pi
Rj
G.Kiruthiga, Associate
Operating System Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
Concepts
Example of a Resource Allocation Graph

G.Kiruthiga, Associate
Operating System Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
Concepts
 Resource Allocation Graph With A Deadlock

Operating System Concepts G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 Resource Allocation Graph With A Cycle But No Deadlock

Operating System Concepts G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 Basic Facts
• If graph contains no cycles ⇒ no deadlock.

• If graph contains a cycle ⇒

– if only one instance per resource type, then
deadlock.
– if several instances per resource type, possibility
of deadlock.

G.Kiruthiga, Associate
Operating System Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
Concepts
 Methods for Handling Deadlocks
• Ensure that the system will never enter a
deadlock state.

• Allow the system to enter a deadlock state

and then recover.

• Ignore the problem and pretend that

deadlocks never occur in the system; used by
most operating systems, including UNIX.

G.Kiruthiga, Associate
Operating System Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
Concepts
 Deadlock Prevention
Restrain the ways request can be made.
• Mutual Exclusion – not required for sharable
resources; must hold for non sharable resources.

• Hold and Wait – must guarantee that whenever a

process requests a resource, it does not hold any
other resources.
– Require process to request and be allocated all its
resources before it begins execution, or allow process to
request resources only when the process has none.
– Low resource utilization; starvation possible.

G.Kiruthiga, Associate
Operating System Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
Concepts
 Deadlock Prevention (Cont.)
• No Preemption –
– If a process that is holding some resources requests
another resource that cannot be immediately allocated to
it, then all resources currently being held are released.
– Preempted resources are added to the list of resources for
which the process is waiting.
– Process will be restarted only when it can regain its old
resources, as well as the new ones that it is requesting.

• Circular Wait – impose a total ordering of all resource

types, and require that each process requests
resources in an increasing order of enumeration.
G.Kiruthiga, Associate
Operating System Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
Concepts
 Deadlock Avoidance
Requires that the system has some additional a priori information
• Simplest
available.and most useful (??) model requires that each
process declare the maximum number of resources of each
type that it may need.

• Resource-allocation state is defined by the number of

available and allocated resources, and the maximum
demands of the processes.

• The deadlock-avoidance algorithm dynamically examines

the resource-allocation state to ensure that there can never
be a circular-wait condition.

G.Kiruthiga, Associate
Operating System Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
Concepts
 Safe State
• When a process requests an available resource, system
must decide if immediate allocation leaves the system in a
safe state.
• System is in safe state if there exists a safe sequence of all
processes.
• Sequence <P1, P2, …, Pn> is safe if for each Pi, the
resources that Pi can still request can be satisfied by
currently available resources + resources held by all the Pj,
with j<I.
– If Pi resource needs are not immediately available, then
Pi can wait until all Pj have finished.
– When Pj is finished, Pi can obtain needed resources,
execute, return allocated resources, and terminate.
G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
– When Pi terminates, Pi+1
Operating System
can
Concepts
obtain its needed
 Basic Facts
• If a system is in safe state ⇒ no deadlocks.

• If a system is in unsafe state ⇒ possibility of

deadlock.

• Avoidance ⇒ ensure that a system will never

enter an unsafe state.

G.Kiruthiga, Associate
Operating System Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
Concepts
 Safe, Unsafe , Deadlock State

Operating System Concepts G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 Deadlock Detection
• Allow system to enter deadlock state

• Detection algorithm

• Recovery scheme

G.Kiruthiga, Associate
Operating System Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
Concepts
Single Instance of Each Resource Type
• Maintain wait-for graph
– Nodes are processes.
– Pi → Pj if Pi is waiting for Pj.

• Periodically invoke an algorithm that searches for

a cycle in the graph.

• An algorithm to detect a cycle in a graph requires

an order of n2 operations, where n is the number
of vertices in the graph.

G.Kiruthiga, Associate
Operating System Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
Concepts
 Resource-Allocation Graph and Wait-for Graph

Resource-Allocation Graph Corresponding wait-for graph

Operating System Concepts G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC

 Several Instances of a Resource Type
• Available: A vector of length m indicates the number of
available resources of each type.

• Allocation: An n x m matrix defines the number of

resources of each type currently allocated to each process.

• Request: An n x m matrix indicates the current request of

each process. If Request [ij] = k, then process Pi is
requesting k more instances of resource type. Rj.
• Complexity o(m * n2 )

G.Kiruthiga, Associate
Operating System Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
Concepts
 Detection Algorithm
1. Let Work and Finish be vectors of length m and n, respectively Initialize:
(a) Work = Available
(b) For i = 1,2, …, n, if Allocationi ≠ 0, then
Finish[i] = false;otherwise, Finish[i] = true.
2. Find an index i such that both:
(a) Finish[i] == false
(b) Requesti ≤ Work
If no such i exists, go to step 4.
3. Work = Work + Allocationi
Finish[i] = true
go to step 2.

4. If Finish[i] == false, for some i, 1 ≤ i ≤ n, then the system is in deadlock state.

Moreover, if Finish[i] == false, then Pi is deadlocked.

G.Kiruthiga, Associate
Operating System Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
Concepts
 Detection Algorithm (Cont.)
Algorithm requires an order of O(m x n2) operations to detect whether
the system is in deadlocked state.

G.Kiruthiga, Associate
Operating System Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
Concepts
 Example of Detection Algorithm
• Five processes P0 through P4; three resource types
A (7 instances), B (2 instances), and C (6 instances).
• Snapshot at time T0:
Allocation Request Available
ABC ABC ABC
P0 010 000 000
P1 200 202
P2 303 000
P3 211 100
P4 002 002
• Sequence <P0, P2, P3, P1, P4> will result in Finish[i] = true for
all i.

G.Kiruthiga, Associate
Operating System Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
Concepts
 Example (Cont.)
• P2 requests an additional instance of type C.
Request
ABC
P0 000
P1 201
P2 001
P3 100
P4 002
• State of system?
– Can reclaim resources held by process P0, but insufficient
resources to fulfill other processes; requests.
– Deadlock exists, consisting of processes P1, P2, P3, and P4.

G.Kiruthiga, Associate
Operating System Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
Concepts
 Detection-Algorithm Usage
• When, and how often, to invoke depends on:
– How often a deadlock is likely to occur?
– How many processes will need to be rolled back?

• If detection algorithm is invoked arbitrarily,

there may be many cycles in the resource
graph and so we would not be able to tell
which of the many deadlocked processes
“caused” the deadlock.

G.Kiruthiga, Associate
Operating System Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
Concepts
 Recovery from Deadlock: Process Termination

• Abort all deadlocked processes.

• Abort one process at a time until the deadlock cycle is
eliminated.
• In which order should we choose to abort?
– Priority of the process.
– How long process has computed, and how much longer to
completion.
– Resources the process has used.
– Resources process needs to complete.
– How many processes will need to be terminated.
– Is process interactive or batch?

G.Kiruthiga, Associate
Operating System Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
Concepts
 Recovery from Deadlock: Resource Preemption

• Selecting a victim – minimize cost.

• Rollback – return to some safe state, restart

process for that state.

• Starvation – same process may always be

picked as victim, include number of rollback in
cost factor.

G.Kiruthiga, Associate
Operating System Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
Concepts
 Combined Approach to Deadlock Handling

• Combine the three basic approaches

– prevention
– avoidance
– detection
allowing the use of the optimal approach for each
of resources in the system.

• Partition resources into hierarchically ordered

classes.

G.Kiruthiga, Associate
Operating System Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC
Concepts
 Traffic Deadlock for Exercise 8.4

Operating System Concepts G.Kiruthiga, Associate Professor, Dept of BCA, GNC