CS8603- Distributed Systems

UNIT III CS8603

DISTRIBUTED MUTEX & DEADLOCK

DISTRIBUTED MUTEX & DEADLOCK

Distributed mutual exclusion algorithms: Introduction – Preliminaries – Lamport‘s algorithm –Ricart-Agrawala
algorithm – Maekawa‘s algorithm – Suzuki–Kasami‘s broadcast algorithm. Deadlock detection in distributed
systems: Introduction – System model – Preliminaries –Models of deadlocks – Knapp‘s classification –
Algorithms for the single resource model, the AND model and the OR model.

3.1 DISTRIBUTED MUTUAL EXCLUSION ALGORITHMS

 Mutual exclusion is a concurrency control property which is introduced to prevent
race conditions.
 It is the requirement that a process cannot access a shared resource while another
concurrent process is currently present or executing the same resource.

Mutual exclusion in a distributed system states that only one process is allowed to execute the
critical section (CS) at any given time.

 Message passing is the sole means for implementing distributed mutual exclusion.
 The decision as to which process is allowed access to the CS next is arrived at by
message passing, in which each process learns about the state of all other processes in
some consistent way.
 There are three basic approaches for implementing distributed mutual exclusion:
1. Token-based approach:
 A unique token is shared among all the sites.
 If a site possesses the unique token, it is allowed to enter its critical section
 This approach uses sequence number to order requests for the critical section.
 Each requests for critical section contains a sequence number. This sequence
number is used to distinguish old and current requests.
 This approach insures Mutual exclusion as the token is unique.
 Eg: Suzuki-Kasami’s Broadcast Algorithm
2. Non-token-based approach:
 A site communicates with other sites in order to determine which sites should
execute critical section next. This requires exchange of two or more successive
round of messages among sites.
 This approach use timestamps instead of sequence number to order requests
for the critical section.
 When ever a site make request for critical section, it gets a timestamp.
Timestamp is also used to resolve any conflict between critical section
requests.
 All algorithm which follows non-token based approach maintains a logical
clock. Logical clocks get updated according to Lamport’s scheme.
 Eg: Lamport's algorithm, Ricart–Agrawala algorithm

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3. Quorum-based approach:
 Instead of requesting permission to execute the critical section from all other
sites, Each site requests only a subset of sites which is called a quorum.
 Any two subsets of sites or Quorum contains a common site.
 This common site is responsible to ensure mutual exclusion.
 Eg: Maekawa’s Algorithm

3.1.1 Preliminaries
 The system consists of N sites, S1, S2, S3, …, SN.
 Assume that a single process is running on each site.
 The process at site Si is denoted by pi. All these processes communicate
asynchronously over an underlying communication network.
 A process wishing to enter the CS requests all other or a subset of processes by
sending REQUEST messages, and waits for appropriate replies before entering the
CS.
 While waiting the process is not allowed to make further requests to enter the CS.
 A site can be in one of the following three states: requesting the CS, executing the CS,
or neither requesting nor executing the CS.
 In the requesting the CS state, the site is blocked and cannot make further requests for
the CS.
 In the idle state, the site is executing outside the CS.
 In the token-based algorithms, a site can also be in a state where a site holding the
token is executing outside the CS. Such state is referred to as the idle token state.
 At any instant, a site may have several pending requests for CS. A site queues up
these requests and serves them one at a time.
 N denotes the number of processes or sites involved in invoking the critical section, T
denotes the average message delay, and E denotes the average critical section
execution time.

3.1.2 Requirements of mutual exclusion algorithms

 Safety property:

The safety property states that at any instant, only one process can execute the
critical section. This is an essential property of a mutual exclusion algorithm.
 Liveness property:
This property states the absence of deadlock and starvation. Two or more sites
should not endlessly wait for messages that will never arrive. In addition, a site must
not wait indefinitely to execute the CS while other sites are repeatedly executing the
CS. That is, every requesting site should get an opportunity to execute the CS in finite
time.
 Fairness:
Fairness in the context of mutual exclusion means that each process gets a fair
chance to execute the CS. In mutual exclusion algorithms, the fairness property
generally means that the CS execution requests are executed in order of their arrival in
the system.

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3.1.3 Performance metrics
 Message complexity: This is the number of messages that are required per CS
execution by a site.
 Synchronization delay: After a site leaves the CS, it is the time required and before
the next site enters the CS. (Figure 3.1)
 Response time: This is the time interval a request waits for its CS execution to be
over after its request messages have been sent out. Thus, response time does not
include the time a request waits at a site before its request messages have been sent
out. (Figure 3.2)
 System throughput: This is the rate at which the system executes requests for the
CS. If SD is the synchronization delay and E is the average critical section execution
time.

Figure 3.1 Synchronization delay

Figure 3.2 Response Time

Low and High Load Performance:
 The performance of mutual exclusion algorithms is classified as two special loading
conditions, viz., “low load” and “high load”.
 The load is determined by the arrival rate of CS execution requests.
 Under low load conditions, there is seldom more than one request for the critical
section present in the system simultaneously.
 Under heavy load conditions, there is always a pending request for critical section at a
site.

Best and worst case performance

 In the best case, prevailing conditions are such that a performance metric attains the
best possible value. For example, the best value of the response time is a roundtrip
message delay plus the CS execution time, 2T +E.

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 For examples, the best and worst values of the response time are achieved when load
is, respectively, low and high;
 The best and the worse message traffic is generated at low and heavy load conditions,
respectively.

3.2 LAMPORT’S ALGORITHM

 Lamport’s Distributed Mutual Exclusion Algorithm is a permission based algorithm
proposed by Lamport as an illustration of his synchronization scheme for distributed
systems.
 In permission based timestamp is used to order critical section requests and to resolve
any conflict between requests.
 In Lamport’s Algorithm critical section requests are executed in the increasing order
of timestamps i.e a request with smaller timestamp will be given permission to
execute critical section first than a request with larger timestamp.
 Three type of messages ( REQUEST, REPLY and RELEASE) are used and
communication channels are assumed to follow FIFO order.
 A site send a REQUEST message to all other site to get their permission to enter
critical section.
 A site send a REPLY message to requesting site to give its permission to enter the
critical section.
 A site send a RELEASE message to all other site upon exiting the critical section.
 Every site Si, keeps a queue to store critical section requests ordered by their
timestamps.
 request_queuei denotes the queue of site Si.
 A timestamp is given to each critical section request using Lamport’s logical clock.
 Timestamp is used to determine priority of critical section requests. Smaller
timestamp gets high priority over larger timestamp. The execution of critical section
request is always in the order of their timestamp.

Fig 3.1: Lamport’s distributed mutual exclusion algorithm

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To enter Critical section:

 When a site Si wants to enter the critical section, it sends a request message
Request(tsi, i) to all other sites and places the request on request_queuei. Here, Tsi
denotes the timestamp of Site Si.
 When a site Sj receives the request message REQUEST(tsi, i) from site Si, it returns a
timestamped REPLY message to site Si and places the request of site Si on
request_queuej

To execute the critical section:

 A site Si can enter the critical section if it has received the message with timestamp
larger than (tsi, i) from all other sites and its own request is at the top of
request_queuei.

To release the critical section:

 When a site Si exits the critical section, it removes its own request from the top of its
request queue and sends a timestamped RELEASE message to all other sites. When a
site Sj receives the timestamped RELEASE message from site Si, it removes the
request of Sia from its request queue.

Correctness
Theorem: Lamport’s algorithm achieves mutual exclusion.
Proof: Proof is by contradiction.
 Suppose two sites Si and Sj are executing the CS concurrently. For this to happen
conditions L1 and L2 must hold at both the sites concurrently.
 This implies that at some instant in time, say t, both Si and Sj have their own requests
at the top of their request queues and condition L1 holds at them. Without loss of
generality, assume that Si ’s request has smaller timestamp than the request of Sj .
 From condition L1 and FIFO property of the communication channels, it is clear that
at instant t the request of Si must be present in request queuej when Sj was executing
its CS. This implies that Sj ’s own request is at the top of its own request queue when
a smaller timestamp request, Si ’s request, is present in the request queuej – a
contradiction!

Theorem: Lamport’s algorithm is fair.

Proof: The proof is by contradiction.
 Suppose a site Si ’s request has a smaller timestamp than the request of another site Sj
and Sj is able to execute the CS before Si .
 For Sj to execute the CS, it has to satisfy the conditions L1 and L2. This implies that
at some instant in time say t, Sj has its own request at the top of its queue and it has
also received a message with timestamp larger than the timestamp of its request from
all other sites.
 But request queue at a site is ordered by timestamp, and according to our assumption
Si has lower timestamp. So Si ’s request must be placed ahead of the Sj ’s request in
the request queuej . This is a contradiction!

Message Complexity:
Lamport’s Algorithm requires invocation of 3(N – 1) messages per critical section execution.
These 3(N – 1) messages involves
 (N – 1) request messages
 (N – 1) reply messages
 (N – 1) release messages

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Drawbacks of Lamport’s Algorithm:

 Unreliable approach: failure of any one of the processes will halt the progress of
entire system.
 High message complexity: Algorithm requires 3(N-1) messages per critical section
invocation.

Performance:
Synchronization delay is equal to maximum message transmission time. It requires 3(N – 1)
messages per CS execution. Algorithm can be optimized to 2(N – 1) messages by omitting
the REPLY message in some situations.

3.3 RICART–AGRAWALA ALGORITHM

 Ricart–Agrawala algorithm is an algorithm to for mutual exclusion in a distributed
system proposed by Glenn Ricart and Ashok Agrawala.
 This algorithm is an extension and optimization of Lamport’s Distributed Mutual
Exclusion Algorithm.
 It follows permission based approach to ensure mutual exclusion.
 Two type of messages ( REQUEST and REPLY) are used and communication
channels are assumed to follow FIFO order.
 A site send a REQUEST message to all other site to get their permission to enter
critical section.
 A site send a REPLY message to other site to give its permission to enter the critical
section.
 A timestamp is given to each critical section request using Lamport’s logical clock.
 Timestamp is used to determine priority of critical section requests.
 Smaller timestamp gets high priority over larger timestamp.
 The execution of critical section request is always in the order of their timestamp.

Fig 3.2: Ricart–Agrawala algorithm

To enter Critical section:

 When a site Si wants to enter the critical section, it send a timestamped REQUEST
message to all other sites.
 When a site Sj receives a REQUEST message from site Si, It sends a REPLY message
to site Si if and only if Site Sj is neither requesting nor currently executing the critical
section.

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 In case Site Sj is requesting, the timestamp of Site Si‘s request is smaller than its own
request.
 Otherwise the request is deferred by site Sj.

To execute the critical section:

Site Si enters the critical section if it has received the REPLY message from all other
sites.

To release the critical section:

Upon exiting site Si sends REPLY message to all the deferred requests.

Theorem: Ricart-Agrawala algorithm achieves mutual exclusion.

Proof: Proof is by contradiction.
 Suppose two sites Si and Sj ‘ are executing the CS concurrently and Si ’s request has
higher priority than the request of Sj . Clearly, Si received Sj ’s request after it has
made its own request.
 Thus, Sj can concurrently execute the CS with Si only if Si returns a REPLY to Sj (in
response to Sj ’s request) before Si exits the CS.
 However, this is impossible because Sj ’s request has lower priority. Therefore,
Ricart-Agrawala algorithm achieves mutual exclusion.

Message Complexity:
Ricart–Agrawala algorithm requires invocation of 2(N – 1) messages per critical section
execution. These 2(N – 1) messages involve:
 (N – 1) request messages
 (N – 1) reply messages

Drawbacks of Ricart–Agrawala algorithm:

 Unreliable approach: failure of any one of node in the system can halt the progress
of the system. In this situation, the process will starve forever. The problem of failure
of node can be solved by detecting failure after some timeout.

Performance:
Synchronization delay is equal to maximum message transmission time It requires
2(N – 1) messages per Critical section execution.

3.4 MAEKAWA‘s ALGORITHM

 Maekawa’s Algorithm is quorum based approach to ensure mutual exclusion in
distributed systems.
 In permission based algorithms like Lamport’s Algorithm, Ricart-Agrawala
Algorithm etc. a site request permission from every other site but in quorum based
approach, a site does not request permission from every other site but from a subset of
sites which is called quorum.
 Three type of messages ( REQUEST, REPLY and RELEASE) are used.
 A site send a REQUEST message to all other site in its request set or quorum to get
their permission to enter critical section.
 A site send a REPLY message to requesting site to give its permission to enter the
critical section.

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 A site send a RELEASE message to all other site in its request set or quorum upon
exiting the critical section.

Fig 3.3: Maekawa‘s Algorithm

The following are the conditions for Maekawa’s algorithm:

Maekawa used the theory of projective planes and showed that N = K(K – 1)+ 1. This
relation gives |Ri|= √N.

To enter Critical section:

 When a site Si wants to enter the critical section, it sends a request message
REQUEST(i) to all other sites in the request set Ri.
 When a site Sj receives the request message REQUEST(i) from site Si, it returns a
REPLY message to site Si if it has not sent a REPLY message to the site from the
time it received the last RELEASE message. Otherwise, it queues up the request.

To execute the critical section:

 A site Si can enter the critical section if it has received the REPLY message from all
the site in request set Ri

To release the critical section:

 When a site Si exits the critical section, it sends RELEASE(i) message to all other
sites in request set Ri
 When a site Sj receives the RELEASE(i) message from site Si, it send REPLY
message to the next site waiting in the queue and deletes that entry from the queue
 In case queue is empty, site Sj update its status to show that it has not sent any
REPLY message since the receipt of the last RELEASE message.

Correctness
Theorem: Maekawa’s algorithm achieves mutual exclusion.
Proof: Proof is by contradiction.
 Suppose two sites Si and Sj are concurrently executing the CS.

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 This means site Si received a REPLY message from all sites in Ri and concurrently
site Sj was able to receive a REPLY message from all sites in Rj .
 If Ri ∩ Rj = {Sk }, then site Sk must have sent REPLY messages to both Si and Sj
concurrently, which is a contradiction

Message Complexity:
Maekawa’s Algorithm requires invocation of 3√N messages per critical section execution as
the size of a request set is √N. These 3√N messages involves.
 √N request messages
 √N reply messages
 √N release messages

Drawbacks of Maekawa’s Algorithm:

This algorithm is deadlock prone because a site is exclusively locked by other sites
and requests are not prioritized by their timestamp.

Performance:
Synchronization delay is equal to twice the message propagation delay time. It requires 3√n
messages per critical section execution.

3.5 SUZUKI–KASAMI‘s BROADCAST ALGORITHM

 Suzuki–Kasami algorithm is a token-based algorithm for achieving mutual exclusion
in distributed systems.
 This is modification of Ricart–Agrawala algorithm, a permission based (Non-token
based) algorithm which uses REQUEST and REPLY messages to ensure mutual
exclusion.
 In token-based algorithms, A site is allowed to enter its critical section if it possesses
the unique token.
 Non-token based algorithms uses timestamp to order requests for the critical section
where as sequence number is used in token based algorithms.
 Each requests for critical section contains a sequence number. This sequence number
is used to distinguish old and current requests.

Fig 3.4: Suzuki–Kasami‘s broadcast algorithm

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To enter Critical section:
 When a site Si wants to enter the critical section and it does not have the token then it
increments its sequence number RNi[i] and sends a request message REQUEST(i, sn)
to all other sites in order to request the token.
 Here sn is update value of RNi[i]
 When a site Sj receives the request message REQUEST(i, sn) from site Si, it sets
RNj[i] to maximum of RNj[i] and sni.eRNj[i] = max(RNj[i], sn).
After updating RNj[i], Site Sj sends the token to site Si if it has token and RNj[i] =
LN[i] + 1

To execute the critical section:

 Site Si executes the critical section if it has acquired the token.

To release the critical section:

After finishing the execution Site Si exits the critical section and does following:
 sets LN[i] = RNi[i] to indicate that its critical section request RNi[i] has been executed
 For every site Sj, whose ID is not prsent in the token queue Q, it appends its ID to Q if
RNj[j] = LN[j] + 1 to indicate that site Sj has an outstanding request.
 After above updation, if the Queue Q is non-empty, it pops a site ID from the Q and
sends the token to site indicated by popped ID.
 If the queue Q is empty, it keeps the token

Correctness
Mutual exclusion is guaranteed because there is only one token in the system and a site holds
the token during the CS execution.
Theorem: A requesting site enters the CS in finite time.
Proof: Token request messages of a site Si reach other sites in finite time.
Since one of these sites will have token in finite time, site Si ’s request will be placed in the
token queue in finite time.
Since there can be at most N − 1 requests in front of this request in the token queue, site Si
will get the token and execute the CS in finite time.

Message Complexity:
The algorithm requires 0 message invocation if the site already holds the idle token at the
time of critical section request or maximum of N message per critical section execution. This
N messages involves
 (N – 1) request messages
 1 reply message

Drawbacks of Suzuki–Kasami Algorithm:

 Non-symmetric Algorithm: A site retains the token even if it does not have requested
for critical section.

Performance:
Synchronization delay is 0 and no message is needed if the site holds the idle token at the
time of its request. In case site does not holds the idle token, the maximum synchronization
delay is equal to maximum message transmission time and a maximum of N message is
required per critical section invocation.

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3.6 DEADLOCK DETECTION IN DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS
Deadlock can neither be prevented nor avoided in distributed system as the system is
so vast that it is impossible to do so. Therefore, only deadlock detection can be implemented.
The techniques of deadlock detection in the distributed system require the following:
 Progress:The method should be able to detect all the deadlocks in the system.
 Safety: The method should not detect false of phantom deadlocks.

There are three approaches to detect deadlocks in distributed systems.

Centralized approach:
 Here there is only one responsible resource to detect deadlock.
 The advantage of this approach is that it is simple and easy to implement, while the
drawbacks include excessive workload at one node, single point failure which in turns
makes the system less reliable.

Distributed approach:
 In the distributed approach different nodes work together to detect deadlocks. No
single point failure as workload is equally divided among all nodes.
 The speed of deadlock detection also increases.

Hierarchical approach:
 This approach is the most advantageous approach.
 It is the combination of both centralized and distributed approaches of deadlock
detection in a distributed system.
 In this approach, some selected nodes or cluster of nodes are responsible for deadlock
detection and these selected nodes are controlled by a single node.

System Model

 A distributed program is composed of a set of n asynchronous processes p1, p2, . .

. , pi , . . . , pn that communicates by message passing over the communication
network.
 Without loss of generality we assume that each process is running on a different
processor.
 The processors do not share a common global memory and communicate solely
by passing messages over the communication network.
 There is no physical global clock in the system to which processes have
instantaneous access.
 The communication medium may deliver messages out of order, messages may be
lost garbled or duplicated due to timeout and retransmission, processors may fail
and communication links may go down.
We make the following assumptions:
 The systems have only reusable resources.
 Processes are allowed to make only exclusive access to resources.
 There is only one copy of each resource.
 A process can be in two states: running or blocked.
 In the running state (also called active state), a process has all the needed
resources and is either executing or is ready for execution.
 In the blocked state, a process is waiting to acquire some resource.
Wait for graph
This is used for deadlock deduction. A graph is drawn based on the request and
acquirement of the resource. If the graph created has a closed loop or a cycle, then there is a
deadlock.

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Fig 3.5: Wait for graph

Preliminaries

3.6.1 Deadlock Handling Strategies

Handling of deadlock becomes highly complicated in distributed systems because no
site has accurate knowledge of the current state of the system and because every inter-site
communication involves a finite and unpredictable delay. There are three strategies for
handling deadlocks:
 Deadlock prevention:
 This is achieved either by having a process acquire all the needed resources
simultaneously before it begins executing or by preempting a process which
holds the needed resource.
 This approach is highly inefficient and impractical in distributed systems.
 Deadlock avoidance:
 A resource is granted to a process if the resulting global system state is safe.
This is impractical in distributed systems.
 Deadlock detection:
 This requires examination of the status of process-resource interactions for
presence of cyclic wait.
 Deadlock detection in distributed systems seems to be the best approach to
handle deadlocks in distributed systems.

3.6.2 Issues in deadlock Detection

Deadlock handling faces two major issues
1. Detection of existing deadlocks
2. Resolutionof detected deadlocks
Deadlock Detection
 Detection of deadlocks involves addressing two issues namely maintenance of the
WFG and searching of the WFG for the presence of cycles or knots.
 In distributed systems, a cycle or knot may involve several sites, the search for cycles
greatly depends upon how the WFG of the system is represented across the system.
 Depending upon the way WFG information is maintained and the search for cycles is
carried out, there are centralized, distributed, and hierarchical algorithms for deadlock
detection in distributed systems.

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Correctness criteria
A deadlock detection algorithm must satisfy the following two conditions:
1. Progress-No undetected deadlocks:
The algorithm must detect all existing deadlocks in finite time. In other words, after all
wait-for dependencies for a deadlock have formed, the algorithm should not wait for any
more events to occur to detect the deadlock.
2. Safety -No false deadlocks:
The algorithm should not report deadlocks which do not exist. This is also called as
called phantom or false deadlocks.

Resolution of a Detected Deadlock

 Deadlock resolution involves breaking existing wait-for dependencies between the
processes to resolve the deadlock.
 It involves rolling back one or more deadlocked processes and assigning their
resources to blocked processes so that they can resume execution.
 The deadlock detection algorithms propagate information regarding wait-for
dependencies along the edges of the wait-for graph.
 When a wait-for dependency is broken, the corresponding information should be
immediately cleaned from the system.
 If this information is not cleaned in a timely manner, it may result in detection of
phantom deadlocks.

3.7 MODELS OF DEADLOCKS

The models of deadlocks are explained based on their hierarchy. The diagrams illustrate
the working of the deadlock models. Pa, Pb, Pc, Pdare passive processes that had already
acquired the resources. Peis active process that is requesting the resource.

3.7.1 Single Resource Model

 A process can have at most one outstanding request for only one unit of a resource.
 The maximum out-degree of a node in a WFG for the single resource model can be 1,
the presence of a cycle in the WFG shall indicate that there is a deadlock.

Fig 3.6: Deadlock in single resource model

3.7.2 AND Model

 In the AND model, a passive process becomes active (i.e., its activation condition is
fulfilled) only after a message from each process in its dependent set has arrived.
 In the AND model, a process can request more than one resource simultaneously and the
request is satisfied only after all the requested resources are granted to the process.
 The requested resources may exist at different locations.
 The out degree of a node in the WFG for AND model can be more than 1.
 The presence of a cycle in the WFG indicates a deadlock in the AND model.
 Each node of the WFG in such a model is called an AND node.

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 In the AND model, if a cycle is detected in the WFG, it implies a deadlock but not vice
versa. That is, a process may not be a part of a cycle, it can still be deadlocked.

Fig 3.7: Deadlock in AND model

3.7.3 OR Model

 A process can make a request for numerous resources simultaneously and the request
is satisfied if any one of the requested resources is granted.
 Presence of a cycle in the WFG of an OR model does not imply a deadlock
in the OR model.
 In the OR model, the presence of a knot indicates a deadlock.

Deadlock in OR model: a process Pi is blocked if it has a pending OR request to be satisfied.

 With every blocked process, there is an associated set of processes called dependent
set.
 A process shall move from an idle to an active state on receiving a grant message
from any of the processes in its dependent set.
 A process is permanently blocked if it never receives a grant message from any of the
processes in its dependent set.
 A set of processes S is deadlocked if all the processes in S are permanently blocked.
 In short, a processis deadlocked or permanently blocked, if the following conditions
are met:
1. Each of the process is the set S is blocked.
2. The dependent set for each process in S is a subset of S.
3. No grant message is in transit between any two processes in set S.
 A blocked process P is the set S becomes active only after receiving a grant message
from a process in its dependent set, which is a subset of S.

Fig 3.8: OR Model

3.7.4 Model (p out of q model)

 This is a variation of AND-OR model.

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 This allows a request to obtain any k available resources from a pool of n resources.
Both the models are the same in expressive power.
 This favours more compact formation of a request.
 Every request in this model can be expressed in the AND-OR model and vice-versa.

 Note that AND requests for p resources can be stated as and OR requests for p

resources can be stated as

Fig 3.9: p out of q Model

3.7.5 Unrestricted model

 No assumptions are made regarding the underlying structure of resource requests.
 In this model, only one assumption that the deadlock is stable is made and hence it is
the most general model.
 This model helps separate concerns: Concerns about properties of the problem
(stability and deadlock) are separated from underlying distributed systems
computations (e.g., message passing versus synchronous communication).

3.8 KNAPP’S CLASSIFICATION OF DISTRIBUTED DEADLOCK DETECTION

ALGORITHMS
The four classes of distributed deadlock detection algorithm are:
1. Path-pushing
2. Edge-chasing
3. Diffusion computation
4. Global state detection

3.8.1 Path Pushing algorithms

 In path pushing algorithm, the distributed deadlock detection are detected by

maintaining an explicit global wait for graph.
 The basic idea is to build a global WFG (Wait For Graph) for each site of the
distributed system.
 At each site whenever deadlock computation is performed, it sends its local WFG to
all the neighbouring sites.
 After the local data structure of each site is updated, this updated WFG is then passed
along to other sites, and the procedure is repeated until some site has a sufficiently
complete picture of the global state to announce deadlock or to establish that no
deadlocks are present.
 This feature of sending around the paths of global WFGhas led to the term path-
pushing algorithms.
Examples:Menasce-Muntz , Gligor and Shattuck, Ho and Ramamoorthy, Obermarck

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3.8.2 Edge Chasing Algorithms
 The presence of a cycle in a distributed graph structure is be verified by propagating
special messages called probes, along the edges of the graph.
 These probe messages are different than the request and reply messages.
 The formation of cycle can be deleted by a site if it receives the matching probe sent
by it previously.
 Whenever a process that is executing receives a probe message, it discards this
message and continues.
 Only blocked processes propagate probe messages along their outgoing edges.
 Main advantage of edge-chasing algorithms is that probes are fixed size messages
which is normally very short.
Examples:Chandy et al., Choudhary et al., Kshemkalyani–Singhal, Sinha–Natarajan
algorithms.

3.8.3 Diffusing Computation Based Algorithms

 In diffusion computation based distributed deadlock detection algorithms, deadlock
detection computation is diffused through the WFG of the system.
 These algorithms make use of echo algorithms to detect deadlocks.
 This computation is superimposed on the underlying distributed computation.
 If this computation terminates, the initiator declares a deadlock.
 To detect a deadlock, a process sends out query messages along all the outgoing edges in
the WFG.
 These queries are successively propagated (i.e., diffused) through the edges of the WFG.
 When a blocked process receives first query message for a particular deadlock detection
initiation, it does not send a reply message until it has received a reply message for
every query it sent.
 For all subsequent queries for this deadlock detection initiation, it immediately sends
back a reply message.
 The initiator of a deadlock detection detects a deadlock when it receives reply for every
query it had sent out.
Examples:Chandy–Misra–Haas algorithm for one OR model, Chandy–Herman algorithm

3.8.4 Global state detection-based algorithms

Global state detection based deadlock detection algorithms exploit the following facts:
1. A consistent snapshot of a distributed system can be obtained without freezing the
underlying computation.
2. If a stable property holds in the system before the snapshot collection is initiated, this
property will still hold in the snapshot.

Therefore, distributed deadlocks can be detected by taking a snapshot of the system and
examining it for the condition of a deadlock

3.9 MITCHELL AND MERRITT’S ALGORITHM FOR THE SINGLE-RESOURCE

MODEL
 This deadlock detection algorithm assumes a single resource model.
 This detects the local and global deadlocks each process has assumed two different
labels namely private and public each label is accountant the process id guarantees
only one process will detect a deadlock.

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 Probes are sent in the opposite direction to the edges of the WFG.
 When a probe initiated by a process comes back to it, the process declares deadlock.

Features:
1. Only one process in a cycle detects the deadlock. This simplifies the deadlock
resolution – this process can abort itself to resolve the deadlock. This algorithm can
be improvised by including priorities, and the lowest priority process in a cycle
detects deadlock and aborts.
2. In this algorithm, a process that is detected in deadlock is aborted spontaneously, even
though under this assumption phantom deadlocks cannot be excluded. It can be
shown, however, that only genuine deadlocks will be detected in the absence of
spontaneous aborts.

Each node of the WFG has two local variables, called labels:
1. a private label, which is unique to the node at all times, though it is not constant.
2. a public label, which can be read by other processes and which may not be unique.

Each process is represented as u/v where u and u are the public and private labels,
respectively. Initially, private and public labels are equal for each process. A global WFG
is maintained and it defines the entire state sof the system.

 The algorithm is defined by the four state transitions as shown in Fig.3.10, where z =
inc(u, v), and inc(u, v) yields aunique label greater than both u and v labels that are
notshown do not change.
 The transitions in the defined by the algorithm are block, activate , transmit and
detect.
 Block creates an edge in the WFG.
 Two messages are needed, one resource request and onemessage back to the blocked
process to inform it of thepublic label of the process it is waiting for.
 Activate denotes that a process has acquired the resourcefrom the process it was
waiting for.
 Transmit propagates larger labels in the opposite directionof the edges by sending a
probe message.

Fig 3.10: Four possible state transitions

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 Detect means that the probe with the private label of some process has returned to it,
indicating a deadlock.
 This algorithm can easily be extended to include priorities, so that whenever a
deadlock occurs, the lowest priority process gets aborted.
 This priority based algorithm has two phases.
1. The first phase is almost identical to the algorithm.
2. The second phase the smallest priority is propagated around the circle. The
propagation stops when one process recognizes the propagated priority as its
own.

Message Complexity:
If we assume that a deadlock persists long enough to be detected, the worst-case complexity
of the algorithm is s(s - 1)/2 Transmit steps, where s is the number of processes in the cycle.

3.10 CHANDY–MISRA–HAAS ALGORITHM FOR THE AND MODEL

 This is considered an edge-chasing, probe-based algorithm.
 It is also considered one of the best deadlock detection algorithms for distributed
systems.
 If a process makes a request for a resource which fails or times out, the process
generates a probe message and sends it to each of the processes holding one or more
of its requested resources.
 This algorithm uses a special message called probe, which is a triplet (i, j,k), denoting
that it belongs to a deadlock detection initiated for process Pi andit is being sent by
the home site of process Pj to the home site of process Pk.
 Each probe message contains the following information:
 the id of the process that is blocked (the one that initiates the probe message);
 the id of the process is sending this particular version of the probe message;
 the id of the process that should receive this probe message.
 A probe message travels along the edges of the global WFG graph, and a deadlock is
detected when a probe message returns to the process that initiated it.
 A process Pj is said to be dependent on another process Pk if there exists a sequence of
processes Pj, Pi1 , Pi2 , . . . , Pim, Pksuch that each process except Pkin the sequence is
blocked and each process, except the Pj, holds a resource for which the previous
process in the sequence is waiting.
 Process Pj is said to be locally dependent upon process Pk if Pj is dependent upon
Pkand both the processes are on the same site.
 When a process receives a probe message,it checks to see if it is also waiting for
resources
 If not, it is currently using the needed resource and will eventually finish and release
the resource.
 If it is waiting for resources, it passes on the probe message to all processes it knows
to be holding resources it has itself requested.
 The process first modifies the probe message, changing the sender and receiver ids.
 If a process receives a probe message that it recognizes as having initiated,it knows
there is a cycle in the system and thus, deadlock.

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Data structures
Each process Pi maintains a boolean array, dependenti, where dependent(j) is true only if Pi
knows that Pj is dependent on it. Initially, dependenti (j) is false for all i and j.

Fig 3.11: Chandy–Misra–Haas algorithm for the AND model

Performance analysis
 In the algorithm, one probe message is sent on every edge of the WFG which
connects processes on two sites.
 The algorithm exchanges at most m(n − 1)/2 messages to detect a deadlock that
involves m processes and spans over n sites.
 The size of messages is fixed and is very small (only three integer words).
 The delay in detecting a deadlock is O(n).

Advantages:
 It is easy to implement.
 Each probe message is of fixed length.
 There is very little computation.
 There is very little overhead.
 There is no need to construct a graph, nor to pass graph information to other sites.
 This algorithm does not find false (phantom) deadlock.
 There is no need for special data structures.

3.11 CHANDY–MISRA–HAAS ALGORITHM FOR THE OR MODEL

 A blocked process determines if it is deadlocked by initiating a diffusion computation.
 Two types of messages are used in a diffusion computation:
 query(i, j, k)
 reply(i, j, k)

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denoting that they belong to a diffusion computation initiated by a process pi and are being
sent from process pj to process pk.
 A blocked process initiates deadlock detection by sending query messages to all
processes in its dependent set.
 If an active process receives a query or reply message, it discards it.
 When a blocked process Pk receives a query(i, j, k) message, it takes the following
actions:
1. If this is the first query message received by Pk for the deadlock detection
initiated by Pi, then it propagates the query to all the processes in its dependent
set and sets a local variable numk (i) to the number of query messages sent.
2. If this is not the engaging query, then Pk returns a reply message to it
immediately provided Pk has been continuously blocked since it received the
corresponding engaging query. Otherwise, it discards the query.
 Process Pk maintains a boolean variable waitk(i) that denotes the fact that it
has been continuously blocked since it received the last engaging query from
process Pi.
 When a blocked process Pk receives a reply(i, j, k) message, it decrements
numk(i) only if waitk(i) holds.
 A process sends a reply message in response to an engaging query only after it
has received a reply to every query message it has sent out for this engaging
query.
 The initiator process detects a deadlock when it has received reply messages to
all the query messages it has sent out.

Fig 3.12: Chandy–Misra–Haas algorithm for the OR model

Performance analysis
 For every deadlock detection, the algorithm exchanges e query messages ande reply
messages, where e = n(n – 1) is the number of edges.

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