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deadlocks-tutorial-sol

The document discusses deadlocks in operating systems, providing examples of how processes can be deadlocked even if they are not in a circular chain. It explains the banker’s algorithm and scenarios where resource requests can lead to potential deadlocks. Additionally, it addresses the state of a single-processor system with no processes ready or running, clarifying that it is not considered deadlocked due to the presence of an idle process.

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16 views

deadlocks-tutorial-sol

The document discusses deadlocks in operating systems, providing examples of how processes can be deadlocked even if they are not in a circular chain. It explains the banker’s algorithm and scenarios where resource requests can lead to potential deadlocks. Additionally, it addresses the state of a single-processor system with no processes ready or running, clarifying that it is not considered deadlocked due to the presence of an idle process.

Uploaded by

mustafa.7861
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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C211 – Operating Systems

Tutorial: Deadlocks
– Answers –

1. Suppose that there is a resource deadlock in a system. Give an example to show that the set of pro-
cesses deadlocked can include processes that are not in the circular chain in the corresponding resource
allocation graph.
Consider three processes A, B and C, and two resources R and S. Suppose A is waiting for R that is held
by B, B is waiting for S held by A, and C is waiting for R held by B. All three processes, A, B and C are
deadlocked. However, only A and B belong to the circular chain.
2. Consider a system that uses the banker’s algorithm to avoid deadlocks. At some time a process P requests
a resource R, but is denied even though R is currently available. Does it mean that if the system allocated
R to P, the system would deadlock?
No. An available resource is denied to a requesting process in a system using the banker’s algorithm if
there is a possibility that the system may deadlock by granting that request. It is certainly possible that
the system may not have deadlocked if that request was granted.
3. Two processes, A and B, each need three records, 1, 2, and 3, in a database. If A asks for them in the
order 1, 2, 3, and B asks for them in the same order, deadlock is not possible. However, if B asks for
them in the order 3, 2, 1, then deadlock is possible. With three resources, there are 3! = 6 possible
combinations each process can request resources. What fraction of all combinations is guaranteed to be
deadlock free?
Answer: Suppose that process A requests the records in the order a, b, c. If process B also asks for
a first, one of them will get it and the other will block. This situation is always deadlock free since the
winner can now run to completion without interference. The other four combinations can be similarly
reasoned about and shown to lead to possible deadlock:
(1) a b c: deadlock free
(2) a c b: deadlock free
(3) b a c: possible deadlock
(4) b c a: possible deadlock
(5) c a b: possible deadlock
(6) c b a: possible deadlock
So only one third of the cases are guaranteed to be deadlock free.
4. Can a single-processor system have no processes ready and no process running? Is this a deadlocked
system? Explain your answer.
In theory, we might have a single blocked process waiting for an I/O completion; when the completion
occurs, the blocked process proceeds to the ready state (or even directly to the running state). However,
in practice, most architectures require a valid process to execute at all times. Therefore, many operating
systems assign an idle process created by the kernel to execute when no other processes are ready.
Although this system may appear not to be doing anything, it is not dead in the sense that as soon as the
I/O completion interrupt arrives, the system will indeed resume operation.

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