Chapter 8: Deadlocks

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Outline

▪ System Model
▪ Deadlock Characterization
▪ Methods for Handling Deadlocks
▪ Deadlock Prevention
▪ Deadlock Avoidance
▪ Deadlock Detection
▪ Recovery from Deadlock

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Chapter Objectives

▪ Illustrate how deadlock can occur when mutex locks are used
▪ Define the four necessary conditions that characterize deadlock
▪ Identify a deadlock situation in a resource allocation graph
▪ Evaluate the four different approaches for preventing deadlocks
▪ Apply the banker’s algorithm for deadlock avoidance
▪ Evaluate approaches for recovering from deadlock

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 System Model

▪ System consists of resources

▪ 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

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Deadlock with Semaphores

▪ Data:
• A semaphore S1 initialized to 1
• A semaphore S2 initialized to 1
▪ Two processes P1 and P2
▪ P1:
wait(s1)
wait(s2)
▪ P2:
wait(s2)
wait(s1)

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 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, …, Pn} 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 Pn is waiting for
a resource that is held by P0.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Resource-Allocation Graph

A set of vertices V and a set of edges E.

▪ V is partitioned into 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 Pi → Rj

▪ assignment edge – directed edge Rj → Pi

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Resource Allocation Graph Example

▪ One instance of R1
▪ Two instances of R2
▪ One instance of R3
▪ Three instance of R4
▪ T1 holds one instance of R2 and is
waiting for an instance of R1
▪ T2 holds one instance of R1, one
instance of R2, and is waiting for an
instance of R3
▪ T3 is holds one instance of R3

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Resource Allocation Graph with a Deadlock

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 Graph with a Cycle But no Deadlock

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 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

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Methods for Handling Deadlocks

▪ Ensure that the system will never enter a deadlock state:

• Deadlock prevention
• Deadlock avoidance
▪ Allow the system to enter a deadlock state and then recover
▪ Ignore the problem and pretend that deadlocks never occur in the
system.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Deadlock Prevention
Invalidate one of the four necessary conditions for deadlock:

▪ Mutual Exclusion – not required for sharable resources (e.g.,

read-only files); 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 allocated to it.
• Low resource utilization; starvation possible

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 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

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Deadlock Avoidance
Requires that the system has some additional a priori information
available
▪ Simplest and most useful model requires that each process declare
the maximum number of resources of each type that it may need
▪ The deadlock-avoidance algorithm dynamically examines the
resource-allocation state to ensure that there can never be a
circular-wait condition
▪ Resource-allocation state is defined by the number of available and
allocated resources, and the maximum demands of the processes

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 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 sequence <P1, P2, …, Pn>
of ALL the processes in the systems such that 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
▪ That is:
• 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
• When Pi terminates, Pi +1 can obtain its needed resources, and
so on

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 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.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Safe, Unsafe, Deadlock State

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Avoidance Algorithms
▪ Single instance of a resource type
• Use a resource-allocation graph

▪ Multiple instances of a resource type

• Use the Banker’s Algorithm

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Resource-Allocation Graph Scheme
▪ Claim edge Pi → Rj indicated that process Pj may request resource Rj;
represented by a dashed line
▪ Claim edge converts to request edge when a process requests a
resource
▪ Request edge converted to an assignment edge when the resource is
allocated to the process
▪ When a resource is released by a process, assignment edge
reconverts to a claim edge
▪ Resources must be claimed a priori in the system

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Resource-Allocation Graph

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 Unsafe State In Resource-Allocation Graph

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Resource-Allocation Graph Algorithm
▪ Suppose that process Pi requests a resource Rj
▪ The request can be granted only if converting the request edge to an
assignment edge does not result in the formation of a cycle in the
resource allocation graph

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Banker’s Algorithm
▪ Multiple instances of resources

▪ Each process must a priori claim maximum use

▪ When a process requests a resource it may have to wait

▪ When a process gets all its resources it must return them in a finite
amount of time

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Data Structures for the Banker’s Algorithm
Let n = number of processes, and m = number of resources types.

▪ Available: Vector of length m. If available [j] = k, there are k

instances of resource type Rj available

▪ Max: n x m matrix. If Max [i,j] = k, then process Pi may request at

most k instances of resource type Rj

▪ Allocation: n x m matrix. If Allocation[i,j] = k then Pi is currently

allocated k instances of Rj

▪ Need: n x m matrix. If Need[i,j] = k, then Pi may need k more

instances of Rj to complete its task

Need [i,j] = Max[i,j] – Allocation [i,j]

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Example of Banker’s Algorithm

▪ 5 processes P0 through P4;

3 resource types:
A (10 instances), B (5instances), and C (7 instances)
▪ Snapshot at time T0:
Allocation Max Available
ABC ABC ABC
P0 010 753 332
P1 200 322
P2 302 902
P3 211 222
P4 002 433

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Example (Cont.)
▪ The content of the matrix Need is defined to be Max – Allocation

Need
ABC
P0 743
P1 122
P2 600
P3 011
P4 431

▪ The system is in a safe state since the sequence < P1, P3, P4, P2, P0>
satisfies safety criteria

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Example: P1 Request (1,0,2)
▪ Check that Request  Available (that is, (1,0,2)  (3,3,2)  true
Allocation Need Available
ABC ABC ABC
P0 010 743 230
P1 302 020
P2 302 600
P3 211 011
P4 002 431

▪ Executing safety algorithm shows that sequence < P1, P3, P4, P0, P2>
satisfies safety requirement

▪ Can request for (3,3,0) by P4 be granted?

▪ Can request for (0,2,0) by P0 be granted?

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Deadlock Detection

▪ Allow system to enter deadlock state

▪ Detect

▪ Recover

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 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?

1. Priority of the process
2. How long process has computed, and how much longer to
completion
3. Resources the process has used
4. Resources process needs to complete
5. How many processes will need to be terminated
6. Is process interactive or batch?

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 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

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 End of Chapter 8

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018