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The document discusses key concepts in operating systems, including race conditions, critical sections, and process synchronization. It explains the requirements for solving the critical-section problem, describes Peterson's solution, and details the role of mutexes in ensuring mutual exclusion during resource access. The significance of process synchronization is emphasized, highlighting its importance in preventing race conditions and ensuring efficient operation of concurrent processes.

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2 views

OS Assignment

The document discusses key concepts in operating systems, including race conditions, critical sections, and process synchronization. It explains the requirements for solving the critical-section problem, describes Peterson's solution, and details the role of mutexes in ensuring mutual exclusion during resource access. The significance of process synchronization is emphasized, highlighting its importance in preventing race conditions and ensuring efficient operation of concurrent processes.

Uploaded by

artsketch40
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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CO3: Assignment 1

Operating Systems
1. What is Race condition?
A race condition can occur when two or more processes are competing for access to the CPU,
and the final outcome of the scheduling depends on the order in which these processes are
selected to run.
For example, imagine two processes are competing for the CPU, and the scheduling
algorithm uses a simple round-robin approach, where each process is allocated a fixed time
slice to execute. If one process requires more CPU time than the other, it may be delayed if it
is not selected to run before the time slice of the competing process expires. This can lead to
unpredictable behavior and potentially impact the performance of the system.
To avoid race conditions in process scheduling, advanced scheduling algorithms are used,
such as priority-based scheduling, where processes are assigned a priority value based on
various factors, such as their importance, resource requirements, and time constraints. The
scheduling algorithm then selects the process with the highest priority for execution, ensuring
that critical processes are given priority over less important ones.
Another technique to prevent race conditions in process scheduling is the use of
synchronization mechanisms such as semaphores or mutexes, which allow processes to
coordinate their access to shared resources such as the CPU or I/O devices, and prevent two
processes from accessing the same resource simultaneously, which can lead to conflicts and
unpredictable behaviour
2. What is Critical Section? Explain.
A critical section refers to a segment of code or a region of memory that is accessed by
multiple processes or threads simultaneously. Critical sections are important because they can
lead to race conditions or other synchronization problems, such as deadlocks or livelocks.
To prevent these issues, concurrent programming techniques such as locking or
synchronization mechanisms are used to ensure that only one process or thread can access the
critical section at a time. This ensures that the execution of the critical section is atomic,
meaning that it is executed as a single, indivisible operation, without interference from other
processes or threads.
For example, consider a system with multiple processes that need to write to a shared file. To
avoid race conditions, each process must be allowed to write to the file exclusively, one at a
time. To achieve this, the operating system can use a synchronization mechanism such as a
mutex, which allows only one process to acquire the lock at a time, and all other processes
are blocked until the lock is released.
The critical section is the segment of code that accesses the shared resource, such as the code
that writes to the file. To ensure that the critical section is executed atomically, the code is
enclosed in a lock or synchronization mechanism that prevents other processes or threads
from accessing it concurrently.
3. What are the requirements to be satisfied for a solution to the critical-section
problem?

To provide a correct and effective solution to the critical-section problem, the solution must
satisfy the following requirements:
Mutual Exclusion: Only one process can be in the critical section at a time. If a process is
executing in its critical section, no other process should be allowed to enter its critical
section.
Progress: If no process is executing in its critical section, and there are several processes that
wish to enter their critical section, then the selection of the process that will enter its critical
section next cannot be postponed indefinitely. In other words, the solution should ensure that
every process that requests access to its critical section eventually enters it.
Bounded Waiting: A bound must exist on the number of times that other processes are
allowed to enter their critical sections after a process has made a request to enter its critical
section and before that request is granted. This ensures that no process is starved of access to
its critical section indefinitely.
These requirements ensure that the solution is correct, free from deadlock and livelock, and
that it satisfies the necessary synchronization constraints to prevent race conditions or other
synchronization problems. The solution can be implemented using various synchronization
mechanisms such as semaphores, monitors, or other forms of concurrency control.

4. 4. Explain How Peterson’s Solution Solves the Critical Section Problem.


Peterson's solution is a classic algorithm that provides a solution to the critical section
problem for two processes. It is based on the use of shared variables and busy-waiting, and it
satisfies the requirements of mutual exclusion, progress, and bounded waiting.
The basic idea behind Peterson's solution is that each process must indicate its intent to enter
the critical section and must wait until the other process has completed its critical section or
has indicated that it does not wish to enter its critical section
Write about wait and signal from notes.
Peterson's solution ensures mutual exclusion because only one process can be in its critical
section at a time. If a process is in its critical section, the other process will be waiting in the
busy-wait loop until the first process has exited its critical section.
Peterson's solution also ensures progress because if a process wants to enter its critical
section, it will eventually enter it, provided that the other process is not already in its critical
section.
5. What is Process Synchronisation? and Explain its Significance.
Process synchronization refers to the coordination of processes in a concurrent system to
ensure that they operate correctly and efficiently, without interfering with each other. In other
words, process synchronization involves controlling the access to shared resources, such as
memory, files, or devices, to prevent race conditions, deadlocks, or other synchronization
problems.
The significance of process synchronization lies in its ability to ensure that concurrent
processes can cooperate and communicate effectively and safely, without causing
interference or conflicts. Without proper process synchronization, concurrent processes may
access shared resources concurrently, leading to race conditions, where the outcome of the
execution depends on the order of the processes or other factors that are difficult to predict or
control.
Process synchronization also plays a crucial role in ensuring the correct operation of critical
sections of code or memory, which are areas that must be accessed by only one process at a
time to prevent synchronization problems, such as deadlocks, where two or more processes
are blocked waiting for each other to release shared resources, or livelocks, where two or
more processes are actively trying to acquire shared resources but are unable to make
progress.
Process synchronization can be achieved using various synchronization mechanisms, such as
semaphores, mutexes, monitors, or message passing. These mechanisms provide a way to
control access to shared resources and ensure that only one process at a time can access the
resource or that processes can communicate and cooperate effectively and safely.
6. What is Mutex ? Explain in Detail.
A mutex (short for mutual exclusion) is a synchronization mechanism that is used to ensure
that only one process or thread can access a shared resource at a time. A mutex provides a
way to enforce mutual exclusion, which is the requirement that only one process at a time can
access a shared resource to prevent race conditions, deadlocks, or other synchronization
problems.
A mutex works by allowing a process to acquire and release a lock that controls access to a
shared resource. When a process acquires a mutex, it gains exclusive access to the shared
resource, and all other processes are blocked from accessing the resource until the mutex is
released. Once the process has finished accessing the shared resource, it releases the mutex,
allowing other processes to acquire the lock and access the shared resource in turn.
Mutexes are typically used in multithreaded or multiprocessing systems, where multiple
threads or processes are running concurrently and need to access shared resources. For
example, in a database application, a mutex may be used to ensure that only one thread at a
time can update a record in the database to prevent data corruption or inconsistency.
Mutexes can be implemented using various mechanisms, such as semaphores, spin locks, or
other locking primitives provided by the operating system or programming language. The
choice of mutex implementation depends on factors such as performance, scalability, and the
synchronization requirements of the application.
One potential issue with mutexes is the possibility of deadlock, where two or more processes
are blocked waiting for each other to release the mutex. To prevent deadlock, it is essential to
design the mutex acquisition and release logic carefully and ensure that mutexes are released
in a timely manner.

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