Chapter 6: Process

Synchronization

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Module 6: Process Synchronization

 Background
 The Critical-Section Problem
 Peterson’s Solution
 Synchronization Hardware
 Semaphores
 Classic Problems of Synchronization

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Objectives
 To introduce the critical-section problem, whose solutions can be used to
ensure the consistency of shared data

 To present both software and hardware solutions of the critical-section problem

 To introduce the concept of an atomic transaction and describe mechanisms to

ensure atomicity

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Background

 Concurrent access to shared data may result in data inconsistency

 Maintaining data consistency requires mechanisms to ensure the orderly

execution of cooperating processes

 Suppose that we wanted to provide a solution to the consumer-producer

problem that fills all the buffers. We can do so by having an integer count that
keeps track of the number of full buffers. Initially, count is set to 0. It is
incremented by the producer after it produces a new buffer and is
decremented by the consumer after it consumes a buffer.

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Producer

while (true) {

/* produce an item and put in nextProduced */

while (counter == BUFFER_SIZE)
; // do nothing
buffer [in] = nextProduced;
in = (in + 1) % BUFFER_SIZE;
counter++;
}

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Consumer

while (true) {
while (counter == 0)
; // do nothing
nextConsumed = buffer[out];
out = (out + 1) % BUFFER_SIZE;
counter--;

/* consume the item in nextConsumed */

}

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Race Condition
 counter++ could be implemented as

register1 = counter
register1 = register1 + 1
counter = register1

 counter-- could be implemented as

register2 = counter
register2 = register2 - 1
count = register2

 Consider this execution interleaving with “count = 5” initially:

S0: producer execute register1 = counter {register1 = 5}
S1: producer execute register1 = register1 + 1 {register1 = 6}
S2: consumer execute register2 = counter {register2 = 5}
S3: consumer execute register2 = register2 - 1 {register2 = 4}
S4: producer execute counter = register1 {count = 6 }
S5: consumer execute counter = register2 {count = 4}

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Critical Section Problem
 Consider system of n processes {p0, p1, … pn-1}
 Each process has critical section segment of code
 Process may be changing common variables, updating table, writing file, etc
 When one process in critical section, no other may be in its critical section
 Critical section problem is to design protocol to solve this
 Each process must ask permission to enter critical section in entry section, may
follow critical section with exit section, then remainder section
 Especially challenging with preemptive kernels

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Critical Section
 General structure of process pi is

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Solution to Critical-Section Problem
1. Mutual Exclusion - If process Pi is executing in its critical section, then no other
processes can be executing in their critical sections

2. Progress - If no process is executing in its critical section and there exist some
processes that wish to enter their critical section, then the selection of the
processes that will enter the critical section next cannot be postponed
indefinitely

3. 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
 Assume that each process executes at a nonzero speed
 No assumption concerning relative speed of the n processes

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Peterson’s Solution
 Two process solution

 Assume that the LOAD and STORE instructions are atomic; that is, cannot
be interrupted

 The two processes share two variables:

 int turn;
 Boolean flag[2]

 The variable turn indicates whose turn it is to enter the critical section

 The flag array is used to indicate if a process is ready to enter the critical
section. flag[i] = true implies that process Pi is ready!

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Algorithm for Process Pi

do {
flag[i] = TRUE;
turn = j;
while (flag[j] && turn == j);
critical section
flag[i] = FALSE;
remainder section
} while (TRUE);

 Provable that
1. Mutual exclusion is preserved
2. Progress requirement is satisfied
3. Bounded-waiting requirement is met

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Synchronization Hardware
 Many systems provide hardware support for critical section code

 Uniprocessors – could disable interrupts

 Currently running code would execute without preemption
 Generally too inefficient on multiprocessor systems
 Operating systems using this not broadly scalable

 Modern machines provide special atomic hardware instructions

 Atomic = non-interruptable
 Either test memory word and set value
 Or swap contents of two memory words

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Solution to Critical-section
Problem Using Locks
do {
acquire lock
critical section
release lock
remainder section
} while (TRUE);

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 TestAndSet Instruction

 Definition:

boolean TestAndSet (boolean *target)

{
boolean rv = *target;
*target = TRUE;
return rv:
}

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Solution using TestAndSet
 Shared boolean variable lock, initialized to FALSE
 Solution:

do {
while ( TestAndSet (&lock ))
; // do nothing

// critical section

lock = FALSE;

// remainder section

} while (TRUE);

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Swap Instruction

 Definition:

void Swap (boolean *a, boolean *b)

{
boolean temp = *a;
*a = *b;
*b = temp:
}

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Solution using Swap
 Shared Boolean variable lock initialized to FALSE; Each process has a local Boolean
variable key
 Solution:
do {
key = TRUE;
while ( key == TRUE)
Swap (&lock, &key );

// critical section

lock = FALSE;

// remainder section

} while (TRUE);

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Bounded-waiting Mutual Exclusion
with TestandSet()
do {
waiting[i] = TRUE;
key = TRUE;
while (waiting[i] && key)
key = TestAndSet(&lock);
waiting[i] = FALSE;
// critical section
j = (i + 1) % n;
while ((j != i) && !waiting[j])
j = (j + 1) % n;
if (j == i)
lock = FALSE;
else
waiting[j] = FALSE;
// remainder section
} while (TRUE);

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Semaphore
 Synchronization tool that does not require busy waiting
 Semaphore S – integer variable
 Two standard operations modify S: wait() and signal()
 Originally called P() and V()
 Less complicated
 Can only be accessed via two indivisible (atomic) operations
 wait (S) {
while S <= 0
; // no-op
S--;
}
 signal (S) {
S++;
}

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Semaphore as
General Synchronization Tool
 Counting semaphore – integer value can range over an unrestricted domain
 Binary semaphore – integer value can range only between 0
and 1; can be simpler to implement
 Also known as mutex locks
 Can implement a counting semaphore S as a binary semaphore
 Provides mutual exclusion
Semaphore mutex; // initialized to 1
do {
wait (mutex);
// Critical Section
signal (mutex);
// remainder section
} while (TRUE);

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Semaphore Implementation
 Must guarantee that no two processes can execute wait () and signal () on the
same semaphore at the same time

 Thus, implementation becomes the critical section problem where the wait and
signal code are placed in the crtical section
 Could now have busy waiting in critical section implementation
 But implementation code is short
 Little busy waiting if critical section rarely occupied

 Note that applications may spend lots of time in critical sections and therefore
this is not a good solution

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Semaphore Implementation
with no Busy waiting

 With each semaphore there is an associated waiting queue

 Each entry in a waiting queue has two data items:
 value (of type integer)
 pointer to next record in the list

 Two operations:
 block – place the process invoking the operation on the appropriate
waiting queue
 wakeup – remove one of processes in the waiting queue and place it in
the ready queue

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Semaphore Implementation with
no Busy waiting (Cont.)
 Implementation of wait:
wait(semaphore *S) {
S->value--;
if (S->value < 0) {
add this process to S->list;
block();
}
}
 Implementation of signal:

signal(semaphore *S) {
S->value++;
if (S->value <= 0) {
remove a process P from S->list;
wakeup(P);
}
}

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Deadlock and Starvation
 Deadlock – two or more processes are waiting indefinitely for an event that can be caused
by only one of the waiting processes
 Let S and Q be two semaphores initialized to 1
P0 P1
wait (S); wait (Q);
wait (Q); wait (S);
. .
. .
. .
signal (S); signal (Q);
signal (Q); signal (S);
 Starvation – indefinite blocking
 A process may never be removed from the semaphore queue in which it is suspended
 Priority Inversion – Scheduling problem when lower-priority process holds a lock needed
by higher-priority process
 Solved via priority-inheritance protocol

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Classical Problems of Synchronization
 Classical problems used to test newly-proposed synchronization schemes

 Bounded-Buffer Problem

 Readers and Writers Problem

 Dining-Philosophers Problem

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Bounded-Buffer Problem
 N buffers, each can hold one item

 Semaphore mutex initialized to the value 1

 Semaphore full initialized to the value 0

 Semaphore empty initialized to the value N

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Bounded Buffer Problem (Cont.)
 The structure of the producer process

do {

// produce an item in nextp

wait (empty);
wait (mutex);

// add the item to the buffer

signal (mutex);
signal (full);
} while (TRUE);

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Bounded Buffer Problem (Cont.)
 The structure of the consumer process

do {
wait (full);
wait (mutex);

// remove an item from buffer to nextc

signal (mutex);
signal (empty);

// consume the item in nextc

} while (TRUE);

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Readers-Writers Problem
 A data set is shared among a number of concurrent processes
 Readers – only read the data set; they do not perform any updates
 Writers – can both read and write

 Problem – allow multiple readers to read at the same time

 Only one single writer can access the shared data at the same time

 Several variations of how readers and writers are treated – all involve priorities

 Shared Data
 Data set
 Semaphore mutex initialized to 1
 Semaphore wrt initialized to 1
 Integer readcount initialized to 0

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Readers-Writers Problem (Cont.)
 The structure of a writer process

do {
wait (wrt) ;

// writing is performed

signal (wrt) ;
} while (TRUE);

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Readers-Writers Problem (Cont.)
 The structure of a reader process

do {
wait (mutex) ;
readcount ++ ;
if (readcount == 1)
wait (wrt) ;
signal (mutex)

// reading is performed

wait (mutex) ;
readcount - - ;
if (readcount == 0)
signal (wrt) ;
signal (mutex) ;
} while (TRUE);

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.32 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Readers-Writers Problem Variations
 First variation – no reader kept waiting unless writer has permission to use shared
object

 Second variation – once writer is ready, it performs write asap

 Both may have starvation leading to even more variations

 Problem is solved on some systems by kernel providing reader-writer locks

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Dining-Philosophers Problem

 Philosophers spend their lives thinking and eating

 Don’t interact with their neighbors, occasionally try to pick up 2 chopsticks (one at a time) to eat from bowl
 Need both to eat, then release both when done
 In the case of 5 philosophers
 Shared data
 Bowl of rice (data set)
 Semaphore chopstick [5] initialized to 1

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.34 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Dining-Philosophers Problem Algorithm
 The structure of Philosopher i:

do {
wait ( chopstick[i] );
wait ( chopStick[ (i + 1) % 5] );

// eat

signal ( chopstick[i] );
signal (chopstick[ (i + 1) % 5] );

// think

} while (TRUE);

 What is the problem with this algorithm?

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.35 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Problems with Semaphores
 Incorrect use of semaphore operations:

 signal (mutex) …. wait (mutex)

 wait (mutex) … wait (mutex)

 Omitting of wait (mutex) or signal (mutex) (or both)

 Deadlock and starvation

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 6.36 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 End of Chapter 6

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009