Chapter 6: Process Synchronization
Background
The Critical-Section Problem
Petersons Solution Synchronization Hardware Semaphores Classic Problems of Synchronization
Monitors
Synchronization Examples
Operating System Concepts
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Background
Concurrent access to shared data may result in data inconsistency.
Maintaining data consistency requires mechanisms to ensure the
orderly execution of cooperating processes.
Bounded buffer problem:
There are N buffers
Two types of processes, namely, Consumers and Producers have access to the N buffers.
Producers produce items and place the items in the empty buffers. Consumers consume the items placed in the buffers Producers and consumers need to be synchronized to access the shared resource (buffers).
Operating System Concepts
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An Incorrect Solution to the BoundedBuffer Problem
Shared data
#define BUFFER_SIZE 10 typedef struct { ... } item; item buffer[BUFFER_SIZE];
int in = 0;
int out = 0; int counter = 0;
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An Incorrect Solution to
Producer process
item nextProduced; while (1) { while (counter == BUFFER_SIZE) ; /* do nothing */ buffer[in] = nextProduced; in = (in + 1) % BUFFER_SIZE; counter++; }
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An Incorrect Solution to
Consumer process
item nextConsumed; while (1) { while (counter == 0) ; /* do nothing */ nextConsumed = buffer[out]; out = (out + 1) % BUFFER_SIZE; counter--; }
Operating System Concepts
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An Incorrect Solution to
The statements
counter++; counter--; must be performed atomically.
Atomic operation means an operation that completes in its entirety
without interruption.
Operating System Concepts
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An Incorrect Solution to
The statement counter++ may be implemented in machine
language as:
register1 = counter register1 = register1 + 1 counter = register1
The statement counter-- may be implemented as:
register2 = counter register2 = register2 1 counter = register2
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An Incorrect Solution to
If both the producer and consumer attempt to update the
buffer concurrently, the assembly language statements may get interleaved.
Interleaving depends upon how the producer and consumer
processes are scheduled.
Operating System Concepts
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An Incorrect Solution to
Assume counter is initially 5. One interleaving of statements
is:
producer: register1 = counter (register1 = 5) producer: register1 = register1 + 1 (register1 = 6) consumer: register2 = counter (register2 = 5) consumer: register2 = register2 1 (register2 = 4) producer: counter = register1 (counter = 6) consumer: counter = register2 (counter = 4)
The value of count may be either 4 or 6, where the correct
result should be 5.
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Race Condition
Race condition: The situation where several processes
access and manipulate shared data concurrently. The final value of the shared data depends upon which process finishes last.
To guard against inconsistencies that would arise due to
race conditions, concurrent processes must be synchronized.
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The Critical-Section Problem
n processes all competing to use some shared data
Each process has a code segment, called critical section,
in which the shared data is accessed.
The Critical section Problem ensure that when one
process is executing in its critical section, no other process is allowed to execute in its critical section.
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Requirements of a 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.
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Initial Attempts to Solve the Problem
Only 2 processes, P0 and P1
General structure of process Pi (other process Pj where j=1-i)
do { entry section critical section
exit section
remainder section } while (1);
Processes may share some common variables to synchronize their
actions.
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Semaphores
Goal : To design and implement a synchronization tool Semaphore S an integer variable A semaphore can only be accessed via two indivisible (atomic)
operations
wait (S): while (S 0) ; // no-op; S--; signal (S): S++;
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Semaphores
Counting Semaphore: That can range over an unrestricted domain.
Binary Semaphore: That can range only between 0 and [Link] known as mutex locks, as they are locks that provide mutual exclusion.
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Solution to Critical Section Problem Using Semaphore
Shared data:
semaphore mutex; // initially mutex = 1
Process Pi: do { wait(mutex); critical section signal(mutex); remainder section } while (1);
This still doesnt satisfy the bounded waiting property. Another problem with all the solutions described so far is that a process trying to enter critical section has to busy-wait in a loop. This wastes CPU cycles.
Operating System Concepts
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A Semaphore Implementation that Prevents Busy-Waiting
New definition of semaphore:
Define a semaphore as a record
typedef struct { int value; struct process *L; } semaphore;
Assume two simple operations:
block suspends the process that invokes it. wakeup(P) resumes the execution of a blocked process P.
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A Semaphore Implementation
Semaphore operations are now defined as (Recall that these operations are atomic) wait(S):
[Link]- -;
if ([Link] < 0) { add this process to S.L; block; } signal(S): [Link]+ +; if ([Link] <= 0) { remove a process P from S.L; wakeup(P);
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Semaphore as a General Synchronization Tool
To execute B in Pj only after A is executed in Pi
Use semaphore flag with [Link] initialized to 0
Code: Pi Pj
A
signal(flag)
wait(flag)
B
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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 wait(S); wait(Q); signal(S); signal(Q) P1 wait(Q); wait(S); signal(Q); signal(S);
Starvation indefinite blocking. A process may never be removed from the semaphore queue in which it is suspended.
Operating System Concepts
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Two Types of Semaphores
Counting semaphore integer value can range over an
unrestricted domain. I.e., the semaphore can be initialized to any positive integer. If the semaphore is initialized to the positive integer value n, then at most n processes will be allowed to be in the critical section concurrently. When will this be useful ?
Binary semaphore integer value can range only between 0
and 1.
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Classical Problems of Synchronization
Bounded-Buffer Problem Readers and Writers Problem Dining-Philosophers Problem
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Bounded-Buffer Problem
Shared data
semaphore full, empty, mutex; Initially:
[Link] = 0, [Link] = n, [Link] = 1
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Bounded-Buffer Problem - Producer Process
Producer Process:
do {
produce an item in nextp wait(empty); wait(mutex); add nextp to buffer signal(mutex); signal(full); } while (1);
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Bounded-Buffer Problem - Consumer Process
Consumer Process: do { wait(full) wait(mutex); remove an item from buffer to nextc signal(mutex); signal(empty); consume the item in nextc } while (1);
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Readers-Writers Problem
Shared data int readcount; semaphore mutex, // to synchronize access to readcount wrt; // to ensure mutual exclusion among // writers Initially
[Link] = 1, [Link] = 1, readcount = 0
Writer Process: wait(wrt); writing is performed signal(wrt);
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Readers-Writers Problem - Reader Process
Reader Process: wait(mutex); // synchronize access to variable readcount readcount++; if (readcount == 1) // if I am the first reader, then I wait for the writer writing and the writers wait(wrt); // waiting and block all the incoming writers. signal(mutex); reading is performed wait(mutex); readcount--; if (readcount == 0) // If there is no more reader, then signal(wrt); // wake up a waiting writer
signal(mutex);
A Problem with this solution: Writers will starve. Try to modify the solution to prevent starvation.
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Dining-Philosophers Problem
Shared data
semaphore chopstick[5]; Initially all values are 1
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Dining-Philosophers Problem
Philosopher i: do { wait(chopstick[i]) wait(chopstick[(i+1) % 5]) eat signal(chopstick[i]); signal(chopstick[(i+1) % 5]); think } while (1);
Problem with this solution: deadlock.
Operating System Concepts
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Monitors (Language level support)
High-level synchronization construct that allows the safe sharing of an abstract data type among concurrent processes.
monitor monitor-name { shared variable declarations procedure body P1 () { ... } procedure body P2 () { ... } procedure body Pn () { ... } { initialization code } }
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Semantics of Monitors
Only one process can be active inside the monitor. i.e., when one process is executing a procedure inside the monitor, no other process can be executing any procedure of the monitor To allow a process to wait within the monitor, a condition variable must be declared, as condition x, y; A Condition variable can only be used with the operations wait , signal and queue. The operation [Link](); means that the process invoking this operation is suspended and placed in the queue associated with x until another process invokes [Link](); The [Link] operation resumes exactly one suspended process in the queue associated with x. If there is no process in the queue associated with x, then the signal operation has no effect. The [Link] operation returns true or false depending on whether a process is waiting in the queue associated with the condition variable x. This operation does not have any other effect on x.
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Schematic View of a Monitor
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Monitor With Condition Variables
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Dining Philosophers Example
monitor dp { enum {thinking, hungry, eating} state[5]; condition self[5]; void pickup(int i) // following slides void putdown(int i) // following slides void test(int i) // following slides void init() { for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) state[i] = thinking; } }
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Dining Philosophers
void pickup(int i) { state[i] = hungry; test[i]; if (state[i] != eating) self[i].wait(); } void putdown(int i) { state[i] = thinking; // test left and right neighbors test((i+4) % 5); test((i+1) % 5); }
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Dining Philosophers
void test(int i) { if ( (state[(i+ 4) % 5] != eating) && (state[i] == hungry) && (state[(i + 1) % 5] != eating)) { state[i] = eating; self[i].signal(); } } Philosopher i: [Link](i); eat; // Critical section [Link](i);
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Solaris 2 Synchronization
Implements a variety of locks to support multitasking, multithreading (including real-time threads), and multiprocessing. Uses adaptive mutexes for efficiency when protecting data from short code segments.
An adaptive mutex starts as a standard semaphore implemented as a spinlock. These are used to protect short critical sections (i.e., for less than a few hundred instructions).
If the lock is held by a process that is currently running on another CPU, the thread spins while waiting for the lock to become available, because the thread holding the lock is likely to finish soon
If the thread holding the lock is not currently in run state, the thread blocks and goes to sleep until it is awaken while the lock is released.
So, on a uniprocessor system, a thread always sleeps if it encounters a lock being held by another process, because a thread holding the lock cannot be running when another process is testing the lock
condition variables and semaphores are used for protecting longer critical sections
If the desired lock is already held, the process issues a wait and sleeps When a thread frees a lock, it issues a signal to the next sleeping thread in the queue The extra cost of putting a thread to sleep and waking it up, and the associated context switches, is less than the cost of wasting several hundred instructions waiting in spinlock.
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Operating System Concepts
Solaris 2 Synchronization
readers-writers locks are used to protect data that are accessed
frequently but usually in a read-only manner. These are also used for protecting long sections of code.
Uses turnstiles to order the list of processes waiting to acquire either
an adaptive mutex or reader-writer lock.
A turnstile is a queue structure containing threads blocked on a lock.
To prevent priority inversion problem, turnstiles are organized
according to a priority inheritance protocol
This means, that if a lower priority process currently holds a lock that a higher priority process is blocked on, then the lower priority process holding the lock will temporarily inherit the priority of the higher priority process. Upon releasing the lock, the process will revert to its original priority.
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Windows 2000 Synchronization
Uses interrupt masks to protect access to global resources on uniprocessor systems.
Uses spinlocks on multiprocessor systems.
Just as in Solaris 2, the kernel uses spinlocks only to protect short code Moreover the kernel ensures that the process will never be preempted while holding a spinlock
Also provides dispatcher objects to provide synchronization outside the kernel
Using a dispatcher object, a process can synchronize according to several different mechanisms including mutexes, semaphores and events
Shared data can be protected by requiring a thread to gain ownership of a mutex to access the data and release ownership when it is finished. Events are a synchronization mechanisms which act much like a condition variable. A signaled state indicates that an object is not available and a process will not block when acquiring the object A nonsignaled state indicates that an object is not available and the process will block when attempting to acquire the object When the state of a dispatcher object changes to signaled, the kernel checks if there is any processes waiting on this object and if so, it moves one or more processes from the waiting state to ready state where they can resume execution
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Dispatcher objects may be signaled or nonsignaled
Operating System Concepts
Linux Synchronization
Linux:
disables interrupts to implement short critical sections
Linux provides:
semaphores
spin locks
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