Synchronization Tools

Background
• Processes can execute concurrently
– May be interrupted at any time, partially
completing execution
• Concurrent access to shared data may
result in data inconsistency
• Maintaining data consistency requires
mechanisms to ensure the orderly
execution of cooperating processes
 Race Condition
• Processes P0 and P1 are creating child processes using the fork()
system call
• Race condition on kernel variable next_available_pid which
represents the next available process identifier (pid)

• Unless there is a mechanism to prevent P0 and P1 from accessing the

variable next_available_pid the same pid could be assigned
to two different processes!
 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 is in critical section, no other may
be allowed to 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
 Critical Section

• General structure of process Pi

 Critical-Section Problem (Cont.)

Requirements for 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 process 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
 Interrupt-based Solution
• Entry section: disable interrupts
• Exit section: enable interrupts
• Will this solve the problem?

• What if the critical section is code that runs for an hour?

• Can some processes starve – never enter their critical section?
 Software Solution 1

• Two process solution

• Assume that the load and store machine-
language instructions are atomic; that is, cannot
be interrupted
• The two processes share one variable:
– int turn;
• The variable turn indicates whose turn it is to
enter the critical section
 Algorithm for Process Pi

while(true){

turn = i;
while(turn == j)
;

/* critical section */

turn = j;

/* remainder section */

}
 Correctness of the Software Solution

• Mutual exclusion is preserved

Pi enters critical section only if:
turn = i
and turn cannot be both 0 and 1 at the same time
• What about the Progress requirement?
• What about the Bounded-waiting requirement?
 Peterson’s Solution
• Two process solution
• Assume that the load and store machine-language
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!
 Algorithm for Process Pi
while(true){

flag[i] = true;
turn = j;
while (flag[j] && turn == j)
;

/* critical section */

flag[i] = false;

/* remainder section */

}
 Correctness of Peterson’s Solution

• Provable that the three CS requirements are met:

1. Mutual exclusion is preserved
Pi enters CS only if:
either flag[j] = false or turn = i
2. Progress requirement is satisfied
3. Bounded-waiting requirement is met
 Peterson’s Solution and Modern Architecture

• Although useful for demonstrating an algorithm,

Peterson’s Solution is not guaranteed to work on
modern architectures.
– To improve performance, processors and/or
compilers may reorder operations that have no
dependencies
• Understanding why it will not work is useful for
better understanding race conditions.
• For single-threaded this is ok as the result will
always be the same.
• For multithreaded the reordering may produce
inconsistent or unexpected results!
 Modern Architecture Example
• Two threads share the data:
boolean flag = false;
int x = 0;

• Thread 1 performs
while (!flag)
;
print x

• Thread 2 performs
x = 100;
flag = true

• What is the expected output?

100
 Modern Architecture Example (Cont.)

• However, since the variables flag and x are independent

of each other, the instructions:

flag = true;
x = 100;

for Thread 2 may be reordered

• If this occurs, the output may be 0
 Peterson’s Solution Revisited

• The effects of instruction reordering in Peterson’s Solution

• This allows both processes to be in their critical section at the same

time!
• To ensure that Peterson’s solution will work correctly on modern
computer architecture we must use Memory Barrier.
 Synchronization Hardware
• Many systems provide hardware support for
implementing the 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

• Forms of hardware support:

1. Hardware instructions
2. Atomic variables
 Hardware Instructions

• Special hardware instructions that allow

us to either test-and-modify the content
of a word, or to swap the contents of two
words atomically (uninterruptedly)
– Test-and-Set instruction
– Compare-and-Swap instruction
 The test_and_set instruction

• Definition

boolean test_and_set (boolean *target)

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

• Properties
– Executed atomically
– Returns the original value of passed parameter
– Set the new value of passed parameter to true
 Solution using test_and_set()
• Shared boolean variable lock, initialized to false
• Solution:
do {

while (test_and_set(&lock))
; /* do nothing */

/* critical section */

lock = false;
/* remainder section */

} while (true);

• Does it solve the critical-section problem?

 The compare_and_swap instruction
• Definition

int compare_and_swap(int *value, int expected, int new_value)

{
int temp = *value;
if (*value == expected)
*value = new_value;
return temp;
}

• Properties
– Executed atomically
– Returns the original value of passed parameter value
– Set the variable value the value of the passed parameter new_value but
only if *value == expected is true. That is, the swap takes place only
under this condition.
 Solution using compare_and_swap

• Shared integer lock initialized to 0;

• Solution:

while (true)
{

while(compare_and_swap(&lock, 0, 1) != 0)
; /* do nothing */

/* critical section */

lock = 0;

/* remainder section */

}
 Atomic Variables
• Typically, instructions such as compare-and-swap are
used as building blocks for other synchronization
tools.
• One tool is an atomic variable that provides atomic
(uninterruptible) updates on basic data types such as
integers and booleans.
• For example:
– Let sequence be an atomic variable
– Let increment() be operation on the atomic variable
sequence
– The Command:
increment(&sequence);
ensures sequence is incremented without interruption:
 Mutex Locks
• Previous solutions are complicated and generally inaccessible to
application programmers
• OS designers build software tools to solve critical section problem
• Simplest is mutex lock
– Boolean variable indicating if lock is available or not
• Protect a critical section by
– First acquire() a lock
– Then release() the lock
• Calls to acquire() and release() must be atomic
– Usually implemented via hardware atomic instructions such as
compare-and-swap
• But this solution requires busy waiting
– This lock therefore called a spinlock
Solution to CS Problem Using Mutex Locks

while (true) {
acquire lock

critical section

release lock

remainder section
}
 Semaphore
• Synchronization tool that provides more sophisticated ways (than Mutex locks)
for processes to synchronize their activities.

• Semaphore S – integer variable

• Can only be accessed via two indivisible (atomic) operations
– wait() and signal()
• Originally called P() and V()

• Definition of the wait() operation

wait(S)
{
while (S <= 0); // busy wait
S--;
}

• Definition of the signal() operation

signal(S)
{
S++;
}
 Semaphore (Cont.)
• Counting semaphore – integer value can range over an
unrestricted domain
• Binary semaphore – integer value can range only
between 0 and 1
– Same as a mutex lock
• Can implement a counting semaphore S as a binary
semaphore
• With semaphores we can solve various synchronization
problems
 Semaphore Usage Example
• Solution to the Critical Section (CS) Problem using semaphore:

Create a semaphore “mutex” initialized to 1

wait(mutex);
CS
signal(mutex);

• Consider P1 and P2 that with two statements S1 and S2 and the

requirement that S1 to happen before S2
– Create a semaphore “synch” initialized to 0
P1:
S1;
signal(synch);
P2:
wait(synch);
S2;
 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
 Implementation with no Busy waiting (Cont.)

• Waiting queue

typedef struct
{
int value;
struct process *list;
}semaphore;
 Implementation with no Busy waiting (Cont.)

wait(semaphore *S)
{
S->value--;
if (S->value < 0)
{
add this process to S->list;
block();
}
}

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

• Processes may have to wait indefinitely while trying

to acquire a synchronization tool such as a mutex
lock or semaphore.
• Waiting indefinitely violates the progress and
bounded-waiting criteria.
• Liveness refers to a set of properties that a system
must satisfy to ensure processes make progress.
• Indefinite waiting is an example of a liveness failure.
 Liveness (cont.)
• 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);

• Consider if P0 executes wait(S) and P1 wait(Q). When P0 executes

wait(Q), it must wait until P1 executes signal(Q)
• However, P1 is waiting until P0 execute signal(S).
• Since these signal() operations will never be executed, P0 and P1 are
deadlocked.
 Liveness (cont.)
• Other forms of deadlock:
• 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
Reference: Operating System Concepts, Abraham Silberschatz,
Peter Baer Galvin, Greg Gagne, Wiley Publications

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