CSC520 :

principles of
operating
systems
(chapter 6)
Dr. Mohamed Imran Mohamed Ariff
Email : moham588@uitm.edu.my
Tel : +60127031179
 Chapter 6: Process
Synchronization

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Chapter 5: Process Synchronization
Background
The Critical-Section Problem
Peterson’s Solution
Synchronization Hardware
Mutex Locks
Semaphores
Classic Problems of Synchronization
Monitors
Synchronization Examples
Alternative Approaches

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Objectives

To present the concept of process synchronization.

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 examine several classical process-synchronization
problems
To explore several tools that are used to solve process
synchronization problems

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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
Illustration of the problem:
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 counter that keeps track of the
number of full buffers. Initially, counter 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 – 9th Edition 5.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Producer: consumer problem

Counter == what if BOTH the producer AND consumer tries

to access this variable ?

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 6.1 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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Solution to Critical-Section Problem
(in order to solve the critical section problem,
3 requirements needs to be satisfied)
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 – 9th Edition 5.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Critical-Section Handling in OS
Two approaches depending on if kernel is preemptive or non-
preemptive
Preemptive – allows preemption of process when running
in kernel mode
Non-preemptive – runs until exits kernel mode, blocks, or
voluntarily yields CPU
Essentially free of race conditions in kernel mode

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Peterson’s Solution (software)
Good algorithmic description of solving the problem (critical
section problem)
ONLY 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; -> Which Process’s turn
Boolean flag[2] → Is the process interested to use
(or enter the critical section)

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 – 9th Edition 5.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 6.2 Synchronization Hardware
Many systems provide hardware support for implementing the
critical section code.
All solutions below based on idea of locking
Protecting critical regions via locks
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-interruptible
Either test memory word and set value
Or swap contents of two memory words

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 6.3 Semaphore Usage
(to solve Consumer & Producer problem)

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 (mutual exclusion) lock → ONLY 1 Process can
enter
Can solve various synchronization problems
Consider P1 and P2 that require S1 to happen before S2
Create a semaphore “synch” initialized to 0
P1:
S1;
signal(synch);
P2:
wait(synch);
S2;
Can implement a counting semaphore S as a binary semaphore

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Semaphore Implementation
Must guarantee that no two processes can execute the wait()
and signal() on the same semaphore at the same time
Thus, the implementation becomes the critical section problem
where the wait and signal code are placed in the critical
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 – 9th Edition 5.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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
typedef struct{
int value;
struct process *list;
} semaphore;

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 – 9th Edition 5.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 6.4 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 – 9th Edition 5.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 – 9th Edition 5.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Readers-Writers Problem
(a file shared by both reader and writer process)

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 considered – all
involve some form of priorities
Shared Data
Data set
Semaphore rw_mutex initialized to 1
Semaphore mutex initialized to 1
Integer read_count initialized to 0

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 the
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 – 9th Edition 5.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Dining-Philosophers Problem

Philosophers spend their lives alternating 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 – 9th Edition 5.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 are possible.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 6.5 Monitors
A high-level abstraction that provides a convenient and effective mechanism for
process synchronization
Abstract data type, internal variables only accessible by code within the
procedure
Only one process may be active within the monitor at a time
But not powerful enough to model some synchronization schemes

monitor monitor-name
{
// shared variable declarations
procedure P1 (…) { …. }

procedure Pn (…) {……}

Initialization code (…) { … }

}
}

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Schematic view of a Monitor

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Monitor with Condition Variables

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Condition Variables Choices
If process P invokes x.signal(), and process Q is suspended in
x.wait(), what should happen next?
Both Q and P cannot execute in paralel. If Q is resumed, then P
must wait
Options include
Signal and wait – P waits until Q either leaves the monitor or it
waits for another condition
Signal and continue – Q waits until P either leaves the monitor or it
waits for another condition
Both have pros and cons – language implementer can decide
Monitors implemented in Concurrent Pascal compromise
 P executing signal immediately leaves the monitor, Q is
resumed
Implemented in other languages including Mesa, C#, Java

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Resuming Processes within a Monitor

If several processes queued on condition x, and x.signal()

executed, which should be resumed?
FCFS frequently not adequate
conditional-wait construct of the form x.wait(c)
Where c is priority number
Process with lowest number (highest priority) is
scheduled next

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 End of Chapter 6

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013