Deadlocks
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Deadlocks
System Model
Deadlock Characterization
Methods for Handling Deadlocks
Deadlock Prevention
Deadlock Avoidance
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Objectives
To develop a description of deadlocks, which prevent sets of concurrent
processes from completing their tasks
To present a number of different methods for preventing or avoiding
deadlocks in a computer system
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
System Model
System consists of resources
Resource types R1, R2, . . ., Rm
CPU cycles, memory space, I/O devices
Each resource type Ri has Wi instances.
Each process utilizes a resource as follows:
request
use
Release
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Deadlock Characterization
Deadlock can arise if four conditions hold simultaneously.
Mutual exclusion: only one process at a time can use a
resource
Hold and wait: a process holding at least one resource is waiting
to acquire additional resources held by other processes
No preemption: a resource can be released only voluntarily by
the process holding it, after that process has completed its task
Circular wait: there exists a set {P0, P1, …, Pn} of waiting
processes such that P0 is waiting for a resource that is held by P1,
P1 is waiting for a resource that is held by P2, …, Pn–1 is waiting
for a resource that is held by Pn, and Pn is waiting for a resource
that is held by P0.
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Resource-Allocation Graph
A set of vertices V and a set of edges E.
V is partitioned into two types:
P = {P1, P2, …, Pn}, the set consisting of all the processes
in the system
R = {R1, R2, …, Rm}, the set consisting of all resource
types in the system
request edge – directed edge Pi → Rj
assignment edge – directed edge Rj → Pi
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Resource-Allocation Graph (Cont.)
Process
Resource Type with 4 instances
Pi requests instance of Rj
Pi
Rj
Pi is holding an instance of Rj
Pi
Rj
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Example of a Resource Allocation Graph
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Resource Allocation Graph
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Resource Allocation Graph
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Graph With A Cycle
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Basic Facts
If graph contains no cycles no deadlock
If graph contains a cycle
if only one instance per resource type, then deadlock
if several instances per resource type, possibility of deadlock
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Methods for Handling Deadlocks
Ensure that the system will never enter a deadlock state:
Deadlock prevention
Deadlock avoidence
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Deadlock Prevention
Restrain the ways request can be made
Mutual Exclusion – not required for sharable resources (e.g.,
read-only files); must hold for non-sharable resources
Hold and Wait – must guarantee that whenever a process
requests a resource, it does not hold any other resources
Require process to request and be allocated all its
resources before it begins execution, or allow process to
request resources only when the process has none
allocated to it.
Low resource utilization; starvation possible
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Deadlock Prevention (Cont.)
No Preemption –
If a process that is holding some resources requests
another resource that cannot be immediately allocated to it,
then all resources currently being held are released
Preempted resources are added to the list of resources for
which the process is waiting
Process will be restarted only when it can regain its old
resources, as well as the new ones that it is requesting
Circular Wait – impose a total ordering of all resource types,
and require that each process requests resources in an
increasing order of enumeration
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Deadlock Avoidance
Requires that the system has some additional a priori information
available
Simplest and most useful model requires that each process
declare the maximum number of resources of each type
that it may need
The deadlock-avoidance algorithm dynamically examines
the resource-allocation state to ensure that there can never
be a circular-wait condition
Resource-allocation state is defined by the number of
available and allocated resources, and the maximum
demands of the processes
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Safe State
When a process requests an available resource, system must
decide if immediate allocation leaves the system in a safe state
System is in safe state if there exists a sequence <P1, P2, …,
Pn> of ALL the processes in the systems such that for each Pi,
the resources that Pi can still request can be satisfied by
currently available resources + resources held by all the Pj, with
j<I
That is:
If Pi resource needs are not immediately available, then Pi
can wait until all Pj have finished
When Pj is finished, Pi can obtain needed resources,
execute, return allocated resources, and terminate
When Pi terminates, Pi +1 can obtain its needed resources,
and so on
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Basic Facts
If a system is in safe state no deadlocks
If a system is in unsafe state possibility of deadlock
Avoidance ensure that a system will never enter an unsafe
state.
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Safe, Unsafe, Deadlock State
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Avoidance Algorithms
Multiple instances of a resource type
Use the banker’s algorithm
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Banker’s Algorithm
Multiple instances
Each process must a priori claim maximum use
When a process requests a resource it may have to wait
When a process gets all its resources it must return them in a finite
amount of time
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013