Chapter 5: Process

Synchronization

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Modified by Alvi 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 5.2 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 5.3 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 5.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Producer

while (true) {
/* produce an item in next produced */

while (counter == BUFFER_SIZE) ;

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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Consumer

while (true) {
while (counter == 0)
; /* do nothing */
next_consumed = buffer[out];
out = (out + 1) % BUFFER_SIZE;
counter--;
/* consume the item in next consumed */
}

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

 counter++ could be implemented as

register1 = counter
register1 = register1 + 1
counter = register1
 counter-- could be implemented as

register2 = counter
register2 = register2 - 1
counter = 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 {counter = 6 }
S5: consumer execute counter = register2 {counter = 4}

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 5.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Critical Section

 General structure of process Pi

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Solution to Critical-Section Problem
 A solution to the critical section problem must satisfy the
following properties:
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
sections, then the selection of the processes that will enter the
critical section next cannot be postponed indefinitely
3. Bounded Waiting - A bound, or limit, 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 5.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Critical-Section Handling in OS
 Examples of kernel code critical sections: list of open files by
processes, list of memory allocation, list of processes
 Two approaches depending on if kernel is preemptive or non-
preemptive
 Preemptive: allows preemption of process when running in
kernel mode – can have race condition if a process is
preempted while modifying a shared data structure
 Non-preemptive : runs until exits kernel mode, blocks, or
voluntarily yields CPU
Essentially free of race conditions in kernel mode
 Preemptive kernel useful for real-time and responsive systems
 All modern kernels including Windows 7, Linux, Solaris, iOS
and Android are preemptive

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Peterson’s Solution
 Good algorithmic description of solving the problem
 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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Algorithm for Process Pi

do {
flag[i] = true;
Entry
turn = j;
Section
while (flag[j] && turn = = j);
critical section
flag[i] = false; Exit
Section
remainder section
} while (true);

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Peterson’s Solution (Cont.)
 Provable that the three CS requirement 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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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
 Used in nonpreemptive kernels
 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 5.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Solution to Critical-section Problem Using Locks

do {
acquire lock
critical section
release lock
remainder section
} while (TRUE);

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 test_and_set Instruction
Definition:
boolean test_and_set (boolean *target)
{
boolean rv = *target;
*target = TRUE;
return rv:
}
1. Executed atomically
2. Returns the original value of passed parameter (target memory
location)
3. Sets the new value of passed parameter to “TRUE”

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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);

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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;
}
1. Executed atomically. Operates on three operands.
2. Returns the original value of passed parameter “value”.
3. Sets the variable “value” the value of the passed parameter to
“new_value” but only if “value” ==“expected”. That is, the swap takes
place only under this condition.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Solution using compare_and_swap
 Shared integer “lock” initialized to 0;
 Solution:
do {
while (compare_and_swap(&lock, 0, 1) != 0)
; /* do nothing */
/* critical section */
lock = 0;
/* remainder section */
} while (true);

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Bounded-waiting Mutual Exclusion with test_and_set

do {
waiting[i] = true;
key = true;
while (waiting[i] && key)
key = test_and_set(&lock); /* lock is T and key is F now after 1st iteration */
waiting[i] = false;
/* critical section */
j = (i + 1) % n;
while ((j != i) && !waiting[j])
j = (j + 1) % n; /* search for a waiting process */
if (j == i) /* no other process waiting */
lock = false;
else /* some process waiting */
waiting[j] = false;
/* remainder section */
} while (true);

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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
Protect a critical section by first acquire() a lock then
release() the lock
Boolean variable indicating if lock is available or not
Calls to acquire() and release() must be atomic
Usually implemented via hardware atomic instructions
But this solution requires busy waiting
This lock therefore called a spinlock

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 acquire() and release()
 acquire() {
while (!available)
; /* busy wait */
available = false;
}
 release() {
available = true;
}
do {
acquire lock
critical section
release lock
remainder section
} while (true);

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Semaphore
 Synchronization tool that provides more sophisticated ways (than Mutex locks)
for process 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++;
}

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Semaphore Usage
 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 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 5.25 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 5.26 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; another process can get the CPU now
 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 5.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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);
}
}

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.28 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 5.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Semaphore vs. Mutex
 A mutex is essentially the same thing as a binary semaphore and
sometimes uses the same basic implementation. The differences
between them are:
 Mutexes have a concept of an owner, which is the process
that locked the mutex. Only the process that locked the mutex
can unlock it. In contrast, a semaphore has no concept of an
owner. Any process can unlock a semaphore.
 Unlike semaphores, mutexes provide priority inversion safety.
Since the mutex knows its current owner, it is possible to
promote the priority of the owner whenever a higher-priority
task starts waiting on the mutex.
 Mutexes also provide deletion safety, where the process
holding the mutex cannot be accidentally deleted.
Semaphores do not provide this.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 5.31 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 5.32 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Bounded Buffer Problem (Cont.)

 The structure of the producer process

do {
...
/* produce an item in next_produced */
...
wait(empty);
wait(mutex);
...
/* add next produced to the buffer */
...
signal(mutex);
signal(full);
} while (true);

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Bounded Buffer Problem (Cont.)
 The structure of the consumer process

Do {
wait(full);
wait(mutex);
...
/* remove an item from buffer to next_consumed */
...
signal(mutex);
signal(empty);
...
/* consume the item in next consumed */
...
} while (true);

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.34 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 considered – all
involve some form of priorities
 Shared Data
 Data set
 Semaphore mutex initialized to 1
 Semaphore rw_mutex initialized to 1
 Integer read_count initialized to 0

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.35 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Readers-Writers Problem (Cont.)

 The structure of a writer process

do {
wait(rw_mutex);
...
/* writing is performed */
...
signal(rw_mutex);
} while (true);

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.36 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Readers-Writers Problem (Cont.)
 The structure of a reader process
do {
wait(mutex); /*common to readers*/
read_count++;
if (read_count == 1)
wait(rw_mutex); /*common to readers & writers*/
signal(mutex);
...
/* reading is performed */
...
wait(mutex);
read count--;
if (read_count == 0)
signal(rw_mutex);
signal(mutex);
} while (true);

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.37 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
 Processes can request the lock in read or write mode
depending on their usage of shared data
 Take more time to set up than semaphores and
mutexes, but the increased concurrency of allowing
multiple readers compensates for the overhead involved
in setting up the reader–writer lock

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.38 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Dining-Philosophers Problem

 Philosophers spend their lives alternating thinking and eating

 Don’t interact with their neighbours, 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 5.39 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 – 9th Edition 5.40 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Dining-Philosophers Problem Algorithm (Cont.)

 Several techniques for deadlock handling

 Allow at most 4 philosophers to be sitting simultaneously
at the table
 Allow a philosopher to pick up the forks only if both are
available (picking must be done in a critical section)
 Use an asymmetric solution -- an odd-numbered
philosopher picks up first the left chopstick and then the
right chopstick. Even-numbered philosopher picks up first
the right chopstick and then the left chopstick

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.41 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Problems with Semaphores

 Incorrect use of semaphore operations (programming error or

uncooperative programmer):

 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 5.42 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Synchronization Examples

 Solaris
 Windows
 Linux
 Pthreads

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.43 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Solaris 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
 Starts as a standard semaphore spin-lock
 If lock held, and by a thread running on another CPU, spins
 If lock held by non-run-state thread, block and sleep waiting for signal of
lock being released
 Uses condition variables
 Uses readers-writers locks when longer sections of code need
access to data
 Uses turnstiles to order the list of threads waiting to acquire either an
adaptive mutex or reader-writer lock
 Turnstiles are per-lock-holding-thread, not per-object
 Priority-inheritance per-turnstile gives the running thread the highest of
the priorities of the threads in its turnstile

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.44 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Windows Synchronization

 Uses interrupt masks to protect access to global resources on

uniprocessor systems
 Uses spinlocks(busy waiting) on multiprocessor systems
 Spinlocking-thread will never be preempted
 Also provides dispatcher objects user-land which may act
mutexes, semaphores, events, and timers
 Events
 An event acts much like a condition variable
 Timers notify one or more thread when time expired
 Dispatcher objects either signaled-state (object available)
or non-signaled state (thread will block)

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.45 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Linux Synchronization
 Linux:
 Prior to kernel Version 2.6, disables interrupts to
implement short critical sections
 Version 2.6 and later, fully preemptive
 Linux provides:
 Semaphores
 atomic integers
 spinlocks
 reader-writer versions of both
 On single-cpu system, spinlocks replaced by enabling and
disabling kernel preemption

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.46 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Pthreads Synchronization

 Pthreads API is OS-independent

 Provides synchronization at user level
 It provides:
 mutex locks
 condition variable
 Non-portable extensions include:
 read-write locks
 spinlocks

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.47 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Alternative Approaches

 Transactional Memory

 OpenMP

 Functional Programming Languages

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.48 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Transactional Memory
 A memory transaction is a sequence of read-write operations
to memory that are performed atomically.

void update()
{
atomic {
/* read/write memory */
}
}
 Frees the developer from ensuring atomicity
 No deadlock possible as no locks involved
 Can be implemented in software (through compilers) or
hardware (through cache coherency protocols)

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.49 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 OpenMP
 OpenMP is a set of compiler directives and API that support
parallel progamming.

void update(int value)

{
#pragma omp critical
{
count += value
}
}

 The code contained within the #pragma omp critical

directive is treated as a critical section and performed atomically
i.e. only one thread at a time

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.50 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Functional Programming Languages

 Functional programming languages offer a different paradigm

than procedural languages in that they do not maintain state

 Variables are treated as immutable and cannot change state

once they have been assigned a value

 There is increasing interest in functional languages such as

Erlang and Scala for their approach in handling data races

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 5.51 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 End of Chapter 5

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