Chapter 5: Process

Synchronization

Operating System Concepts – 9th Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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 5.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 Critical Section

● General structure of process Pi

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 Algorithm for Process Pi

do {

while (turn == j);

critical section
turn = j;
remainder section
} while (true);

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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
4 Essentially free of race conditions in kernel mode

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 Algorithm for Process Pi

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

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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
Since Pi does not change the value of the ‘turn’ variable while executing
the
‘while’ statement, Pi will enter critical section (progress) after at most
one entry
by Pj(Bounded waiting).

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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
4 Operating systems using this not broadly scalable
● Modern machines provide special atomic hardware
instructions
4 Atomic = non-interruptible
● Either test memory word and set value
● Or swap contents of two memory words

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 Solution to Critical-section Problem Using Locks

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

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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
3. Set the new value of passed parameter to “TRUE”.

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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
2. Returns the original value of passed parameter “value”
3. Set the variable “value” the value of the passed parameter
“new_value” but only if “value” ==“expected”. That is, the
swap takes place only under this condition.

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 Bounded-waiting Mutual Exclusion with test_and_set

do {
waiting[i] = true;
key = true;
while (waiting[i] && key)
key = test_and_set(&lock);
waiting[i] = false;
/* critical section */
j = (i + 1) % n;
while ((j != i) && !waiting[j])
j = (j + 1) % n;
if (j == i)
lock = false;
else
waiting[j] = false;
/* remainder section */
} while (true);

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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()
4 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 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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
4 But implementation code is short
4 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 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 rw_mutex initialized to 1
● Semaphore mutex initialized to 1
● Integer read_count initialized to 0

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 Readers-Writers Problem (Cont.)
● The structure of a reader process
do {
wait(mutex);
read_count++;
if (read_count == 1)
wait(rw_mutex);
signal(mutex);
...
/* reading is performed */
...
wait(mutex);
read count--;
if (read_count == 0)
signal(rw_mutex);
signal(mutex);
} while (true);

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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
4 Bowl of rice (data set)
4 Semaphore chopstick [5] initialized to 1

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 Dining-Philosophers Problem Algorithm (Cont.)

● 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 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 Schematic view of a Monitor

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 Condition Variables

● condition x, y;
● Two operations are allowed on a condition variable:
● x.wait() – a process that invokes the operation is
suspended until x.signal()
● x.signal() – resumes one of processes (if any) that
invoked x.wait()
4 If no x.wait() on the variable, then it has no
effect on the variable

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 Monitor with Condition Variables

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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
4 P executing signal immediately leaves the monitor, Q is
resumed
● Implemented in other languages including Mesa, C#, Java

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 Monitor Solution to Dining Philosophers
monitor DiningPhilosophers
{
enum { THINKING; HUNGRY, EATING) state [5] ;
condition self [5];

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);
}

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 Solution to Dining Philosophers (Cont.)

void test (int i) {

if ((state[(i + 4) % 5] != EATING) &&
(state[i] == HUNGRY) &&
(state[(i + 1) % 5] != EATING) ) {
state[i] = EATING ;
self[i].signal () ;
}
}

initialization_code() {
for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++)
state[i] = THINKING;
}
}

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 Solution to Dining Philosophers (Cont.)

● Each philosopher i invokes the operations pickup() and

putdown() in the following sequence:

DiningPhilosophers.pickup(i);

EAT

DiningPhilosophers.putdown(i);

● No deadlock, but starvation is possible

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 Monitor Implementation Using Semaphores

● Variables

semaphore mutex; // (initially = 1)

semaphore next; // (initially = 0)
int next_count = 0;

● Each procedure F will be replaced by

wait(mutex);
…
body of F;
…
if (next_count > 0)
signal(next)
else
signal(mutex);

● Mutual exclusion within a monitor is ensured

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 Monitor Implementation – Condition Variables

● For each condition variable x, we have:

semaphore x_sem; // (initially = 0)

int x_count = 0;

● The operation x.wait can be implemented as:

x_count++;
if (next_count > 0)
signal(next);
else
signal(mutex);
wait(x_sem);
x_count--;

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 Monitor Implementation (Cont.)

● The operation x.signal can be implemented as:

if (x_count > 0) {
next_count++;
signal(x_sem);
wait(next);
next_count--;
}

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 Single Resource allocation
● Allocate a single resource among competing processes
using priority numbers that specify the maximum time a
process plans to use the resource

R.acquire(t);
...
access the resurce;
...

R.release;

● Where R is an instance of type ResourceAllocator

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 A Monitor to Allocate Single Resource
monitor ResourceAllocator
{
boolean busy;
condition x;
void acquire(int time) {
if (busy)
x.wait(time);
busy = TRUE;
}
void release() {
busy = FALSE;
x.signal();
}
initialization code() {
busy = FALSE;
}
}

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 Synchronization Examples

● Solaris
● Windows
● Linux
● Pthreads

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 Windows Synchronization

● Uses interrupt masks to protect access to global

resources on uniprocessor systems
● Uses spinlocks on multiprocessor systems
● Spinlocking-thread will never be preempted
● Also provides dispatcher objects user-land which
may act mutexes, semaphores, events, and timers
● Events
4 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 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 Pthreads Synchronization
● Pthreads API is OS-independent
● It provides:
● mutex locks
● condition variable
● Non-portable extensions include:
● read-write locks
● spinlocks

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 Alternative Approaches
● Transactional Memory

● OpenMP

● Functional Programming Languages

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 Transactional Memory
● A memory transaction is a sequence of read-write
operations to memory that are performed atomically.

void update()
{
/* read/write memory */
}

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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.

Operating System Concepts – 9th 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 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 5. Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 End of Chapter 5

Operating System Concepts – 9th Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne