Deadlock

Deadlock
 A system consists of finite number of
resources.
 Multiple concurrent processes have to
compete to use a resource.
 The sequence of events to use a resource:
1. Request
2. Allocate
3. Release
Cont…
 Request
 Number of units requested may not exceed the
total no. of available units of the resource.

 Allocate
 Allocate the resource as soon as possible.
 Maintain a table of resources allocated or
available.
Cont…

 Release
 Release the resources after the process has
finished using the allocated resource.

 Request and release are system calls,

initiated by a process.

 System can control only allocate

operation.
Cont…
 Deadlock is the state of permanent
blocking of a set of processes each of
which is waiting for an event that only
another process in the set can cause.
Cont… : Example
 Resources : two tape drives T1, T2.

 Allocation strategy:
 Allocate the resource to the requester if free.

 Concurrent Processes : P1 and P2.

Cont…
 On request, P1 gets T1 and P2 gets T2.

 If either P1 or P2 requests for one more tape

drives, process waits until another process
releases the allocated tape.

 Processes are in the state of deadlock.

Cont…

A deadlock situation: There is a circular chain of

processes and resources that results in
deadlock.
Cont…
 Deadlock occurs:
 Because the total requests of both processes
exceed the total number of available
resources, &

 The resource allocation policy allocates a

resource on request if the resource is free
without considering the safe states.
Cont…
 This is also true for logical objects (like files,
tables, records in a database, etc..).

 Non-Preemptable resource:
 One that cannot be taken away from a process to which
it was allocated until the process voluntarily releases it.
 Resource Types
 Two general categories of resources:
 Reusable &
 Consumable.

 A reusable resource is one that can be safely

used by only one process at a time and is not
depleted by that use.
 Eg.: Processors, I/O channels, main and
secondary memory, devices, &
 Data structures such as files, databases, and
semaphores.
Consumable Resources
 A consumable resource is one that can be
created (produced) and destroyed
(consumed).
 Example: interrupts, signals, messages, and
information in I/O buffers.
Communication deadlocks
 Occurs among a set of processes, when these are
blocked waiting for messages from other
processes in the set, in order to start execution
but there are no messages in transit between
these.

 All processes in the set are deadlocked.

Necessary conditions for deadlock
1. Mutual-exclusion condition
2. Hold-and-wait condition
3. No-preemption condition
4. Circular-wait condition

All are required for a deadlock to occur.

Cont…
 Mutual-exclusion condition
 If a resource is held by a process, any other process
requesting for that resource must wait until the
resource has been released.

 Hold-and-wait condition
 Processes are allowed to request for new resources
without releasing the resources that are currently held.
Cont…
 No-preemption condition
 A resource that has been allocated to a process
becomes available for allocation to another process
only after it has been voluntarily released by the
process holding it.

 Circular-wait condition
 Two or more processes must form a circular chain in
which each process is waiting for a resource that is
held by the next process of the chain.

 It implies the hold-and-wait condition.

Deadlock modeling
 Deadlocks can be modeled using directed
graphs.

 Directed graph:
 A pair (N,E), where N is a nonempty set of
nodes and E is a set of directed edges.

 Path :
 A sequence of nodes (a,b,c,….i,j) of a directed
graph such that (a,b), (b,c),….. (i,j) are
directed edges.
Cont…
 Cycle :
 A path whose first and last nodes are the
same.
 Reachable set:
 The reachable set of a node ‘a’ is the set of all
nodes ‘b’ such that a path exists from ‘a’ to ‘b’.
 Knot: A nonempty set ‘K’ of nodes such
that the reachable set of each node in ‘K’
is exactly the set ‘K’.
 It always contains one or more cycles.
A directed graph

Cycles :
a c 1. (a,b,c,d,e,f,a)
2. (b,c,d,e,b)

Knot:
d {a,b,c,d,e,f}
f

e
Resource allocation graph
 Both the set of nodes and the set of edges are
partitioned into two types, resulting in the
following graph elements.

1. Process nodes
2. Resource nodes
3. Assignment edges
4. Request edges
Cont…
Pi A process named Pi

Rj A resource Rj having 3 units in the system.

Pi Process Pi holding a unit of resource Rj.

R3

Pi R3 Process Pi requesting for a unit of resource Rj.

Necessary and sufficient conditions for
deadlock
1. A cycle in the graph is both a necessary
and a sufficient condition for deadlock
 if all the resource types requested by the
processes forming the cycle have only a
single unit each.
A cycle representing a deadlock

P1

R2 R1 R3

P2
Cont…
2. A cycle in the graph is a necessary but
not a sufficient condition for deadlock
 if one or more of the resource types requested
by the processes forming the cycle have more
than one unit.

 In this situation, a knot is the sufficient

condition for deadlock.
A Knot representing a deadlock

P1

R2 P2 R1 R3

P3
Wait-for graph
 A simplified graph, obtained from the original
resource allocation graph by removing the
resource nodes and collapsing the appropriate
edges.

 It shows which processes are waiting for which

other processes.

 Appropriate for modeling Communication

Deadlocks.
Cont…
Simplified to
P1 P1

R2 R1

P3 P2 P3 P2

(a) Resource allocation graph Corresponding WFG

Resource deadlocks
 Occurs when two or more processes wait
permanently for resources held by each
other.
 Handling deadlocks in Distributed Systems
 Strategies:
 Avoidance
 Prevention
 Detection & recovery
Basic Deadlock Avoidance
 Resources are carefully allocated to avoid
deadlocks.

 These methods use some advance knowledge of

the resource usage of processes.

 Considers safe / unsafe states.

Cont…
 Safe state:
 The system is not in a deadlock state.

 There exists some ordering of the processes in

which the resource requests of the processes
can be granted to run all of these to
completion.
Cont…
 Safe sequence:
 Any ordering of the processes that can
guarantee the completion of all the processes.

 Unsafe state:
 A system state if no safe sequence exists.
Cont…
 Some assumptions of the algorithm:
 The advance knowledge of the resource
requirements of the various processes is
available.

 The number of processes that compete for a

particular resource and the number of units of
that resource are fixed and known in advance.
 Deadlock Avoidance
 Approaches to deadlock avoidance:

1. Process Initiation Denial

2. Resource Allocation Denial
Process Initiation Denial
 Do not start a process if its demands
might lead to deadlock.
 Define a deadlock avoidance policy that
refuses to start a new process if its
resource requirements might lead to
deadlock.
 A process is only started if the maximum
claim of all current processes plus those of
the new process can be met.
 Strategy is hardly optimal.
 Assumes the worst: that all processes will
make their maximum claims together.
Resource Allocation Denial
 Do not grant an incremental resource request
to a process if this allocation might lead to
deadlock.

 Also referred to as the banker’s algorithm.

Cont…
 Consider a system with a fixed number of
processes and a fixed number of
resources.

 At any time, a process may have zero or

more resources allocated to it.
Cont…
 State of the system
 The current allocation of resources to
processes consists of:
 two vectors: Resource and Available &
 two matrices: Claim and Allocation.
Deadlock Prevention
 Constraints are imposed on the ways in which
processes request resources, in order to prevent
deadlocks.

 Tries to ensure that at least one of the necessary

conditions for a deadlock is never satisfied.
Cont…
 Deadlock prevention methods:
 Collective requests
 Ordered requests
 Preemption
Collective Requests
 This method denies the hold-and-wait
condition.

 Ensures that whenever a process requests

a resource, it does not hold any other
resources.
Cont…
 Resource allocation policies:
1. Either allocate all requested resources
or none, before a process begins
execution.
 Process would wait.
Cont…
2. Provide resources at time of execution
only when process doesn't hold any
other resource.
 First
release existing once and then re-
request all the necessary resources.

 Usefulif requirements of resources is not

known initially.

 Usefulwhen some resources are required at

the end of its execution.
Cont…
 Problems :
 Low resource utilization
 May cause starvation of a process
 An accounting question.
Ordered Requests
 Each resource type is assigned a unique global
number to impose a total ordering of all resource
types.

 The process should not request a resource with a

number lower than the number of any of the
resources that it is already holding.

 If process requires several units of same resource

type, it should make single request for all the
required units of a resources.
Cont…
 A process may not acquire all its resources in
strictly increasing sequence.
 Eg. Holding resource # 7 & 10. Now release 10 & can
request for 9.

 Problem :
 Reordering may become inevitable when new
resources are added to the system.
Preemption
 A preemptable resource is one whose
state can be easily saved and restored
later.

 Examples : CPU registers, main memory.

Resource allocation policies
1. Preempt all the resources of a process
when it request for a resource that is
not currently available.
 Process is blocked.

2. If a resource is held by a waiting

(waiting for another resource) process
and another process requests for that,
 Preempt the requested resource from the
waiting process,
 Allot to the requesting process.
Cont…
 Method works only for preemptable
resources.

 So, further requirements are:

 The availability of atomic transactions.
 Global timestamps - in distributed and
database transaction processing systems.
Cont…
 Transaction-based deadlock prevention
method
 Use of unique priority numbers for
transactions.

 Priority numbers are used to break the tie.

 Global unique timestamp may serve as priority

number.

 Lower the value of timestamp means higher

the priority .
Cont…
 Schemes based on the above idea:
 Wait-die scheme
 Wait-wound scheme
Wait-die scheme
 Three Transactions Ti (oldest), Tj and
Tk(youngest)
 If a transaction Ti requests a resource that
is currently held by another transaction Tj,
 Ti is blocked because its timestamp is lower
than that if Tj;
 If a transaction Tk requests a resource
that is currently held by another
transaction Tj,
 Tk is aborted (dies).
Wait-wound scheme
 Three Transactions Ti (oldest), Tj and
Tk(youngest)
 If a transaction Ti requests a resource that is
currently held by another transaction Tj,
 Tj is preempted because its timestamp is
higher than that if Tj;
 If a transaction Tk requests a resource that is
currently held by another transaction Tj,
 Tk blocked because its timestamp is lower than
that if Tj
Deadlock Detection and Recovery
 Deadlocks are allowed to occur.
 A detection algorithm is used to detect
these.
 After a deadlock is detected, it is resolved
by certain means.
 Detection algorithms are the same in both
centralized and distributed systems.
 Based on resource allocation graph and
possibility of deadlock.
Cont…
 Properties for the correctness of deadlock
detection algorithms:

 Progress property
 Deadlock must be detected in a finite amount of
time.

 Safety property
 If a deadlock is detected, it must indeed exist.
 No phantom deadlocks.
Cont…
 Steps to construct WFG for a distributed
system:
 Construct the resource allocation graph for
each site of the system.

 Convert that into a separate WFG for each site.

 Take the union of the WFGs of all sites and

construct a single global WFG.
Cont… : Example
P1 P3 P1 P3

R1 R2
P1 P3
P2 P2

Site S1 Site S1
P2
P1 R3 P3 P1 P3

Site S2 Site S2
(c) Global WFG by
(A) Resource (B) WFGs taking the union of
allocation graph for corresponding to the two local WFGs of
each site graphs in (a) (b).s
Cont…
 Local WFGs are not sufficient to
characterize all deadlocks in a distributed
system.

 So, the construction of a global WFG is

required
 Taking the union of all local WFGs.
Cont…
 Problem:
 How to maintain WFG in a distributed system?

 Techniques are:
 Centralized
 Hierarchical
 Distributed
Centralized approach for deadlock detection
 Use of local coordinator for each site
 Maintains a WFG for its local resources

 Use of central coordinator/centralized

deadlock detector
 Receives information from the local
coordinators of the sites.

 Constructs the union of al the individual WFGs.

Cont…
 Approach:
 Local deadlocks are detected and handled by
the local coordinator.
 Considers the cycles that exist in the local WFG of a
site.

 Deadlocks at two or more sites are detected

and resolved by the central coordinator.
 Considers the cycles in the global WFG.
Cont…
 Methods to transfer information from local
coordinators to the central coordinator:

 Continuous transfer
 Transfer of message whenever a new edge is added
to or deleted from the local WFG.

 Periodic transfer

 Transfer-on-request
Cont…
 Drawbacks of centralized deadlock
detection approach:
 Vulnerable to failures of the central
coordinator.

 Performance bottleneck in large systems

having too many sites.

 Detection of false deadlocks.

Example
 Processes : P1, P2 and P3
 Resources : R1, R2 and R3
 Steps:
 1: P1 requests for R1 and R1 is allocated to it.
 2: P2 requests for R2 and R2 is allocated to it.
 3: P3 requests for R3 and R3 is allocated to it.
 4: P2 requests for R1 and waits for it.
 5: P3 requests for R2 and waits for it.
 6: P1 releases R1 and R1 is allocated to P2.
 7: P1 requests for R3 and waits for it.
Cont…
 Sequences of messages sent to the central
coordinator (using continuous transfer):
 M1: from site S1 to add the edge (R1, P1).
 M2: from site S1 to add the edge (R2, P2).
 M3: from site S2 to add the edge (R3, P3).
 M4: from site S1 to add the edge (P2, R1).
 M5: from site S1 to add the edge (P3, R2).
 M6: from site S1 to delete edges (R1,P1) and (P2,R1),
and add edge (R1, P2).
 M7: from site S2 to add the edge (P1, R3).
Cont…

P1 P3 P1 P3
R3

R3 P3
R1 R2 R1 R2

P2 P2
Resource allocation Resource allocation
Resource allocation
graph of the local graph maintained
graph of the local
coordinator of site by the central
coordinator of site
S2 coordinator
S1

Resource allocation graphs after step 5

Cont…

P3 P1 P3
R3

P1 R3 P3
R1 R2 R1 R2

P2 P2

Site S2 Central coordinator

Site S1

Resource allocation graphs after step 7

Cont…

P1 R3 P3

R1 R2

P2
Central coordinator

Resource allocation graph of the central coordinator

showing false deadlock if message m7 is received
before m6 by the central coordinator.
Cont…
 Result :
 Possibility of detection of phantom deadlocks
 when the method of continuous transfer of
information is used.

 In other methods of information transfer, due to

incomplete or delayed information.
Cont…
 Solution:
 Use unique global timestamp with each
message.

 Disadvantages of centralized approach:

 Less attractive for most real applications.

 Time and message overhead.

Hierarchical approach for deadlock detection
 Uses a logical hierarchy (tree) of deadlock
detectors, known as controllers.

 Each controller is responsible for detecting only

those deadlocks that involve the sites falling
within its range in the hierarchy.

 Approach is distributed over a number of

different controllers.
Cont…
 Rules :
 Each controller that forms a leaf of the
hierarchy tree maintains the local WFG of a
single site.

 Each nonleaf controller maintains a WFG that

is the union of the WFGs of its immediate
children in the hierarchy tree.
Cont…
 The lowest level controller that finds a
cycle in its WFG
 detects a deadlock and

 Takes necessary action to resolve it.

 A WFG that contains a cycle will never be

passed as it is to a higher level controller.
 Example : Hierarchical deadlock
detection approach
P4 P5

P7 P6 Controller G

P1 P3 P4 P5
P5 P6 P7
P2 P7
Controller E Controller F

P1 P3 P1 R3 P3
P5 R6 P6 P6 R7 P7
R1 R2 P4 R4 P5

P2 R5 P7 Site S3 Site S4
Controller C Controller D
Site S1 Site S2
Controller A Controller B
Cont…
 Deadlock cycle
 (p1,p3,p2,p1) of site S1 and S2 gets reflected
in the WFG of controller E.

 (p4,p5,p6,p7,p4) of site S2,S3 and S4 gets

reflected in the WFG of controller G.
Fully distributed approaches for deadlock
detection
 Each site of the system shares equal
responsibility for deadlock detection.

 Algorithms are:
 WFG-based distributed algorithm for deadlock
detection.

 Probe-based distributed algorithm for deadlock

detection.
WFG-based fully distributed deadlock
detection algorithms
 Each site maintains its own local WFG.

 An extra node Pex is added to the local WFG of

each site.

 Pex node is connected to the WFG of the

corresponding site.
Cont…
 An edge (Pi, Pex) is added if process Pi is waiting
for a resource in another site being held by any
process.

 An edge (Pex, Pj) is added if Pj is a process of

another site that is waiting for a resource
currently being held by a process of this site. (Pj
is indicated as external process pointed by Pex).
 In the WFG of site S1, edge (P1, Pex) is added
because P1 is waiting for a resource in the site S2
that is held by P3 &

 Edge (Pex, P3) is added because P3 is a process

of site S2 that is waiting to acquire a resource
held by P2 of S1.

 WFG of S2, edge (P3, Pex) added because P3 is

waiting for a resource in S1 held by P2 &

 Edge (P3, Pex) added because P1 of S1 is waiting

to acquire resource held by P3 of S2.
Example
P1 P3 Pex

P1 P3
Pex
P4 P2
P1 P3 P5
Site S1 P4 P2
Site S1
P2

Pex
P1 P5 Updating local
P3
P1 P3 P5 WFGs of site S2
after receiving the
Site S2 Site S2 deadlock detection
message from site
Local WFGs Local WFGs after S1.
addition of node
Pex
Cont…
 If a local WFG contains a cycle that:
 does not involve node Pex, a deadlock that involves only
local processes of that site has occurred – Resolved
Locally

 does involve Pex, there is a possibility of a distributed

deadlock that involves processes of multiple sites – By
Distributed Deadlock Detection Algorithm.
Cont…
 Problem:
 Two sites may initiate the deadlock detection algorithm
independently for a deadlock that involves the same
processes.
 More than the necessary process may be killed.

 Solution:
 Assign a unique identifier to each process.
Probe-based distributed algorithm for
deadlock detection
 Proposed by Chandy et al. in 1983.

 Also known as Chandy-Mishra-Hass or CMH

algorithm.

 Use of probe message by the requesting process

for a resource to the process holding the
requested resource.
Cont…
 Fields of probe message:
 The identifier of the process just blocked.
 The identifier of the sender process.
 The identifier of the receiver process.
Cont…
 If recipient is using the resource, it ignores the
probe message.

 If recipient itself is waiting for any resource, it

forwards the probe message to the process
holding the resource for which it is waiting.

 Cycle exists if the probe message returns back to

the original sender.
 System is deadlocked.
 A probe packet : (p1,p1,p3)
p1 generates a probe message and sends it to
p3.
Cont…: CMH distributed deadlock
detection algorithm

(P1,P1,P3) (P1,P3,P5)
P1 P3 P5
(P1,P2,P1)

(P1,P3,P2)
(P1,P2,P4)
P4 P2

Site S1 Site S2
Cont…
 Features of the CMH algorithm:
 Easy to implement.
 Each message is of fixed length.
 Few computational steps.
 Low overhead of the algorithm
 No graph construction and information
collection
 Doesn’t detect false deadlocks
 Does not require any particular structure
among the processes.
Methods for recovery from deadlock
 Asking for operator intervention.
 Termination of process (es).
 Rollback of process (es).
Asking for operator intervention
 Inform the operator about the deadlock.

 Let the operator deal with it manually.

 Works for a centralized system.

 Not suitable for dealing with the deadlocks

involving processes of multiple sites.
Termination of process
 Terminate one or more processes and
reclaim the resources held by them for
reallocation.

 Requirements:
 Analyze the resource requirements and
interdependencies of the processes involved in
a deadlock cycle.
Rollback of process
 Reclaim the needed resources from the
processes that were selected for being
killed.
 Rollback the process to a point where the
resource was not allocated to the process.
 Processes are checkpointed periodically.
 Approach is less expensive than the
process termination approach.
 Extra overhead involved in periodic
checkpointing of all the processes.
Issues in recovery from deadlock
 Selection of victim (s)
 Use of transaction mechanism

 Victim: the process which is killed or rolled

back to break the deadlock.

 Factors for victim selection:

 Minimization of recovery cost
 Prevention of starvation
Election algorithms
 Most algorithms requires a coordinator process to
perform some type of coordination activity.

 Election algorithms are used for electing a

coordinator process from among the currently
running processes.

 At any instance of time there is a single

coordinator for all processes in the system.
Cont…
 Assumptions:
 Each process in the system has a unique
priority number.

 Process with highest priority will be elected as

the Coordinator.

 On recovery, a failed process can take

appropriate actions to rejoin the set of active
processes.
Bully algorithm
 Assumption :
 Every process knows the priority number of every other
process in the system.

 When a process (pi) sends a request to the

coordinator and does not receive a reply within a
fixed timeout period, it starts election process
assuming that the coordinator has failed.
Cont…
 Pi sends election message to all with a higher
priority number than itself.
 Informing others that now it is the coordinator.

 Process (Pj) with the higher priority number than

the mentioned one, sends alive message.
 Now Pj is the coordinator.

 On recovery of previous coordinator

 It simply sends a coordinator message to all other
processes and bullies the current coordinator into
submission.
Cont…
 Algorithm requires
 O(n2) messages in worst case.
 (n-2) messages in the best case.
Ring Algorithm
 All the processes in the system are organized in a
logical unidirectional ring.

 Every process in the system knows the structure

of the ring.

 If the successor of the sender process (Pi) is

down, may be the coordinator,
 It may start election process.
 the sender can skip over the successor, or
 The one after that, until an active member is located.
Cont…
 The election message contains the priority
number of sender process (Pi).

 Processes enter their priority number to the

message and pass it to the successor.

 Pi recognizes its own election message.

 It elects the process having the highest priority
as the new coordinator.
 It sends a coordination message over the ring
about the new coordinator.
Cont…
 If previous coordinator (Pj) recovers after
failure:
 Sends an inquiry message to its successor.

 The current coordinator replies to Pj that it is

the current coordinator.
Cont…
 Drawback :
 Two or more processes may circulate an
election message over the ring on discovery
that the coordinator has crashed.

 An election always requires 2(n-1) messages.

 n/2 messages are required on an average for

recovery action.

 More efficient and easier to implement than

bully algorithm.