Deadlocks

The Deadlock Problem

● A deadlock consists of a set of blocked processes, each
holding a resource and waiting to acquire a resource held by
another process in the set
● Example #1
● A system has 2 disk drives
● P 1 and P 2 each hold one disk drive and each needs the other one
● Example #2
● Semaphores A and B, initialized to 1

P0 P1
wait (A); wait(B)
wait (B); wait(A)
 Bridge Crossing Example

● Traffic only in one direction

● The resource is a one-lane bridge
● If a deadlock occurs, it can be resolved if one car backs
up (preempt resources and rollback)
● Several cars may have to be backed up if a deadlock
occurs
● Starvation is possible
 System Model
● Resource types R1, R2, . . ., Rm
CPU cycles, memory space, I/O devices
● Each resource type Ri has 1 or more instances
● Each process utilizes a resource as follows:
● request
● use
● release
 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, …, P0} 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
 Resource-Allocation Graph
A set of vertices V and a set of edges
E.
● V is partitioned into two types:
● P = {P 1 , P 2 , …, P n }, the set consisting of all
the processes in the system

● R = {R 1 , R 2 , …, R m }, the set consisting of all

resource types in the system
● request edge – directed edge P1 → Rj
● assignment edge – directed edge Rj → Pi
 Resource-Allocation Graph (Cont.)
● Process

● Resource Type with 4 instances

● Pi requests instance of Rj

P
i
R
● Pi is holding an instance of Rj j

P
i R
j
Resource Allocation Graph With A Deadlock
Before P3 requested an After P 3 requested an
instance of R2 instance of R2
 Graph With A Cycle But No Deadlock

Process P4 may release its instance of resource type R 2. That

resource can then be allocated to P3, thereby breaking the
cycle.
 Relationship of cycles to deadlocks
● If a resource allocation graph contains no cycles ⇒ no deadlock
● If a resource allocation graph contains a cycle and if only one instance exists
per resource type ⇒ deadlock
● If a resource allocation graph contains a cycle and a nd if several instances
exists per resource type ⇒ possibility of deadlock
 Methods for Handling Deadlocks
● Prevention
● Ensure that the system will never enter a deadlock state

● Avoidance
● Ensure that the system will never enter an unsafe state
● Detection
● Allow the system to enter a deadlock state and then recover

● Do Nothing
● Ignore the problem and let the user or system administrator respond to the
problem; used by most operating systems, including Windows and UNIX
 Deadlock Prevention
To prevent deadlock, we can restrain the ways that a request can be
made
● Mutual Exclusion – The mutual-exclusion condition must
hold for non-sharable resources

● Hold and Wait – we must guarantee that whenever a

process requests a resource, it does not hold any other
resources
● Require a process to request and be allocated all its
resources before it begins execution, or allow a process to
request resources only when the process has none
● Result: Low resource utilization; starvation possible
 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
● A 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. For example:

F(tape drive) = 1
F(disk drive) = 5
F(printer) = 12
 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

● A resource-allocation state is defined by the number of available

and allocated resources, and the maximum demands of the
processes

a priori: formed or conceived

beforehand
 Safe State

● When a process requests an available resource, the system

must decide if immediate allocation leaves the system in a safe
state
● A system is in a safe state only if there exists a safe sequence
● A sequence of processes <P1, P2, …, P n> is a safe sequence for
the current allocation state if, for each P i, the resource requests
that Pi can still make, can be satisfied by currently available
resources plus resources held by all Pj, with j < i.
● That is:
● If the Pi resource needs are not immediately available, then P i can
wait until all P j have finished
● When P j is finished, P i can obtain needed resources, execute, return
allocated resources, and terminate
● When P i terminates, P i +1 can obtain its needed resources, and so on
 Safe State (continued)

● 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
Safe, Unsafe , Deadlock State
 Avoidance algorithms

● For a single instance of a resource type, use a resource-

allocation graph

● For multiple instances of a resource type, use the banker’s

algorithm
Resource-Allocation Graph Scheme

● Introduce a new kind of edge called a claim edge

● Claim edge Pi Rj indicates that process Pj may

request resource Rj; which is represented by a dashed line

● A claim edge converts to a request edge when a process

requests a resource

● A request edge converts to an assignment edge when the

resource is allocated to the process

● When a resource is released by a process, an assignment

edge reconverts to a claim edge

● Resources must be claimed a priori in the system

 Resource-Allocation Graph with
Claim Edges

Assignme Reque
nt st
edge edge

Claim
Clai edge
m
edge
 Unsafe State In Resource-Allocation Graph

Assignme Reque
nt st
edge edge

Assignme
Clai nt
m edge
edge
 Resource-Allocation Graph Algorithm

● Suppose that process Pi requests a resource Rj

● The request can be granted only if converting the

request edge to an assignment edge does not result
in the formation of a cycle in the resource allocation
graph
 Banker’s Algorithm
● Used when there exists multiple instances of a resource type

● 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
 Data Structures for the Banker’s Algorithm

Let n = number of processes, and m = number of resources

types.
● Available: Vector of length m. If available [j] = k, there are k instances
of resource type Rj available.
● Max: n x m matrix. If Max [i,j] = k, then process Pi may request at
most k instances of resource type Rj.
● Allocation: n x m matrix. If Allocation[i,j] = k then P i is currently
allocated k instances of Rj.
● Need: n x m matrix. If Need[i,j] = k, then P i may need k more
instances of Rj to complete its task.

Need [i,j] = Max [i,j ] – Allocation [i,j ]

 Safety Algorithm

1. Let Work and Finish be vectors of length m and n, respectively.

Initialize:
Work := Available
Finish [i] = false for i - 1,3, …, n.
2. Find and i such that both:
(a) Finish [i] = false
(b) Needi ≤ Work
If no such i exists, go to step 4.
3. Work := Work + Allocationi
Finish[i] := true
go to step 2.
4. If Finish [i] = true for all i, then the system is in a safe state.
 Resource-Request Algorithm for
Process Pi
Requesti = request vector for process Pi. If Requesti [j] = k then
process Pi wants k instances of resource type Rj.
1. If Requesti ≤ Needi go to step 2. Otherwise, raise error
condition, since process has exceeded its maximum claim.
2. If Requesti ≤ Available, go to step 3. Otherwise Pi must wait,
since resources are not available.
3. Pretend to allocate requested resources to Pi by modifying
the state as follows:
Available := Available -Requesti;
Allocationi := Allocationi + Requesti;
Needi := Need i – Requesti;;
• If safe⇒ the resources are allocated to P .i

• If unsafe ⇒ P must wait, and the old resource-allocation

i
state is restored
7.6 Deadlock Detection
 Deadlock Detection

● For deadlock detection, the system must provide

● An algorithm that examines the state of the system to detect whether a
deadlock has occurred
● And an algorithm to recover from the deadlock
● A detection-and-recovery scheme requires various kinds of overhead
● Run-time costs of maintaining necessary information and executing the
detection algorithm
● Potential losses inherent in recovering from a deadlock
 Single Instance of Each Resource Type

● Requires the creation and maintenance of a wait-for graph

● Consists of a variant of the resource-allocation graph
● The graph is obtained by removing the resource nodes from
a resource-allocation graph and collapsing the appropriate
edges
● Consequently; all nodes are processes
● Pi → Pj if Pi is waiting for Pj.

● Periodically invoke an algorithm that searches for a cycle

in the graph
● If there is a cycle, there exists a deadlock
● An algorithm to detect a cycle in a graph requires an order of
n 2 operations, where n is the number of vertices in the graph
Resource-Allocation Graph and Wait-for Graph

Resource-Allocation Corresponding wait-for

Graph graph
 Multiple Instances of a Resource Type

Required data
structures:

● Available: A vector of length m indicates the number of

available resources of each type.

● Allocation: An n x m matrix defines the number of

resources of each type currently allocated to each process.

● Request: An n x m matrix indicates the current request of

each process. If Request [ij] = k, then process P i is
requesting k more instances of resource type. Rj.
 Detection-Algorithm Usage

● When, and how often, to invoke the detection algorithm depends on:
● How often is a deadlock likely to occur?
● How many processes will be affected by deadlock when it happens?

● If the detection algorithm is invoked arbitrarily, there may be many

cycles in the resource graph and so we would not be able to tell which
one of the many deadlocked processes “caused” the deadlock
● If the detection algorithm is invoked for every resource request, such an
action will incur a considerable overhead in computation time
● A less expensive alternative is to invoke the algorithm when CPU
utilization drops below 40%, for example
● This is based on the observation that a deadlock eventually cripples system
throughput and causes CPU utilization to drop
7.7 Recovery From Deadlock
Recovery from Deadlock

● Two Approaches
● Process termination
● Resource preemption
Recovery from Deadlock: Process Termination
● Abort all deadlocked processes
● This approach will break the deadlock, but at great expense

● Abort one process at a time until the deadlock cycle is eliminated

● This approach incurs considerable overhead, since, after each process is
aborted, a deadlock-detection algorithm must be re-invoked to determine
whether any processes are still deadlocked

● Many factors may affect which process is chosen for termination

● What is the priority of the process?
● How long has the process run so far and how much longer will the process
need to run before completing its task?
● How many and what type of resources has the process used?
● How many more resources does the process need in order to finish its
task?
● How many processes will need to be terminated?
● Is the process interactive or batch?
Recovery from Deadlock: Resource Preemption

● With this approach, we successively preempt some resources

from processes and give these resources to other processes until
the deadlock cycle is broken
● When preemption is required to deal with deadlocks, then three
issues need to be addressed:
● Selecting a victim – Which resources and which processes are to be
preempted?

● Rollback – If we preempt a resource from a process, what should be

done with that process?

● Starvation – How do we ensure that starvation will not occur? That is,
how can we guarantee that resources will not always be preempted
from the same process?
 Summary

● Four necessary conditions must hold in the system for a deadlock

to occur
● Mutual exclusion
● Hold and wait
● No preemption
● Circular wait
● Four principal methods for dealing with deadlocks
● Use some protocol to (1) prevent or (2) avoid deadlocks, ensuring
that the system will never enter a deadlock state
● Allow the system to enter a deadlock state, (3) detect it, and then
recover
Recover by process termination or resource preemption
● (4) Do nothing; ignore the problem altogether and pretend that
deadlocks never occur in the system (used by Windows and Unix)
● To prevent deadlocks, we can ensure that at least one of the four
necessary conditions never holds
End of Chapter 7