Chapter 6: Synchronization

Tools

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 Outline
 Background
 The Critical-Section Problem
 Peterson’s Solution
 Hardware Support for Synchronization
 Mutex Locks
 Semaphores
 Monitors
 Liveness
 Evaluation

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Objectives
 Describe the critical-section problem and
illustrate a race condition
 Illustrate hardware solutions to the
critical-section problem using memory
barriers, compare-and-swap operations,
and atomic variables
 Demonstrate how mutex locks,
semaphores, monitors, and condition
variables can be used to solve the critical
section problem
 Evaluate tools that solve the critical-
section problem in low-, Moderate-, and
high-contention scenarios

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.3 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
 We illustrated in chapter 4 the problem when we
considered the Bounded Buffer problem with use of a
counter that is updated concurrently by the producer
and consumer,. Which lead to race condition.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Race Condition
 Processes P0 and P1 are creating child processes using
the fork() system call
 Race condition on kernel variable next_available_pid
which represents the next available process identifier
(pid)

 Unless there is a mechanism to prevent P0 and P1 from

accessing the variable next_available_pid the same
pid could be assigned to two different processes!

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.5 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 – 10th Edition 6.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Critical Section

 General structure of process Pi

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Critical-Section Problem (Cont.)
Requirements for 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 process 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 6.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition
 Interrupt-based Solution
 Entry section: disable interrupts
 Exit section: enable interrupts
 Will this solve the problem?
• What if the critical section is code that runs for an hour?
• Can some processes starve – never enter their critical section.
• What if there are two
CPUs?

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Software Solution 1

 Two process solution

 Assume that the load and store machine-
language instructions are atomic; that is, cannot
be interrupted
 The two processes share one variable:
• int turn;
 The variable turn indicates whose turn it is to
enter the critical section

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Algorithm for Process Pi

while (true){

turn = i;
while (turn = = j)
;

/* critical section */

turn = j;

/* remainder section */

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Correctness of the Software Solution

 Mutual exclusion is preserved

Pi enters critical section only if:
turn = i
and turn cannot be both 0 and 1 at the same time
 What about the Progress requirement?
 What about the Bounded-waiting requirement?

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Peterson’s Solution
 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 – 10th Edition 6.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Algorithm for Process Pi

while (true){

flag[i] = true;
turn = j;
while (flag[j] && turn = = j)
;

/* critical section */

flag[i] = false;

/* remainder section */

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Correctness of Peterson’s Solution

 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 – 10th Edition 6.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Peterson’s Solution and Modern Architecture

 Although useful for demonstrating an algorithm,

Peterson’s Solution is not guaranteed to work on
modern architectures.
• To improve performance, processors and/or
compilers may reorder operations that have no
dependencies
 Understanding why it will not work is useful for
better understanding race conditions.
 For single-threaded this is ok as the result will
always be the same.
 For multithreaded the reordering may produce
inconsistent or unexpected results!

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Modern Architecture Example

 Two threads share the data:

boolean flag = false;
int x = 0;
 Thread 1 performs
while (!flag)
;
print x
 Thread 2 performs
x = 100;
flag = true
 What is the expected output?

100

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Modern Architecture Example (Cont.)

 However, since the variables flag and x are

independent of each other, the instructions:

flag = true;
x = 100;

for Thread 2 may be reordered

 If this occurs, the output may be 0!

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Peterson’s Solution Revisited

 The effects of instruction reordering in Peterson’s

Solution

 This allows both processes to be in their critical section

at the same time!
 To ensure that Peterson’s solution will work correctly on
modern computer architecture we must use Memory
Barrier.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Memory Barrier

 Memory model are the memory guarantees a

computer architecture makes to application
programs.
 Memory models may be either:
• Strongly ordered – where a memory modification
of one processor is immediately visible to all
other processors.
• Weakly ordered – where a memory modification
of one processor may not be immediately visible
to all other processors.
 A memory barrier is an instruction that forces any
change in memory to be propagated (made visible)
to all other processors.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Memory Barrier Instructions

 When a memory barrier instruction is performed, the

system ensures that all loads and stores are
completed before any subsequent load or store
operations are performed.
 Therefore, even if instructions were reordered, the
memory barrier ensures that the store operations
are completed in memory and visible to other
processors before future load or store operations
are performed.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Memory Barrier Example
 Returning to the example of slides 6.17 - 6.18
 We could add a memory barrier to the following
instructions to ensure Thread 1 outputs 100:
 Thread 1 now performs
while (!flag)
memory_barrier();
print x
 Thread 2 now performs
x = 100;
memory_barrier();
flag = true
 For Thread 1 we are guaranteed that that the
value of flag is loaded before the value of x.
 For Thread 2 we ensure that the assignment to x
occurs before the assignment flag.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Synchronization Hardware
 Many systems provide hardware support for
implementing the critical section code.
 Uniprocessors – could disable interrupts
• Currently running code would execute without
preemption
• Generally too inefficient on multiprocessor systems
 Operating systems using this not broadly
scalable
 We will look at three forms of hardware support:
1. Hardware instructions

2. Atomic variables

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Hardware Instructions

 Special hardware instructions that allow us

to either test-and-modify the content of a
word, or two swap the contents of two
words atomically (uninterruptedly.)
• Test-and-Set instruction
• Compare-and-Swap instruction

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 The test_and_set Instruction

 Definition
boolean test_and_set (boolean
*target)
{
boolean rv = *target;
*target = true;
return rv:
}
 Properties
• Executed atomically
• Returns the original value of passed
parameter
• Set the new value of passed parameter to
true

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.25 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);

 Does it solve the critical-section problem?

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 The 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;
}
 Properties
• Executed atomically
• Returns the original value of passed parameter value
• Set the variable value the value of the passed
parameter new_value but only if *value == expected is
true. That is, the swap takes place only under this
condition.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Solution using compare_and_swap
 Shared integer lock initialized to 0;
 Solution:
while (true){
while (compare_and_swap(&lock, 0, 1) != 0)
; /* do nothing */

/* critical section */

lock = 0;

/* remainder section */
}

 Does it solve the critical-section problem?

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Bounded-waiting with compare-and-swap

while (true) {
waiting[i] = true;
key = 1;
while (waiting[i] && key == 1)
key = compare_and_swap(&lock,0,1);
waiting[i] = false;
/* critical section */
j = (i + 1) % n;
while ((j != i) && !waiting[j])
j = (j + 1) % n;
if (j == i)
lock = 0;
else
waiting[j] = false;
/* remainder section */
}

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Atomic Variables

 Typically, instructions such as compare-and-

swap are used as building blocks for other
synchronization tools.
 One tool is an atomic variable that provides
atomic (uninterruptible) updates on basic data
types such as integers and booleans.
 For example:
• Let sequence be an atomic variable
• Let increment() be operation on the atomic
variable sequence
• The Command:
increment(&sequence);
ensures sequence is incremented without
interruption:

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Atomic Variables

 The increment() function can be implemented as follows:

void increment(atomic_int *v)

{
int temp;
do {
temp = *v;
}
while (temp != (compare_and_swap(v,temp,temp+1));
}

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.31 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
• Boolean variable indicating if lock is available or not
 Protect a critical section by
• First acquire() a lock
• Then release() the lock
 Calls to acquire() and release() must be atomic
• Usually implemented via hardware atomic
instructions such as compare-and-swap.
 But this solution requires busy waiting
• This lock therefore called a spinlock

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.32 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Solution to CS Problem Using Mutex Locks

while (true) {
acquire lock

critical section

release lock

remainder section
}

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Semaphore

 Synchronization tool that provides more

sophisticated ways (than Mutex locks) for
processes 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 – 10th Edition 6.34 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Semaphore (Cont.)
 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 implement a counting semaphore S as a
binary semaphore
 With semaphores we can solve various
synchronization problems

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.35 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Semaphore Usage Example
 Solution to the CS Problem
• Create a semaphore “mutex” initialized to 1
wait(mutex);
CS
signal(mutex);
 Consider P1 and P2 that with two statements S1
and S2 and the requirement that S1 to happen
before S2
• Create a semaphore “synch” initialized to 0
P1:
S1;
signal(synch);
P2:
wait(synch);
S2;

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.36 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
• 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 – 10th Edition 6.37 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

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.38 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Implementation with no Busy waiting (Cont.)

 Waiting queue
typedef struct {
int value;
struct process *list;
} semaphore;

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.39 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 – 10th Edition 6.40 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Problems with Semaphores

 Incorrect use of semaphore operations:

• signal(mutex) …. wait(mutex)

• wait(mutex) … wait(mutex)

• Omitting of wait (mutex) and/or signal

(mutex)

 These – and others – are examples of what can

occur when semaphores and other synchronization
tools are used incorrectly.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.41 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
 Pseudocode syntax of a monitor:

monitor monitor-name
{
// shared variable declarations
procedure P1 (…) { …. }

procedure P2 (…) { …. }

procedure Pn (…) {……}

initialization code (…) { … }

}

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.42 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Schematic view of a Monitor

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.43 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Monitor Implementation Using Semaphores

 Variables

semaphore mutex
mutex = 1

 Each procedure P is replaced by

wait(mutex);
…
body of P;
…
signal(mutex);

 Mutual exclusion within a monitor is ensured

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.44 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()
 If no x.wait() on the variable, then it has no
effect on the variable

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.45 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Monitor with Condition Variables

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.46 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Usage of Condition Variable Example
 Consider P1 and P2 that that need to execute two
statements S1 and S2 and the requirement that S1 to
happen before S2
• Create a monitor with two procedures F1 and F2
that are invoked by P1 and P2 respectively
• One condition variable “x” initialized to 0
• One Boolean variable “done”
• F1:
S1;
done = true;
x.signal();
• F2:
if done = false
x.wait()
S2;

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.47 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Monitor Implementation Using Semaphores

 Variables

semaphore mutex; // (initially = 1)

semaphore next; // (initially = 0)
int next_count = 0; // number of processes waiting

inside the monitor

 Each function P will be replaced by

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

 Mutual exclusion within a monitor is ensured

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.48 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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 – 10th Edition 6.49 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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 – 10th Edition 6.50 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Resuming Processes within a Monitor

 If several processes queued on condition

variable x, and x.signal() is executed,
which process should be resumed?
 FCFS frequently not adequate
 Use the conditional-wait construct of the form

x.wait(c)
where:
• c is an integer (called the priority
number)
• The process with lowest number (highest
priority) is scheduled next

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.51 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Single Resource allocation

 Allocate a single resource among competing processes

using priority numbers that specifies 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 – 10th Edition 6.52 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Single Resource allocation

 Allocate a single resource among competing processes

using priority numbers that specifies the maximum time
a process plans to use the resource
 The process with the shortest time is allocated the
resource first
 Let R is an instance of type ResourceAllocator (next
slide)
 Access to ResourceAllocator is done via:

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

 Where t is the maximum time a process plans to use the

resource

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.53 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 – 10th Edition 6.54 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Single Resource Monitor (Cont.)

 Usage:
acquire
...
release
 Incorrect use of monitor operations
• release() … acquire()
• acquire() … acquire())
• Omitting of acquire() and/or release()

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.55 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Liveness

 Processes may have to wait indefinitely while trying to

acquire a synchronization tool such as a mutex lock or
semaphore.
 Waiting indefinitely violates the progress and bounded-
waiting criteria discussed at the beginning of this
chapter.
 Liveness refers to a set of properties that a system must
satisfy to ensure processes make progress.
 Indefinite waiting is an example of a liveness failure.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.56 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Liveness
 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);

 Consider if P0 executes wait(S) and P1 wait(Q). When P0

executes wait(Q), it must wait until P1 executes
signal(Q)
 However, P1 is waiting until P0 execute signal(S).
 Since these signal() operations will never be executed,
P0 and P1 are deadlocked.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.57 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Liveness
 Other forms of deadlock:
 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 – 10th Edition 6.58 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 End of Chapter 6

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 Priority Inheritance Protocol
 Consider the scenario with  three processes P1, P2, and
P3.
• P1 has the highest priority, P2 the next highest, and
P3 the lowest.
 Assume that P3 is holding semaphore S and that P1 is
waiting to S to be released
 Assume that P2 is assigned the CPU and preempts P3
• P3 is still holding semaphore S
• P1 is waiting to S to be released
 What has happened is that P2 - a process with a lower
priority than P1 - has indirectly prevented P3 from
gaining access to the resource.
 To prevent this from occurring, a priority inheritance
protocol is used. This simply allows the priority of the
highest thread waiting to access a shared resource to
be assigned to the thread currently using the resource.
Thus, the current owner of the resource is assigned the
priority of the highest priority thread wishing to acquire
the resource.
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.60 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Usage of Condition Variable Example
 Consider P1 and P2 that that need to execute two
statements S1 and S2 and the requirement that S1 to
happen before S2
• Create a monitor with two procedures F1 and F2
that are invoked by P1 and P2 respectively
• One condition variable “x” initialized to 0
• One Boolean variable “done”
• F1:
S1;
done = true;
x.signal();
• F2:
if done = false
x.wait()
S2;

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 6.61 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne