Chapter 7: Deadlocks

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Chapter 7: Deadlocks

System Model

Deadlock Characterization

Methods for Handling Deadlocks

Deadlock Prevention

Deadlock Avoidance

Deadlock Detection

Recovery from Deadlock

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Chapter Objectives

To develop a description of deadlocks, which prevent sets of
concurrent processes from completing their tasks

To present a number of different methods for preventing or avoiding

deadlocks in a computer system

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 System Model

System consists of resources

Resource types R1, R2, . . ., Rm

CPU cycles, memory space, I/O devices

Each resource type Ri has Wi instances.

Each process utilizes a resource as follows:

 request
 use
 release

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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, …, Pn} 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.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Deadlock with Mutex Locks

Deadlocks can occur via system calls, locking, etc

See example box in text page 318 for mutex deadlock

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Resource-Allocation Graph

A set of vertices V and a set of edges E.

V is partitioned into two types:

 P = {P1, P2, …, Pn}, the set consisting of all the processes in
the system

 R = {R1, R2, …, Rm}, the set consisting of all resource types in

the system

request edge – directed edge Pi → Rj

assignment edge – directed edge Rj → Pi

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Resource-Allocation Graph (Cont.)

Process

Resource Type with 4 instances

Pi requests instance of Rj

Pi
Rj

Pi is holding an instance of Rj

Pi
Rj

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Example of a Resource Allocation Graph

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Resource Allocation Graph With A Deadlock

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Graph With A Cycle But No Deadlock

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Basic Facts

If graph contains no cycles ⇒ no deadlock

If graph contains a cycle ⇒

 if only one instance per resource type, then deadlock
 if several instances per resource type, possibility of deadlock

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Methods for Handling Deadlocks

Ensure that the system will never enter a deadlock state

Allow the system to enter a deadlock state and then recover

Ignore the problem and pretend that deadlocks never occur in the
system; used by most operating systems, including UNIX

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Deadlock Prevention

Restrain the ways request can be made

Mutual Exclusion – not required for sharable resources; must

hold for nonsharable resources

Hold and Wait – must guarantee that whenever a process

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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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
 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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Deadlock Example
/* thread one runs in this function */
void *do work one(void *param)
{
pthread mutex lock(&first mutex);
pthread mutex lock(&second mutex);
/** * Do some work */
pthread mutex unlock(&second mutex);
pthread mutex unlock(&first mutex);
pthread exit(0);
}
/* thread two runs in this function */
void *do work two(void *param)
{
pthread mutex lock(&second mutex);
pthread mutex lock(&first mutex);
/** * Do some work */
pthread mutex unlock(&first mutex);
pthread mutex unlock(&second mutex);
pthread exit(0);
}
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Deadlock Example with Lock Ordering
void transaction(Account from, Account to, double amount)
{
mutex lock1, lock2;
lock1 = get lock(from);
lock2 = get lock(to);
acquire(lock1);
acquire(lock2);
withdraw(from, amount);
deposit(to, amount);
release(lock2);
release(lock1);
}

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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

Resource-allocation state is defined by the number of available and

allocated resources, and the maximum demands of the processes

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Safe State

When a process requests an available resource, system must decide

if immediate allocation leaves the system in a safe state

System is in safe state if there exists a sequence <P1, P2, …, Pn> of

ALL the processes in the systems such that for each Pi, the
resources that Pi can still request can be satisfied by currently
available resources + resources held by all the Pj, with j < I

That is:
 If Pi resource needs are not immediately available, then Pi can
wait until all Pj have finished
 When Pj is finished, Pi can obtain needed resources, execute,
return allocated resources, and terminate
 When Pi terminates, Pi +1 can obtain its needed resources, and so
on

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Basic Facts

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.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Safe, Unsafe, Deadlock State

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Avoidance algorithms

Single instance of a resource type

 Use a resource-allocation graph

Multiple instances of a resource type

 Use the banker’s algorithm

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Resource-Allocation Graph Scheme

Claim edge Pi → Rj indicated that process Pj may request resource

Rj; represented by a dashed line

Claim edge converts to request edge when a process requests a

resource

Request edge converted to an assignment edge when the resource

is allocated to the process

When a resource is released by a process, assignment edge

reconverts to a claim edge

Resources must be claimed a priori in the system

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Resource-Allocation Graph

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Unsafe State In Resource-Allocation Graph

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Banker’s Algorithm

Multiple instances

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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 ’s Algorithm
Data Structures for the Banker’

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 Pi is currently

allocated k instances of Rj

Need: n x m matrix. If Need[i,j] = k, then Pi may need k more

instances of Rj to complete its task

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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Safety Algorithm
1. Let Work and Finish be vectors of length m and n, respectively.
Initialize:
Work = Available
Finish [i] = false for i = 0, 1, …, n- 1

2. Find an 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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Resource-Request Algorithm for Process Pi

Request = 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 – Request;
Allocationi = Allocationi + Requesti;
Needi = Needi – Requesti;
 If safe ⇒ the resources are allocated to Pi
 If unsafe ⇒ Pi must wait, and the old resource-allocation state
is restored

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 ’s Algorithm
Example of Banker’

5 processes P0 through P4;

3 resource types:
A (10 instances), B (5instances), and C (7 instances)
Snapshot at time T0:
Allocation Max Available
ABC ABC ABC
P0 010 753 332
P1 200 322
P2 302 902
P3 211 222
P4 002 433

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Example (Cont.)

The content of the matrix Need is defined to be Max – Allocation

Need
ABC
P0 743
P1 122
P2 600
P3 011
P4 431

The system is in a safe state since the sequence < P1, P3, P4, P2, P0>
satisfies safety criteria

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.32 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Example: P1 Request (1,0,2)

Check that Request ≤ Available (that is, (1,0,2) ≤ (3,3,2) ⇒ true

Allocation Need Available
ABC ABC ABC
P0 010 743 230
P1 302 020
P2 302 600
P3 211 011
P4 002 431

Executing safety algorithm shows that sequence < P1, P3, P4, P0, P2>
satisfies safety requirement

Can request for (3,3,0) by P4 be granted?

Can request for (0,2,0) by P0 be granted?

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Deadlock Detection

Allow system to enter deadlock state

Detection algorithm

Recovery scheme

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.34 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Single Instance of Each Resource Type

Maintain wait-for graph

 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 n2

operations, where n is the number of vertices in the graph

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.35 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Resource-Allocation Graph and Wait-for Graph

Resource-Allocation Graph Corresponding wait-for graph

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.36 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Several Instances of a Resource Type

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 [i][j] = k, then process Pi is requesting k more
instances of resource type Rj.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.37 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Detection Algorithm
1. Let Work and Finish be vectors of length m and n, respectively
Initialize:
(a) Work = Available
(b) For i = 1,2, …, n, if Allocationi ≠ 0, then
Finish[i] = false; otherwise, Finish[i] = true

2. Find an index i such that both:

(a) Finish[i] == false
(b) Requesti ≤ Work

If no such i exists, go to step 4

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.38 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Detection Algorithm (Cont.)

3. Work = Work + Allocationi

Finish[i] = true
go to step 2

4. If Finish[i] == false, for some i, 1 ≤ i ≤ n, then the system is in

deadlock state. Moreover, if Finish[i] == false, then Pi is deadlocked

Algorithm requires an order of O(m x n2) operations to detect

whether the system is in deadlocked state

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.39 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Example of Detection Algorithm

Five processes P0 through P4; three resource types
A (7 instances), B (2 instances), and C (6 instances)

Snapshot at time T0:

Allocation Request Available
ABC ABC ABC
P0 010 000 000
P1 200 202
P2 303 000
P3 211 100
P4 002 002

Sequence <P0, P2, P3, P1, P4> will result in Finish[i] = true for all i

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.40 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Example (Cont.)

P2 requests an additional instance of type C
Request
ABC
P0 000
P1 202
P2 001
P3 100
P4 002

State of system?
 Can reclaim resources held by process P0, but insufficient
resources to fulfill other processes; requests
 Deadlock exists, consisting of processes P1, P2, P3, and P4

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.41 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Detection-Algorithm Usage

When, and how often, to invoke depends on:
 How often a deadlock is likely to occur?
 How many processes will need to be rolled back?

one for each disjoint cycle

If detection algorithm is invoked arbitrarily, there may be many cycles

in the resource graph and so we would not be able to tell which of the
many deadlocked processes “caused” the deadlock.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.42 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Recovery from Deadlock:
Process Termination

Abort all deadlocked processes

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

In which order should we choose to abort?

1. Priority of the process
2. How long process has computed, and how much longer to
completion
3. Resources the process has used
4. Resources process needs to complete
5. How many processes will need to be terminated
6. Is process interactive or batch?

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.43 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Recovery from Deadlock:
Resource Preemption

Selecting a victim – minimize cost

Rollback – return to some safe state, restart process for that state

Starvation – same process may always be picked as victim,

include number of rollback in cost factor

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 7.44 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013