Chapter 8: Deadlocks

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 Chapter 8: Deadlocks
 System Model
 Deadlock in Multi-threaded Applications
 Deadlock Characterization
 Methods for Handling Deadlocks
 Deadlock Prevention
 Deadlock Avoidance
 Deadlock Detection
 Recovery from Deadlock

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 Chapter Objectives

 Illustrate how deadlock can occur when mutex locks

are used
 Define the four necessary conditions that
characterize deadlock
 Identify a deadlock situation in a resource allocation
graph
 Evaluate the four different approaches for preventing
deadlocks
 Apply the banker’s algorithm for deadlock avoidance
 Apply the deadlock detection algorithm
 Evaluate approaches for recovering from deadlock

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 System Model
 System consists of a collection of m resource types and n
processes
 Resource types R1, R2, . . ., Rm
CPU cycles, memory space, I/O devices
 Each resource type Ri has Wi instances.
 Each process utilizes a resource by executing a sequence of three
actions:
 request it
 use it
 release it

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 Deadlock in Multithreaded Application
 Two mutex locks are created an initialized:

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 Deadlock in Multithreaded Application

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 Deadlock in Multithreaded Application
 Deadlock is possible if thread 1 acquires first_mutex and thread 2
acquires second_mutex. Thread 1 then waits for second_mutex and
thread 2 waits for first_mutex.
 Can be illustrated with a resource allocation graph:

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 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 – 10th Edition 8.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 Resource-Allocation Graph
A resource allocation graph is a set of vertices V and a set of edges E
such that:
 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 indicates Pi has

requested a unit of Rj

 assignment edge – directed edge Rj  Pi

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 Resource Allocation Graph Example
 One instance of R1
 Two instances of R2
 One instance of R3
 Three instance of R4
 T1 holds one instance of R2 and is
waiting for an instance of R1
 T2 holds one instance of R1, one
instance of R2, and is waiting for an
instance of R3
 T3 is holds one instance of R3

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 Resource Allocation Graph With A Deadlock

T3 requests one
unit of R2

resulting in
deadlock

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 Graph With A Cycle But No Deadlock

Although this graph has a

cycle, it is not the graph of
a deadlock state.

T2 holds a unit of R1 and is

not waiting for another
resource, so it can release
it when it is finished with it
and T1 can acquire the unit.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 Resource Allocation Graph Facts

 If graph contains no cycles  no deadlock

 If graph contains a cycle 
 If each resource type has just a single instance of
the resource, then a cycle implies deadlock
 If there is at least one resource type that has multiple
instances, a cycle does not necessarily imply
deadlock.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 Methods for Handling Deadlocks
 Ensure that the system will never enter a deadlock
state:
 Deadlock prevention
 Deadlock avoidance
 Allow the system to enter a deadlock state and then
recover
 Ignore the problem and pretend that deadlocks never
occur in the system.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 Deadlock Prevention
Invalidate one of the four necessary conditions for deadlock:

 Mutual Exclusion – not required for shareable resources

(e.g., read-only files); must hold for non-shareable
resources. Cannot remove mutual exclusion for reusable
resources so this is not an option.
 Hold and Wait – must guarantee that whenever a process
requests a resource, it does not hold any other resources.
Two choices:
1. Require process to request and be allocated all of its
resources before it begins execution.
2. Allow process to request resources only when the
process has none allocated to it.
 Poor resource utilization; starvation possible

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 Deadlock Prevention (Cont.)
 No Preemption – forcibly taking resources away from processes.
 If a process that is holding some resources requests another
resource that cannot be allocated immediately to it, then all
resources currently being held by that process 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.
 On request, if unavailable, we preempt resources from a
process that holds them if that process is in a waiting state; if
the requested resources are not available or held only by
ready processes, the requesting process waits. Process may
lose resources while it waits. Process gets restarted only when
it is allocated new resources and recovers the preempted
ones.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 Deadlock Prevention (Cont.)

 Circular Wait – impose a total ordering of all resource types, and

require that each process requests resources in an increasing
order of enumeration.
 Proposed by Havender:
 A process can request resources only in increasing order
of its resource number.
 If process holds Ri it can only request Rj if j > i.
 If process wants Rj, it must first release all Ri such that i
>= j.
 If a process violates these rules, it is terminated.
 This makes circular waiting impossible, so deadlock
impossible.
 But results in poor resource utilization.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 Circular Wait
 Invalidating the circular wait condition is most common.
 Simply assign each resource (i.e. mutex locks) a unique number.
 Resources must be acquired in order.
 If:

first_mutex = 1
second_mutex = 5

code for thread_two could not be

written as follows:

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 Deadlock Avoidance
 In deadlock prevention schemes, requests are constrained resulting in
poor utilization and throughput.
 Alternative is to use additional information to allow systems to decide
when and whether to grant requests. This is called deadlock
avoidance.
 Avoidance is a dynamic strategy.
 Requires that each process’s maximum claim for each resource type
is known in advance. A request is granted only if the resulting system
state is a safe state, meaning that there is a way to avoid deadlock in
this state while still continuing to allocate resources to each process.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 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 – 10th Edition 8.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 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 ‘s 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 – 10th Edition 8.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 Safe States and Unsafe States

 If a system is in safe state  it cannot be a deadlock state,

i.e., there is no deadlock in the current state.

 If a system is in unsafe state  possibility of deadlock – it

may not be possible to avoid deadlock.

 Avoidance algorithm  ensure that a system will never

enter an unsafe state.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 Safe, Unsafe, Deadlock State

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 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 – 10th Edition 8.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 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 – 10th Edition 8.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 Resource-Allocation Graph

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 Unsafe State In Resource-Allocation Graph

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 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 – 10th Edition 8.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 Banker’s Algorithm
 Multiple instances of resources

 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 – 10th Edition 8.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 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 hold 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 – 10th Edition 8.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 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 – 10th Edition 8.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 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 = 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 – 10th Edition 8.32 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 Example of Banker’s Algorithm

 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 – 10th Edition 8.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 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 – 10th Edition 8.34 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 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 – 10th Edition 8.35 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 Deadlock Detection

 Allow system to enter deadlock state

 Detection algorithm

 Recovery scheme

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.36 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 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 – 10th Edition 8.37 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 Resource-Allocation Graph and Wait-for Graph

Resource-Allocation Graph Corresponding wait-for graph

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 8.38 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 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 – 10th Edition 8.39 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 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 – 10th Edition 8.40 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 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 – 10th Edition 8.41 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 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 – 10th Edition 8.42 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 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 – 10th Edition 8.43 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 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 – 10th Edition 8.44 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 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 – 10th Edition 8.45 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 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 – 10th Edition 8.46 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020
 End of Chapter 8

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018, revised by S. Weiss 2020