Questions tagged [synchronization]
Questions about techniques for enforcing an agreed order of events between several concurrently executing threads. Specific synchronization mechanisms include mutexes (locks), condition variables, semaphores and monitors.
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Deadlock in LockTwo Algorithm
I was reading the Book: The Art of Multiprocessor Programming; Section 2.3.2. and I have a doubt regarding their $\texttt{LockTwo}$ algorithm mentioned in Page 26.
The snippet of the algorithm is:
<...
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Implementing an atomic reference count where only the last one drops with acquire semantics
I just finished watching both parts of Herb Sutter's 2012 C++ and Beyond talk about atomics. In it he mentions that they initially shipped with a bug where the atomic reference count type only guarded ...
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How are waits in semaphores made atomic in nature?
I was going through the book Operating Systems by Galvin. First they explain Semaphores acting like a mutex.
While talking about semaphores as mutex, they mention that the wait operation of semaphores ...
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How to test progress and bounded waiting in Peterson's algorithm?
This is Petersons's solution for critical section problem. I want to test mutual exclusion, progress and bounded waiting for it. Of course, it satisfied all three.
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Is there a property stronger than wait freedom?
I'm writing a few wait free data structures in Rust, and I think I have found a property stronger than wait-freedom, but I couldn't find any reference in literature. Let's say we have a big array of ...
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Tigers and elephants can't drink water from a pond simultaneously, while more than one tiger or more than one elephants can drink water simultaneously
Below is a question on synchronization mechanism which was asked in an interview in Indian Statistical Institute, M.Tech CS. I got hold of it from here.
There is a forest where there are tigers and ...
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Meaning of pulse driven sequential logic?
I am trying to understand the meaning of this scheme, providing a sort of classification of sequential logic circuits. This taken from
https://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/sequential/seq_1.html
Does ...
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What will you do if multiple users access your application at the same time?
I'm an experienced Software Engineer but very weak in concurrency because of no prior experience in that. I've been interviewing with several companies in which I was asked similar kinds of questions ...
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Partition in a tree shaped distributed network
We are given a synchronic undirected tree shaped network, with $n$ indexed nodes.
We know that there is at least one node with at least $\log_k n$ neighbors, $k>1000$, and $k$ is given.
We need to ...
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Prove correctness of a solution to the critical section problem in general?
I was wondering if there is any formal, general way to prove the correctness of a candidate solution to the critical section problem in synchronization. For example, in the image enclosed, I have ...
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How to use Parallel Semaphores for Dining Philosophers Problem
I am in an intro to OS class and we are learning about mutual exclusion and semaphores. One classical problem we learned about was the dining philosophers problem. My professor touched on the ...
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How to reconcile the different definitions of asynchrony?
There are 3 definitions of asynchrony that I know of:
In event-based programming, asynchrony refers to the execution of tasks in a non-sequential way, which may involve creating another thread. For ...
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Starvation and Livelock
I think Option C is false. Following is my thought process:
Starvation in general mean Process is waiting indefinitely for the resource or to get scheduled etc. [A/c to Galvin Book]. So, here in this ...
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Verification of atomic primitives using Petri Net Models
I want to verify semantics of a library of atomic primitives that I wrote. The idea is, only if the semantics of all the primitives are consistent with each other, an application that uses them could ...
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Simultaneous buffer access in the bounded buffer problem
Galvin and various other resources only allow either the producer or the consumer to access the buffer at a time, the common code is as follows:
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Synchronization in Distributed Systems
If there is no global clock in Distributed systems , then what is the solution for synchronization in DS ? Also , no global clock in DS is a direct consequence of the fact that the only communication ...
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Operating system , synchronization
Consider the methods used by processes P1 and P2 for accessing their critical sections whenever needed, as given below. The initial values of shared boolean variables S1 and S2 are randomly assigned.
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Process synchronization problem
The atomic fetch-and-set x,y instruction unconditionally sets the memory location x to 1 and fetches the old value of x in y without allowing any intervening access to the memory location x. Consider ...
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Bakery algorithm: How does it work with single-writer safe registers?
I'm trying to understand the bakery algorithm and read that the Bakery algorithm uses single-writer safe registers. But I am not able to understand the correctness of bakery algorithm with safe ...
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Does Dekkers solutions to critical section problem ensure progress?
I was reading concurrency control section from Operating Systems book by William Stallings. In this book, he gives three attempts by Dekker to give solution to critical section problem:
Attempt 1
<...
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Does pre-emption of a process occur when that process is busy waiting?
I was reading about Peterson's Solution for Synchronisation. Let's assume the two shared variables to be int bool flag[2] and ...
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178
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How to prove that an algorithm has no deadlock
I need to mathematically prove that this algorithm is deadlock-free:
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157
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Can timestamp be used in synchronization of processes having Race Condition?
I am wondering whether timestamp can be used to solve process synchronization problem, when race condition occurs? Below is an algorithm for entry as well as exit sections for every process who wants ...
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How to do atomic operations on systems that don't support it?
I need to sync data with WebDAV and other similar backend that do not have a concept of atomic operations. In some cases, I might need to read a file, change its content and write it back. And of ...
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Does this state certify to be called as a deadlock?
I came across following problem:
Barrier is a synchronization construct where a set of processes synchronizes globally i.e., each process in the set arrives at the barrier and waits for all others ...
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310
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Compiler instructions to sync core caches: are they really needed?
I have read reviews of this book, and quote the following from one of the reviews (emphasis mine):
Other than straining your eyes with old-styled C++, you can read such
misconceptions in the book ...
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Any good source explaining multiprocessor synchronization techniques and their implementation
I need to study how synchronization is done in a multiprocessor operating system, but I am unable to find a good source. I have read about it in the book "Modern Operating System" by Tanenbaum, but I ...
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680
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Why do OS and DBMS have their own synchronisation mechanisms, when OS can alone do it and it sits at the bottom of DB?
I know that synchronization is important in the OS, but why do we need a separate topic synchronization and concurrency in the DBMS? The OS concentrates on program synchronization while the DBMS ...
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Can 2-philosophers problem be analogous to dining philosophers problem?
Two philosophers A and B, two forks numbered "1", "2"; A needs both "1" and "2" for eating, so does B.
Is this theoretical a dining philosopher problem? I'm questioning about the forks philosopher A ...
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200
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How to design synchronisation algorithm to combine two automata?
I have two automata of states, transition and events (Etat, Transition, evenements) and I want to create a function that create the synchronized product between those two automata. For instance, given ...
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Difference between Lamport timestamps and Vector clocks
Lamport timestamps and vector clocks sound like almost the same thing. Both are used to determine the order of events in a distributed system. What are their key differences?
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Do we really need a mutex in this case?
Wikipedia's solution for multi Producer-Consumer problem uses both mutexes and semaphores.
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Lamport logical clock: why event occurs in a process with smaller pid is treated earlier?
In lamport's paper1, he define global local timestamp, which is composed of process id and local lamport timestamp.
This timestamp is used to order all the events in a distributed system.
The rule ...
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Lamport logical clock: what does partial mean in the concept of `Partial ordering`?
In lamport's paper[1], he define two concept The partial ordering and The totally ordering.
What does partial mean in ...
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semaphore for two groups of processes
Can someone help me giving a pseudo code to this problem : There are two groups of processes , A and B. Maximum 3 Processes from group A or group B(only from one group) can use the given resource . ...
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bakery algorithm, switching up the condition
I'm currently studying the Bakery Algorithm. I understand it for what it is but now I want to switch it up a bit.
If we changed the < in the 2nd ...
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Does starvation freedom imply progress?
The above answer taken from the book https://www.amazon.com/Operating-Systems-Sibsankar-Haldar/dp/8131730220 says starvation freedom may not imply progress as processes can be deadlocked.
I think ...
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FLP Impossiblity Result assumption of $C_1 = e'(C_0)$
FLP86's famous proof regarding impossibility of async distributed processes with a single fault assumes in the proof of the third lemma the existence of an event $e'$ such that the neighbor ...
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Is Dekker's algorithm not k-bounded for any finite k?
Consider this version of the algorithm, for only 2 processes, 0 and 1:
...
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Is it possible to write a wait free leader election algorithm?
I want to understand if there exists an algorithm which is wait free and operates on non-shared memory, asynchronously.
Finally I want to know how to derive the consensus number of this algorithm.
...
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semaphore implementation with test and set
I'm trying to understand the algorithm for implementing semaphores on SMP system using test and set instruction described here:
https://people.mpi-sws.org/~druschel/courses/os/lectures/proc4.pdf
(and ...
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2:1 Mutual exclusion with semaphores
I'm stuck on this semaphore exercise (it's a exam question of a previous exam and I'm studying for that exam):
There are three processes: A, B and C. Process A wants to execute method a(); Process B ...
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Are Test and set primitives as powerful as semaphores?
I get confused because i don't know if it is possible to use Test and Set primitives in case where more then one process can be enter in critical section at the same time.
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Can we have a strictly monotonically increasing/decreasing sequence generated by a distributed system?
Just what the title says.
Can we have a strictly monotonically increasing/decreasing sequence generated by a distributed system (without a single point of failure)?
My current thoughts are that this ...
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Should we assume both processes are getting same CPU clock while we solve SYNCHRONIZATION problems in uniprocessor system?
In synchronization, when one process is in a critical section & another is busy waiting, both are using CPU. But in a uni processor system, in the same clock both cant get the CPU. So there must ...
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Behaviour of Regular Registers for Multiple Writer Case ( in context of Safe, Regular and Atomic Registers)
From the link below I understand the behaviour of different kinds of registers.
However that raises few more queries in my mind.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8871633/whats-the-difference-...
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Algorithm to construct timeline graph with arrival and departure times
So I am trying to construct a timeline graph for threads interacting with synchronization functions e.g. pthread_mutex_lock.
I have the following information:
1- ...
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Bounded waiting and starvation free in critical section problem
I have 4 questions regarding relation between starvation and bounded waiting.
1.Does starvation-freedom imply deadlock-freedom?
My Answer:
From here,
definition of starvation free is
Freedom from ...
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