CS2005: Networks and Operating Systems

Flashcards covering key terms and concepts related to process management and synchronization in networks and operating systems.

Critical Section Problem

It is the problem of ensuring that when one process is executing in its critical section, no other processes are allowed to execute in their critical sections.

Mutual Exclusion

A property that states if process Pi is executing in its critical section, then no other processes can be executing in their critical sections.

Progress

If no process is executing in its critical section and there exist some processes that wish to enter their critical sections, only those processes that are not executing in their remainder sections can decide who enters next.

Bounded Waiting

There must be a limit on the number of times that other processes can enter their critical sections after a process requests to enter its critical section and before that request is granted.

Race Condition

A situation where two or more processes access and manipulate the same data concurrently, resulting in unpredictable outcomes depending on the order of access.

Semaphore

A synchronization tool that provides a mechanism for processes to synchronize their activities via two atomic operations: wait() and signal().

Mutex Lock

A software tool for protecting a critical section, ensuring that only one process can access a resource at any time.

Producer-Consumer Problem

A classic synchronization problem where a producer generates data and a consumer processes that data, sharing a buffer that has a limited size.

Deadlock

A situation in which two or more processes are waiting indefinitely for an event that can only be caused by one of the waiting processes.

Peterson's Solution

An algorithm for solving the critical-section problem for two processes using a shared flag and a turn variable.

Counting Semaphore

A semaphore that can take on any non-negative integer value, allowing multiple processes to access multiple instances of a resource.

Binary Semaphore

A semaphore restricted to the values 0 and 1, used similarly to mutex locks.

Monitors

A high-level synchronization construct that allows safe access to shared resources by ensuring that only one process can execute within the monitor at any time.