Deadlock

What is Deadlock?

A deadlock is a situation in a computer system where two or more processes are blocked indefinitely, each waiting for the other to release a resource.

Causes of Deadlock

• Mutual Exclusion: Two or more processes require exclusive access to a resource.
• Hold and Wait: A process holds a resource and waits for another resource.
• No Preemption: A resource cannot be taken away from a process.
• Circular Wait: A process waits for a resource held by another process, which in turn waits for a resource held by the first process.

Effects of Deadlock

• System becomes unresponsive.
• Processes are blocked indefinitely.
• System resources are wasted.

Methods to Handle Deadlock

• Deadlock Prevention: Prevent deadlocks by ensuring that one of the necessary conditions is not met.
• Deadlock Avoidance: Avoid deadlocks by using algorithms that predict whether a deadlock is possible.
• Deadlock Detection: Detect deadlocks and recover from them.
• Deadlock Recovery: Recover from deadlocks by aborting processes or rolling back to a safe state.