• Process or thread synchronization is a mechanism that deals with the synchronization of processes or threads, that is controlling the execution of one process or thread by another process or thread.
• It controls the execution of processes or threads in a such way that no two processes or threads can have access to the same shared data or resources concurrently to ensure that consistent results are produced.
• Threads should be synchronized to avoid critical resource use conflicts.
• It is a solution to critical section problem or a race condition problem.

Few of the synchronization technique used by the linux kernel are:

• Mutex
• Semaphore
• Spin locks
• Condition variables

Need of Synchronization:

• When multiple processes or threads execute concurrently sharing some system resources.
• To avoid any loss or inconsistent result.

Problem without synchronization:

• Critical Section Problem(CS) and
• Race Condition

Relevant Posts:

• Critical Section
• Race Condition
• Mutual Exclusion(Mutex)
• Semaphore
• Mutex Vs Semaphore
• Spin Lock
• Spin Lock Vs Mutex
• Condition Variables

Categories: Operating system (OS)