Semaphores are more lower-level

Inter-Process Communication

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Semaphores & Monitors

• Monitors are high-level programming language concepts

– Make mutual exclusion of critical section “automatic” and therefore less error-prone

– Require compiler support

– Not widely available in modern languages (e.g., avail. In Modula 3)

– Available as an “approximation”in Java

• Semaphores are more lower-level

– Require OS support

– Applications can be layered on top of them, i.e., no compiler support required

• Both concepts require some kind of shared memory

• How about synchronization problems in a distributed system (no shared memory)?

Conclusion About Monitors and Semaphores

• Monitors are high-level, but not widely supported; therefore not too useful in practice

• Semaphores are rather low-level

• None of the mechanisms discussed so far allow for information exchange between

distributed processes So we need something else!

Message Passing

•An inter-process communication mechanism

• Based on two primitives

–send (destination, &message)

• Sends a message to a destination

–receive (source, &message)

• Receives a message from a source (any source)

• System calls, not language constructs

• Blocking versions and non-blocking versions are available.

Message Passing

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• Naming of sender / receiver

• Number of interacting entities

• Reliability of link

• Capacity of link

Design Issues:

Various design concerns not applicable in semaphore & monitor discussion:

• Networked system, i.e., messages may be lost (network is unreliable)

• Sender/receiver agree to use acknowledgements and retransmission timers

• Message received, but acknowledgement lost

– Receiver will get the same message twice

– Use consecutive sequence numbers

–Computer Networks

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• Naming of processes for unambiguous send/receive

• Authentication, how can client know it is communicating with proper server

• Tune for performance, if sender & receiver are on the same machine (semaphore is usually cheaper)

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This entry was posted in Computer Networks, Conclusion About Monitors and Semaphores, Design Issues, Message Passing, Monitors are high-level programming language concepts, Semaphores & Monitors, Semaphores are more lower-level.