A Scalable, Sound, Eventually-Complete Algorithm for Deadlock Immunity

Abstract

Abstract. We introduce the concept of deadlock immunity-a program's ability to avoid all deadlocks that match patterns of deadlocks experienced in the past. We present here an algorithm for enabling large software systems to automatically acquire such immunity without any programmer assistance. We prove that the algorithm is sound and complete with respect to the immunity property. We implemented the algorithm as a tool for Java programs, and measurements show it introduces only modest performance overhead in real, large applications like JBoss. Deadlock immunity is as useful as complete freedom from deadlocks in many practical cases, so we see the present algorithm as a pragmatic step toward ridding complex concurrent programs of their deadlocks.

When Memory Corruption Met Concurrency: Vulnerabilities in Concurrent Programs

“…We focus on non-deadlock bugs since their characteristics are the most similar to concurrency vulnerabilities, and have been shown to lead to memory corruption and even to concurrency vulnerabilities. However, we encourage the reader to refer to existing literature for further information on deadlock detection and mitigation [18], [19]. Since this work is focused on unsafe C and C++ programs, we also do not consider approaches for other languages such as Java [20].…”

Pattern-driven deadlock avoidance

“…JIT analyses and profiling can consume the information about these deadlock potentials in order to discover deadlock patterns with a lower runtime overhead. Jula et al described a different approach to pattern-based deadlock avoidance [7,8]. Their avoidance strategy was to use monitor wait() to adjust the timing of lock operations that could potentially lead to deadlocks.…”