A simple local-spin group mutual exclusion algorithm

Abstract

This paper presents a new solution to the group mutual exclusion problem recently posed by Joung. In this problem, processes repeatedly request access to various sessions. It is required that distinct processes are not in different sessions concurrently, that multiple processes may be in the same session concurrently, and that each process that tries to enter a session is eventually able to do so. This problem is a generalization of the mutual exclusion and readers-writers problems. Our algorithm and its correctness proof are substantially simpler than Joung's. This simplicity is achieved by building upon known solutions to the more specific mutual exclusion problem. Our algorithm also has various advantages over Joung's, depending on the choice of mutual exclusion algorithm used. These advantages include admitting a process to its session in constant time in the absence of contention, spinning locally in Cache Coherent (CC) and Nonuniform Memory Access (NUMA) systems, and improvements in the complexity measures proposed by Joung.