Communication Efficient Self-Stabilizing Leader Election.

Abstract

This paper presents a randomized self-stabilizing algorithm that elects a leader r in a general n-node undirected graph and constructs a spanning tree T rooted at r. The algorithm works under the synchronous message passing network model, assuming that the nodes know a linear upper bound on n and that each edge has a unique ID known to both its endpoints (or, alternatively, assuming the KT₁ model). The highlight of this algorithm is its superior communication efficiency: It is guaranteed to send a total of O (n) messages, each of constant size, till stabilization, while stabilizing in O (n) rounds, in expectation and with high probability. After stabilization, the algorithm sends at most one constant size message per round while communicating only over the (n - 1) edges of T. In all these aspects, the communication overhead of the new algorithm is far smaller than that of the existing (mostly deterministic) self-stabilizing leader election algorithms. The algorithm is relatively simple and relies mostly on known modules that are common in the fault free leader election literature; these modules are enhanced in various subtle ways in order to assemble them into a communication efficient self-stabilizing algorithm.