Abstract
A failure detector is a device (object) that provides the processes with information on failures. Failure detectors were introduced to enrich asynchronous systems so that it becomes possible to solve problems (or implement concurrent objects) that are otherwise impossible to solve in pure asynchronous systems where processes are prone to crash failures. The most famous failure detector (which is called “eventual leader” and denoted \(\varOmega \)) is the weakest failure detector which allows consensus to be solved in n-process asynchronous systems where up to \(t=n-1\) processes may crash in the read/write communication model, and up to \(t<n/2\) processes may crash in the message-passing communication model. In these models, all correct processes are supposed to participate in a consensus instance and in particular the eventual leader.
This paper considers the case where some subset of processes that do not crash (not predefined in advance) are allowed not to participate in a consensus instance. In this context \(\varOmega \) cannot be used to solve consensus as it could elect as eventual leader a non-participating process. This paper presents the weakest failure detector that allows correct processes not to participate in a consensus instance.This failure detector, denoted \(\varOmega ^*\), is a variant of \(\varOmega \). The paper presents also an \(\varOmega ^*\)-based consensus algorithm for the asynchronous read/write model, in which any number of processes may crash, and not all the correct processes are required to participate.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Afek, Y., Attiya, H., Dolev, D., Gafni, E., Merritt, M., Shavit, N.: Atomic snapshots of shared memory. JACM 40(4), 873–890 (1993)
Anderson, J.: Multi-writer composite registers. Distrib. Comput. 7(4), 175–195 (1994)
Attiya, H., Welch, J.L.: Distributed Computing: Fundamentals, Simulations and Advanced Topics, 2nd edn. Wiley-Interscience, p. 414 (2004). ISBN 0-471-45324-2
Ben-Or, M.: Another advantage of free choice: completely asynchronous agreement protocols. In: Proceedings of 2nd ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC 1983), pp. 27–30. ACM Press (1983)
Chandra, T., Hadzilacos, V., Toueg, S.: The weakest failure detector for solving consensus. J. ACM 43(4), 685–722 (1996)
Chandra, T., Toueg, S.: Unreliable failure detectors for reliable distributed systems. J. ACM 43(2), 225–267 (1996)
Delporte-Gallet, C., Fauconnier, H., Guerraoui, R.: Tight failure detection bounds on atomic object implementations. J. ACM 57(4), 32 (2010). Article 22
Fernández, A., Jiménez, E., Raynal, M., Trédan, G.: A timing assumption and two \(t\)-resilient protocols for implementing an eventual leader service in asynchronous shared-memory systems. Algorithmica 56(4), 550–576 (2010)
Guerraoui, R., Kapalka, M., Kuznetsov, P.: The weakest failure detectors to boost obstruction-freedom. Distrib. Comput. 20(6), 415–433 (2008)
Fischer, M.J., Lynch, N.A., Paterson, M.S.: Impossibility of distributed consensus with one faulty process. J. ACM 32(2), 374–382 (1985)
Hélary, J.-M., Hurfin, M., Mostéfaoui, A., Raynal, M., Tronel, F.: Computing global functions in asynchronous distributed systems with perfect failure detectors. IEEE Trans. Parallel Distrib. Syst. 11(9), 897–909 (2000)
Lo, W.-K., Hadzilacos, V.: Using failure detectors to solve consensus in asynchronous shared-memory systems. In: Tel, G., Vitányi, P. (eds.) WDAG 1994. LNCS, vol. 857, pp. 280–295. Springer, Heidelberg (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0020440
Loui, M., Abu-Amara, H.: Memory requirements for agreement among unreliable asynchronous processes. In: Preparata, F.P. (ed.) Advances in Computing Research, vol. 4, pp. 163–183. JAI Press, Greenwich (1987)
Lynch, N.A.: Distributed Algorithms, p. 872. Morgan Kaufmann Pub., San Francisco (1996)
Mostéfaoui, A., Raynal, M.: Solving consensus using Chandra-Toueg’s unreliable failure detectors: a general quorum-based approach. In: Jayanti, P. (ed.) DISC 1999. LNCS, vol. 1693, pp. 49–63. Springer, Heidelberg (1999). https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48169-9_4
Raynal, M.: Concurrent Programming: Algorithms, Principles, and Foundations, p. 515. Springer, Heidelberg (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32027-9
Raynal, M.: Fault-Tolerant Message-Passing Distributed Systems: An Algorithmic Approach, p. 492. Springer, Switzerland (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94141-7
Raynal, M., Travers, C.: In search of the holy grail: looking for the weakest failure detector for wait-free set agreement. In: Shvartsman, M.M.A.A. (ed.) OPODIS 2006. LNCS, vol. 4305, pp. 3–19. Springer, Heidelberg (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/11945529_2
Taubenfeld, G.: Synchronization Algorithms and Concurrent Programming, p. 423. Upper Saddle River, Pearson Education/Prentice Hall (2006)
Acknowledgments
This work was partially supported by the French ANR project DESCARTES (16-CE40-0023-03) devoted to layered and modular structures in distributed computing. We want to thank the referees for their constructive comments.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Delporte-Gallet, C., Fauconnier, H., Raynal, M. (2019). Participant-Restricted Consensus in Asynchronous Crash-Prone Read/Write Systems and Its Weakest Failure Detector. In: Malyshkin, V. (eds) Parallel Computing Technologies. PaCT 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11657. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25636-4_33
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25636-4_33
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-25635-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-25636-4
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)