What mechanism would you implement in the process scheduler to automate the termination of a job that is in an infinite loop. Take into account jobs that legitimately use large amounts of cpu time for example on finding the first 10000 prime numbers
To automate the termination of a job that is stuck in an infinite loop, a mechanism known as "time slicing" can be implemented in the process scheduler. Time slicing is a technique where the CPU time is divided into small, predefined time intervals called time slices or time quanta.
Here is an example of how you could implement a mechanism using time slicing to terminate jobs stuck in an infinite loop:
1. Set a maximum time limit (e.g., 1 second) for each time slice allocated to a job.
2. Each time a job begins executing, start a timer specifically for that job.
3. Continuously monitor the timer as the job executes and check if it exceeds the time limit (in this case, 1 second).
4. If the timer exceeds the time limit, interrupt the job's execution and mark it as "taking too long".
5. Give control over to the process scheduler to determine the next job to execute.
6. Repeat the process for all jobs, ensuring that each job receives a fair share of the CPU time.
By using this mechanism, if a job gets stuck in an infinite loop, it will be interrupted after the specified time limit for each time slice. This allows the process scheduler to regain control and allocate CPU time fairly to other processes.
However, it is crucial to consider legitimate cases where a job legitimately requires a long execution time, such as finding prime numbers. In such cases, it is important to ensure that the time limit assigned to each job is sufficiently long to accommodate these legitimate scenarios. A balance needs to be struck between preventing infinite loops and allowing for the completion of time-consuming tasks.