Summary
It is shown that Dijkstra'sk-state self-stabilizing protocol for mutual exclusion in a unidirectional ring can be converted to a 3-state protocol by replacing a counter with a random number generator.
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References
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Israeli A, Jalfon M: Token-management schemes and random walks yield self-stabilizing mutual exclusion. In: Proceedings of the Ninth Annual ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing pp 119–131, 1990
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Ted Herman worked for many years in the software industry. He is principal architect of the Emc2 system for electronic mail and coarchitect of the Emc2/TAO system for office automation. He received the Ph.D. degree in computer science under the tutelage of Mohamed Gouda at the University of Texas at Austin. During 1991–1992, he was visiting faculty at the University of Iowa; during 1992–1993 he is visiting faculty at the University of Utrecht.
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Herman, T. Self-stabilization: randomness to reduce space. Distrib Comput 6, 95–98 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02252680
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02252680