In Linux, with POSIX threads, is it possible to hint the scheduler to schedule a particular thread. Actually the scenario is that I have a process which is replica of another process. For deterministic execution, the follower process needs to acquire the locks in the same order as the leader process.
So for example, say in leader process, mutex a is locked by first thread 2, then 3 and 4. The follower must execute in the same order. So if in follower, thread 3 first encounters mutex a, I want thread 3 to say to the scheduler, ok I’m giving up my time slice, please schedule thread 2 instead. I know this can be achieved by modifying the scheduler, but I do not want that, I want to be able to control this from user space program.
In any system, Linux, Windows POSIX or not, if you have to ask this sort of question then I’m afraid that your app is heading for a dark place 🙁
Even if thread 3 were to yield, say with sleep(0), an interrupt straight after might well just schedule thread 3 back on again, preempting thread 2, or the OS might run thread 3 straightaway on another free core and it could get to the mutex first.
You have to make your app work correctly, (maybee not optimally), independently of the OS scheduling/dispatching algorithms. Even if you get your design to work on a test box, you will end up having to test your system on every combination of OS/hardware to ensure that it still works without deadlocking or performing incorrectly.
Fiddling with scheduling algorithms, thread priorities etc. should only be done to improve the performance of your app, not to try and make it work correctly or to stop it locking up!
Rgds,
Martin