OS Multi-Threading & IPC Simulator

A C# / .NET project demonstrating two core operating systems concepts — multi-threading with synchronization and inter-process communication (IPC) — through practical, scenario-based implementations built and tested independently.

Projects

Project A — Multi-Threading Implementation

Simulates a restaurant reservation system where multiple threads compete for shared resources. Demonstrates:

• Concurrent thread execution — multiple threads performing simultaneous operations
• Mutex-based resource protection — preventing race conditions on shared reservation data
• Deadlock creation — intentionally inducing a deadlock to illustrate the conditions under which they occur
• Deadlock resolution — implementing strategies to detect and recover from deadlocked states

Project B — Inter-Process Communication (IPC)

Implements a producer-consumer communication pattern between two separate processes using named pipes:

• Producer process — writes messages to a named pipe
• Consumer process — reads and processes messages from the pipe
• Demonstrates how independent processes communicate without shared memory

What It Demonstrates

• Thread lifecycle management and synchronization primitives (mutexes)
• The four necessary conditions for deadlock and how to break them
• IPC via named pipes as an alternative to shared memory
• Unit testing concurrent systems in .NET (ProjectATests, ProjectBTests)

Language & Tools

• Language: C#
• Platform: .NET 8.0
• IDE: Visual Studio / VS Code
• OS: Linux (Ubuntu via WSL) recommended

How to Run

Prerequisites

1. WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) — open PowerShell and run:

   wsl --install
   

   Restart when prompted.

2. Ubuntu — available on the Microsoft Store (easiest Linux environment for WSL).

3. Install .NET SDK 8.0 — in your Ubuntu terminal:

   sudo apt update
   sudo apt install -y wget apt-transport-https
   wget https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/20.04/packages-microsoft-prod.deb -O packages-microsoft-prod.deb
   sudo dpkg -i packages-microsoft-prod.deb
   sudo apt update
   sudo apt install -y dotnet-sdk-8.0

4. Install Git:

   sudo apt install -y git

Clone & Run

git clone https://github.com/JonahGardin48/OS-Multi-Threading-and-IPC.git
cd OS-Multi-Threading-and-IPC

Run Project A (Multi-Threading):

cd ProjectA
dotnet build
dotnet run

Run Project B (IPC):

cd ProjectB
dotnet build
dotnet run

Running Unit Tests

Test Project A:

cd ProjectATests
dotnet build
dotnet test

Test Project B:

cd ProjectBTests
dotnet build
dotnet test