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A leader election algorithm for dynamic networks with causal clocks

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Abstract

An algorithm for electing a leader in an asynchronous network with dynamically changing communication topology is presented. The algorithm ensures that, no matter what pattern of topology changes occurs, if topology changes cease, then eventually every connected component contains a unique leader. The algorithm combines ideas from the Temporally Ordered Routing Algorithm for mobile ad hoc networks (Park and Corson in Proceedings of the 16th IEEE Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), pp. 1405–1413 (1997) with a wave algorithm (Tel in Introduction to distributed algorithms, 2nd edn. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2000), all within the framework of a height-based mechanism for reversing the logical direction of communication topology links (Gafni and Bertsekas in IEEE Trans Commun C–29(1), 11–18 1981). Moreover, a generic representation of time is used, which can be implemented using totally-ordered values that preserve the causality of events, such as logical clocks and perfect clocks. A correctness proof for the algorithm is provided, and it is ensured that in certain well-behaved situations, a new leader is not elected unnecessarily, that is, the algorithm satisfies a stability condition.

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Notes

  1. If two reference levels with incomparable timestamps started in different parts of the network and then met at a node, our current algorithm would not be able to choose the one that is later in real time.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Bernadette Charron-Bost, Antoine Gaillard, Nick Neumann, Lyn Pierce, Srikanth Sastry and Josef Widder for helpful conversations, and the anonymous reviewers for comments that improved the presentation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Trinity University, San Antonio, TX, USA

    Rebecca Ingram

  2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Tsvetomira Radeva

  3. Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA

    Patrick Shields & Jennifer E. Walter

  4. Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Saira Viqar & Jennifer L. Welch

Authors
  1. Rebecca Ingram
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  2. Tsvetomira Radeva
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  3. Patrick Shields
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  4. Saira Viqar
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  5. Jennifer E. Walter
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  6. Jennifer L. Welch
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jennifer L. Welch.

Additional information

A preliminary version of this paper appears in [15]. The work of R. Ingram was supported in part by NSF REU grant 0649233. The work of J. L. Welch was supported in part by NSF grant 0500265 and Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board grants ARP-00512-0007-2006 and ARP 000512-0130-2007. The work of J. E. Walter and P. Shields was supported in part by NSF grant IIS-0712911 and the URSI program at Vassar College. The work of Tsvetomira Radeva was supported in part by the CRA-W DREU Program through NSF grant CNS-0540631.

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Ingram, R., Radeva, T., Shields, P. et al. A leader election algorithm for dynamic networks with causal clocks. Distrib. Comput. 26, 75–97 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00446-013-0184-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00446-013-0184-1

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