The Weakest Failure Detector for Solving Consensus

Authors:
  • TCTushar D. Chandra
    Tushar D. Chandra
  • VHVassos Hadzilacos
    Vassos Hadzilacos
  • STSam Toueg
    Sam Toueg

Abstract
We determine what information about failures is necessary and sufficient to solve Consensus in asynchronous distributed systems subject to crash failures. In [CT91], we proved that W, a failure detector that provides surprisingly little information about which processes have crashed, is sufficient to solve Consensus in asynchronous systems with a majority of correct processes. In this paper, we prove that to solve Consensus, any failure detector has to provide at least as much information as W. Thus, W is indeed the weakest failure detector for solving Consensus in asynchronous systems with a majority of correct processes.