NAME
watchdog
—
hardware and software
watchdog
SYNOPSIS
#include
<sys/watchdog.h>
DESCRIPTION
Thewatchdog
facility is used for controlling hardware
and software watchdogs.
The device /dev/fido supports several
optional ioctl(2) calls for configuration, and responds to a single
operational ioctl call,
WDIOCPATPAT
. It takes a single argument which
represents a timeout value specified as a power of two nanoseconds, or-ed
with a flag selecting active or passive control of the watchdog.
WD_ACTIVE
indicates that the
watchdog
will be kept from timing out from userland,
for instance by the
watchdogd(8) daemon. WD_PASSIVE
indicates that the watchdog
will be kept from timing
out from the kernel.
The WDIOCPATPAT
ioctl(2) call will return success if just one of the available
watchdog(9) implementations supports setting the timeout to the
specified timeout. This means that at least one watchdog is armed. By
default, this will be a hardware watchdog if one is present, but if no
hardware watchdog is able to process the request, a default software
watchdog is enabled. If the call fails, for instance if none of
watchdog(9) implementations support the timeout length, all watchdogs
are disabled and must be explicitly re-enabled.
To disable the watchdogs pass WD_TO_NEVER
.
If disarming the watchdog(s) failed an error is returned. The watchdog might
still be armed!
The optional configuration ioctl commands are listed here, along with the type of the parameter used. Examples of their use can be found in watchdogd(8).
WDIOC_SETTIMEOUT
int- set/reset the timer
WDIOC_GETTIMEOUT
int- get total timeout
WDIOC_GETTIMELEFT
int- get time left
WDIOC_GETPRETIMEOUT
int- get the pre-timeout
WDIOC_SETPRETIMEOUT
int- set the pre-timeout
WDIOC_SETPRETIMEOUTACT
int- Set the action when a pre-timeout occurs (see
WD_SOFT_*
below). WDIOC_SETSOFT
int- Use an internal software watchdog instead of hardware. There is also an external software watchdog, which is used by default if no hardware watchdog was attached.
WDIOC_SETSOFTTIMEOUTACT
int- Set the action whan a soft timeout occurs.
The actions that may be specified for the pre-timeout or the internal software watchdog are listed here. Multiple actions can be specified by ORing values together.
WD_SOFT_PANIC
- panic
WD_SOFT_DDB
- enter debugger
WD_SOFT_LOG
- log(9)
WD_SOFT_PRINT
- printf(9)
RETURN VALUES
The WDIOCPATPAT
ioctl returns zero on success
and non-zero on failure.
- [
EOPNOTSUPP
] - No watchdog present in the kernel or none of the watchdogs supports the requested timeout value (timeout value other than 0).
- [
EOPNOTSUPP
] - Watchdog could not be disabled (timeout value of 0).
- [
EINVAL
] - Invalid flag combination passed.
The configuration ioctl operations return zero on success and non-zero on failure.
EXAMPLES
#include <paths.h> #include <sys/watchdog.h> #define WDPATH "/dev/" _PATH_WATCHDOG int wdfd = -1; static void wd_init(void) { wdfd = open(WDPATH, O_RDWR); if (wdfd == -1) err(1, WDPATH); } static void wd_reset(u_int timeout) { if (ioctl(wdfd, WDIOCPATPAT, &timeout) == -1) err(1, "WDIOCPATPAT"); } /* in main() */ wd_init(); wd_reset(WD_ACTIVE|WD_TO_8SEC); /* potential freeze point */ wd_reset(WD_TO_NEVER);
Enables a watchdog to recover from a potentially freezing piece of code.
options SW_WATCHDOG
in your kernel config forces a software watchdog in the kernel to be configured even if a hardware watchdog is configured, dropping to KDB or panicking when firing, depending on the KDB and KDB_UNATTENDED kernel configuration options.
SEE ALSO
HISTORY
The watchdog
code first appeared in
FreeBSD 5.1.
AUTHORS
The watchdog
facility was written by
Poul-Henning Kamp
<phk@FreeBSD.org>. The
software watchdog code and this manual page were written by
Sean Kelly
<smkelly@FreeBSD.org>.
Some contributions were made by Jeff Roberson
<jeff@FreeBSD.org>.
BUGS
The WD_PASSIVE
option has not yet been
implemented.