[WATCHDOG] clarify watchdog operation in documentation
It was not clear what the difference is/was between the nowayout feature and the Magic Close feature. Signed-off-by: "Andrew Dyer" <amdyer@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Wim Van Sebroeck <wim@iguana.be>
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@ -42,23 +42,27 @@ like this source file: see Documentation/watchdog/src/watchdog-simple.c
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A more advanced driver could for example check that a HTTP server is
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still responding before doing the write call to ping the watchdog.
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When the device is closed, the watchdog is disabled. This is not
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always such a good idea, since if there is a bug in the watchdog
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daemon and it crashes the system will not reboot. Because of this,
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some of the drivers support the configuration option "Disable watchdog
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shutdown on close", CONFIG_WATCHDOG_NOWAYOUT. If it is set to Y when
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compiling the kernel, there is no way of disabling the watchdog once
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it has been started. So, if the watchdog daemon crashes, the system
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will reboot after the timeout has passed. Watchdog devices also usually
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support the nowayout module parameter so that this option can be controlled
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at runtime.
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When the device is closed, the watchdog is disabled, unless the "Magic
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Close" feature is supported (see below). This is not always such a
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good idea, since if there is a bug in the watchdog daemon and it
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crashes the system will not reboot. Because of this, some of the
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drivers support the configuration option "Disable watchdog shutdown on
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close", CONFIG_WATCHDOG_NOWAYOUT. If it is set to Y when compiling
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the kernel, there is no way of disabling the watchdog once it has been
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started. So, if the watchdog daemon crashes, the system will reboot
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after the timeout has passed. Watchdog devices also usually support
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the nowayout module parameter so that this option can be controlled at
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runtime.
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Drivers will not disable the watchdog, unless a specific magic character 'V'
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has been sent /dev/watchdog just before closing the file. If the userspace
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daemon closes the file without sending this special character, the driver
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will assume that the daemon (and userspace in general) died, and will stop
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pinging the watchdog without disabling it first. This will then cause a
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reboot if the watchdog is not re-opened in sufficient time.
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Magic Close feature:
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If a driver supports "Magic Close", the driver will not disable the
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watchdog unless a specific magic character 'V' has been sent to
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/dev/watchdog just before closing the file. If the userspace daemon
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closes the file without sending this special character, the driver
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will assume that the daemon (and userspace in general) died, and will
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stop pinging the watchdog without disabling it first. This will then
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cause a reboot if the watchdog is not re-opened in sufficient time.
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The ioctl API:
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