Documentation/watchdog/watchdog-api.rst

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=============================
The Linux Watchdog driver API
=============================

Last reviewed: 10/05/2007



Copyright 2002 Christer Weingel <wingel@nano-system.com>

Some parts of this document are copied verbatim from the sbc60xxwdt
driver which is (c) Copyright 2000 Jakob Oestergaard <jakob@ostenfeld.dk>

This document describes the state of the Linux 2.4.18 kernel.

Introduction
============

A Watchdog Timer (WDT) is a hardware circuit that can reset the
computer system in case of a software fault.  You probably knew that
already.

Usually a userspace daemon will notify the kernel watchdog driver via the
/dev/watchdog special device file that userspace is still alive, at
regular intervals.  When such a notification occurs, the driver will
usually tell the hardware watchdog that everything is in order, and
that the watchdog should wait for yet another little while to reset
the system.  If userspace fails (RAM error, kernel bug, whatever), the
notifications cease to occur, and the hardware watchdog will reset the
system (causing a reboot) after the timeout occurs.

The Linux watchdog API is a rather ad-hoc construction and different
drivers implement different, and sometimes incompatible, parts of it.
This file is an attempt to document the existing usage and allow
future driver writers to use it as a reference.

The simplest API
================

All drivers support the basic mode of operation, where the watchdog
activates as soon as /dev/watchdog is opened and will reboot unless
the watchdog is pinged within a certain time; this time is called the
timeout or margin.  The simplest way to ping the watchdog is to write
some data to the device.  So a very simple watchdog daemon would look
like this source file:  see samples/watchdog/watchdog-simple.c

A more advanced driver could for example check that an HTTP server is
still responding before doing the write call to ping the watchdog.

When the device is closed, the watchdog is disabled, unless the "Magic
Close" feature is supported (see below).  This is not always such a
good idea, since if there is a bug in the watchdog daemon and it
crashes the system will not reboot.  Because of this, some of the
drivers support the configuration option "Disable watchdog shutdown on
close", CONFIG_WATCHDOG_NOWAYOUT.  If it is set to Y when compiling
the kernel, there is no way of disabling the watchdog once it has been
started.  So, if the watchdog daemon crashes, the system will reboot
after the timeout has passed. Watchdog devices also usually support
the nowayout module parameter so that this option can be controlled at
runtime.

Magic Close feature
===================

If a driver supports "Magic Close", the driver will not disable the
watchdog unless a specific magic character 'V' has been sent to
/dev/watchdog just before closing the file.  If the userspace daemon
closes the file without sending this special character, the driver
will assume that the daemon (and userspace in general) died, and will
stop pinging the watchdog without disabling it first.  This will then

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