From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Feb 17 07:25:22 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id HAA10071 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Tue, 17 Feb 1998 07:25:22 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from etinc.com (et-gw.etinc.com [207.252.1.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id HAA10062 for ; Tue, 17 Feb 1998 07:25:13 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dennis@etinc.com) Received: from dbsys (dbsys.etinc.com [207.252.1.18]) by etinc.com (8.8.7/8.6.9) with SMTP id KAA21456; Tue, 17 Feb 1998 10:29:25 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.32.19980217102956.00eb2940@etinc.com> X-Sender: dennis@etinc.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 10:29:57 -0500 To: shimon@simon-shapiro.org From: dennis Subject: Re: WatchDog Timer Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG At 02:23 PM 2/16/98 -0800, you wrote: > >On 16-Feb-98 Julian Elischer wrote: >> eh? >> what watchdog? >> we have a hook that is called by the kernel >> when it is doing long uninterrupted operations (e.g. dumping core) >> but it's just a hook. The user needs to supply their own hardware >> watchdog.. (and code to tickle it) >> >> julian > >If there is no driver for such hardware today, I'll write it this week. >This is really not the same as a kernel's internal watchdog. What we are >talking about here is used to build a dead-man switch; In case of O/S >catastrophic failure, this device will reboot the machine, or in the case >of HA/FT, signal to the rest of the ``system'' that a Unix instance just >died. > >I simply do not want to write a driver that was already written. >What is the kernel's hook name/path? Maybe we can merge the two, or at >least relate to each other. As in ``If the kernel is busy with a long, >uninterrupted operation, we automatically mask off the dead-man switch''. We have hardware that will do this, you need a physical device to hard reboot the machine as software reboots are imperfect. We're in semi-production, but dont really push it. 2 of our serial boards also have one integrated on them. Dennis To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message