On Tuesday 03 August 2004 05:54 pm, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote: > I am not sure about the one for the Mac, but the one for the PC > generates a NMI or a reset if it times out. The way they usualy work is > you have to write to a specific port or memory location before the timer > times out, or it reboots the system. So the system will reset if it get > hung. The software version is not as powerfull. But you can read about > more about both type. Read watchdog.txt in the Documentation directory > of the kernel source, or kernel docs.
I did read a bit about some of the hardware card based ones. Looks pretty neat actually and doesn't sit between the powersupply and the UPS but instead hooks to the reset button on the motherboard. Agent runs on software and sends a signal to reset the timer, if the timer counts down without a signal, it shorts the reset button and triggers a reboot. The prices so far look to be about $160 US which is not trivial for me. However, I am definitely going to give it some thought as I would dearly love to have one to stick in the server machine (even if it is just my family server.) Linux kernel has a built in module that will see the card and setup a device for it and, I assume that setting the timeout values are pretty trivial at that point, you just write a value to the device. Thanks much for the pointer but unfortunately, you just got put on my wife's <people I wouldn't piss on if they were on fire> list for suggesting yet another reason for me to spend money on my computer. Welcome to the club. ;-} -- Bryan Phinney
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