.\" Copyright (c) 2004 Poul-Henning Kamp .\" Copyright (c) 2003, 2004 Sean M. Kelly .\" All rights reserved. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" $FreeBSD: head/share/man/man4/watchdog.4 267938 2014-06-26 21:46:14Z bapt $ .\" .Dd December 21, 2009 .Dt WATCHDOG 4 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm watchdog .Nd "hardware and software watchdog" .Sh SYNOPSIS .In sys/watchdog.h .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Nm facility is used for controlling hardware and software watchdogs. .Pp The device .Pa /dev/fido responds to a single .Xr ioctl 2 call, .Dv 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. .Pp .Dv WD_ACTIVE indicates that the .Nm will be kept from timing out from userland, for instance by the .Xr watchdogd 8 daemon. .Dv WD_PASSIVE indicates that the .Nm will be kept from timing out from the kernel. .Pp The .Xr ioctl 2 call will return success if just one of the available .Xr watchdog 9 implementations supports setting the timeout to the specified timeout. This means that at least one watchdog is armed. If the call fails, for instance if none of .Xr watchdog 9 implementations support the timeout length, all watchdogs are disabled and must be explicitly re-enabled. .Pp To disable the watchdogs pass .Dv WD_TO_NEVER . If disarming the watchdog(s) failed an error is returned. The watchdog might still be armed! .Sh RETURN VALUES The ioctl returns zero on success and non-zero on failure. .Bl -tag -width Er .It Bq Er EOPNOTSUPP No watchdog present in the kernel or none of the watchdogs supports the requested timeout value (timeout value other than 0). .It Bq Er EOPNOTSUPP Watchdog could not be disabled (timeout value of 0). .It Bq Er EINVAL Invalid flag combination passed. .El .Sh EXAMPLES .Bd -literal -offset indent #include #include #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); .Ed .Pp Enables a watchdog to recover from a potentially freezing piece of code. .Pp .Dl "options SW_WATCHDOG" .Pp in your kernel config adds a software watchdog in the kernel, dropping to KDB or panic-ing when firing. .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr watchdogd 8 , .Xr watchdog 9 .Sh HISTORY The .Nm code first appeared in .Fx 5.1 . .Sh AUTHORS .An -nosplit The .Nm facility was written by .An Poul-Henning Kamp Aq Mt phk@FreeBSD.org . The software watchdog code and this manual page were written by .An Sean Kelly Aq Mt smkelly@FreeBSD.org . Some contributions were made by .An Jeff Roberson Aq Mt jeff@FreeBSD.org . .Sh BUGS The .Dv WD_PASSIVE option has not yet been implemented.