watchdogd?

[kaptain_zero]

watchdogd fails to run, patting the dog is a no go.

I'm using an Asus F2A85-M motherboard, AM2 cpu and onboard graphics.

I'm not sure what the watchdog's purpose is, nor if it's an Intel specific feature.

I have not purchased an Intel based system since my 486SX-25 days, and so I'm a bit at a loss for words/ideas. (It's a long story, but it involves tied selling with MS, and I hold a looooong grudge)

I'm wondering about the purpose of watchdogd, and if there is a serious issue with not having it run.

It would be nice to switch to an Intel board/cpu/Ecc system, but that carries an additional $550+ pricetag over what I have available at the moment (in stock car terms it's "run whatcha brung, ya ain't gonna win with the car you WISH you had").

I'm hoping it's just a bios config issue, but I'm prepared to face the music if need be.

Regards

Christian

 

[zambanini]

a watchdog is a hw sw combination to check if your system is up, otherwise your hw will reboot. so might not need it , ) just not run it.




your existing motherboard seems not support ecc ram, which is an issue.

 

[jgreco]

watchdogd is the evolution of a hardware watchdog system we had written a driver for back in the '90's, which monitors for when your system appears to be wedged and can then panic or reboot the system.

The default implementation is a software implementation that uses a timer to ensure that something is periodically updating the watchdog. In the case where the userland watchdogd is running, if that stops updating the kernel, a reboot will eventually occur.

This isn't highly important and if it isn't working for you, it isn't likely to be a problem.

 

[kaptain_zero]

Thanks everyone,

That clears things up for me.... So for now, I will continue with the board/cpu/ram that I have lying around and use my money for additional HDs so I can run Z2. Once the budget settles down again, a new motherboard/cpu/ram will be next.

It's not a perfect situation, but at least it's doable. My backups are not synced, but rather I copy from source to server AND my offline backup so that if the server does fail due to ram/corruption issues, I'll have a non-corrupted, but perhaps not up to the minute, copy as a backup.

Regards,

Christian

 

[cyberjock]

I believe there is a bug ticket from the last 6 months or so that auto-disabled watchdogd if you have AMD hardware since AMD hardware doesn't work right with watchdogd (just one of many things that don't work right with AMD).

 

[jgreco]

I would expect it to be fine if they just used SW_WATCHDOG, but I haven't looked. Hm.