WATCHDOGD(8) BSD System Manager's Manual WATCHDOGD(8)NAMEwatchdogd — watchdog daemon
SYNOPSISwatchdogd [-d] [-e cmd] [-I file] [-s sleep] [-t timeout]
DESCRIPTION
The watchdogd utility interfaces with the kernel's watchdog facility to
ensure that the system is in a working state. If watchdogd is unable to
interface with the kernel over a specific timeout, the kernel will take
actions to assist in debugging or restarting the computer.
If -e cmd is specified, watchdogd will attempt to execute this command
with system(3), and only if the command returns with a zero exit code
will the watchdog be reset. If -e cmd is not specified, the daemon will
perform a trivial file system check instead.
The -s sleep argument can be used to control the sleep period between
each execution of the check and defaults to one second.
The -t timeout specifies the desired timeout period in seconds. The
default timeout is 16 seconds.
One possible circumstance which will cause a watchdog timeout is an
interrupt storm. If this occurs, watchdogd will no longer execute and
thus the kernel's watchdog routines will take action after a configurable
timeout.
Upon receiving the SIGTERM or SIGINT signals, watchdogd will first
instruct the kernel to no longer perform watchdog checks and then will
terminate.
The watchdogd utility recognizes the following runtime options:
-I file Write the process ID of the watchdogd utility in the specified
file.
-d Do not fork. When this option is specified, watchdogd will not
fork into the background at startup.
FILES
/var/run/watchdogd.pid
SEE ALSOwatchdog(4), watchdog(8), watchdog(9)HISTORY
The watchdogd utility appeared in FreeBSD 5.1.
AUTHORS
The watchdogd utility and manual page were written by Sean Kelly
⟨smkelly@FreeBSD.org⟩ and Poul-Henning Kamp ⟨phk@FreeBSD.org⟩.
Some contributions made by Jeff Roberson ⟨jeff@FreeBSD.org⟩.
BSD September 2, 2006 BSD
