Root/Documentation/watchdog/pcwd-watchdog.txt

1Last reviewed: 10/05/2007
2
3                     Berkshire Products PC Watchdog Card
4                   Support for ISA Cards Revision A and C
5           Documentation and Driver by Ken Hollis <kenji@bitgate.com>
6
7 The PC Watchdog is a card that offers the same type of functionality that
8 the WDT card does, only it doesn't require an IRQ to run. Furthermore,
9 the Revision C card allows you to monitor any IO Port to automatically
10 trigger the card into being reset. This way you can make the card
11 monitor hard drive status, or anything else you need.
12
13 The Watchdog Driver has one basic role: to talk to the card and send
14 signals to it so it doesn't reset your computer ... at least during
15 normal operation.
16
17 The Watchdog Driver will automatically find your watchdog card, and will
18 attach a running driver for use with that card. After the watchdog
19 drivers have initialized, you can then talk to the card using a PC
20 Watchdog program.
21
22 I suggest putting a "watchdog -d" before the beginning of an fsck, and
23 a "watchdog -e -t 1" immediately after the end of an fsck. (Remember
24 to run the program with an "&" to run it in the background!)
25
26 If you want to write a program to be compatible with the PC Watchdog
27 driver, simply use of modify the watchdog test program:
28 Documentation/watchdog/src/watchdog-test.c
29
30
31 Other IOCTL functions include:
32
33    WDIOC_GETSUPPORT
34        This returns the support of the card itself. This
35        returns in structure "PCWDS" which returns:
36            options = WDIOS_TEMPPANIC
37                  (This card supports temperature)
38            firmware_version = xxxx
39                  (Firmware version of the card)
40
41    WDIOC_GETSTATUS
42        This returns the status of the card, with the bits of
43        WDIOF_* bitwise-anded into the value. (The comments
44        are in linux/pcwd.h)
45
46    WDIOC_GETBOOTSTATUS
47        This returns the status of the card that was reported
48        at bootup.
49
50    WDIOC_GETTEMP
51        This returns the temperature of the card. (You can also
52        read /dev/watchdog, which gives a temperature update
53        every second.)
54
55    WDIOC_SETOPTIONS
56        This lets you set the options of the card. You can either
57        enable or disable the card this way.
58
59    WDIOC_KEEPALIVE
60        This pings the card to tell it not to reset your computer.
61
62 And that's all she wrote!
63
64 -- Ken Hollis
65    (kenji@bitgate.com)
66
67

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