1 .\" $NetBSD: swwdog.4,v 1.2 2005/01/11 11:32:11 wiz Exp $
3 .\" Copyright (c) 2004, 2005 Steven M. Bellovin
4 .\" All rights reserved.
6 .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
7 .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
9 .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
10 .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
11 .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
12 .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
13 .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
14 .\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
15 .\" must display the following acknowledgement:
16 .\" This product includes software developed by the NetBSD
17 .\" Foundation, Inc. and its contributors.
18 .\" 4. Neither the name of the author nor the names of its
19 .\" contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived
20 .\" from this software without specific prior written permission.
22 .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS
23 .\" ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED
24 .\" TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
25 .\" PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS
26 .\" BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR
27 .\" CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF
28 .\" SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS
29 .\" INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN
30 .\" CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE)
31 .\" ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE
32 .\" POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
35 .\" Written by Steven M. Bellovin
40 .Nd software watchdog timer
42 .Cd "pseudo-device swwdog" Op Ar count
46 driver provides a software watchdog timer that works with
48 If the timer expires, the system reboots unless the variable
50 is non-zero; if it is, the system will panic instead.
61 .An Steven M. Bellovin .
63 Although more than one
65 timer can be configured, it's a pointless thing to do, since only
66 one watchdog timer can be active at any given time.
67 Arguably, this is a bug in the watchdog timer framework.
69 Kernel tickle mode is useless with
71 and arguably should be rejected, since both it and
72 this driver rely on the same callout mechanism; if one is
73 blocked, almost certainly the other is as well.