Re: software watchdog

[Oliver Xymoron]

On Tue, 11 Dec 2001, Russell King wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 11, 2001 at 04:26:07PM +0530, [e-mail] wrote:
> > Why is that the printk output not going to syslog although  I have entry in
> > /etc/syslog.conf
> >
> > kern.crit                       /var/log/pbsc.log
> > even after I remove the mdelay call.
>
> The machine reboots before syslog gets to run.
>
> What happens is:
>
> 	printk();
> 	reboot();
>
> During that period, syslog is unable to run, and therefore is unable to
> write the log message to disk.
>
> > Does it mean that without using "testing" mode ( I cannot beacuse I need a
> > reboot) it is not possible to get log  ?
>
> I suppose you could modify softdog to delay the reboot using it's timer
> (the timer fires the first time, you check data to see if it's non-zero.
> If it's not, increment watchdog_ticktock.data, and set the watchdog to
> timeout in 5 seconds, return).

Silly. The whole point of watchdog is to reboot a wedged machine. The
reason it's firing is presumably because the userspace watchdog
daemon didn't get a chance to touch the device, so odds that syslog would
get a chance to run are pretty slim.

If you really need a log message, get a serial console.

-- 
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