How enable watchdog?

Question

I'm struggling with the watchdog timer (wdt) for a while. I can't get it working.

My microcontroller is a AriaG25, based on the AT91SAM925. I have used this tutorial to compile the kernel. The kernel settings related to the wdt looks like this:

CONFIG_WATCHDOG=y       
CONFIG_AT91SAM9X_WATCHDOG=y   

The kernel has been compiled without problem and boots succesfully. I've installed the watchdog deamon software via apt-get. And now I'm stuck. How do I get the watchdog working? I read a lot about /dev/watchdog. I don't have that file. Do I have to put the driver for my hardware there? Is this a driver?

Solution

I've changed my kernel configuration to this:

CONFIG_WATCHDOG=y
CONFIG_SOFT_WATCHDOG=m
CONFIG_AT91SAM9X_WATCHDOG=y

Now my watchdog timer was running. I only had to edit /etc/watchdog.conf in order to set up tests.

Comments

[slm]

Have you looked at the watchdog man page? linux.die.net/man/8/watchdog

[Paul Crawford]

To make the best of the watchdog protection you may also need to configure the daemon to run tests that verify your system's critical operation(s) are working. I have been doing this for our control computers and documented it here