RE: [PATCH 1/2] watchdog: introduce new watchdog AUTOSTART option

[Kim, Milo]

Hi Guenter

> I really don't like that idea. It defeats a significant part of the
> purpose
> for having a watchdog, which is to prevent user-space hangups.
> 
> To make this a driver option is even more odd - it forces every user of
> this
> driver to use it in-kernel only, and makes /dev/watchdog quite useless.
> 
> I mean, really, if you have such a watchdog, what is the point of using
> the
> watchdog infrastructure in the first place ? Just make it a kernel
> thread or
> timer-activated platform code which pings your watchdog once in a while.
> No
> need to get the watchdog infrastructure involved in the first place.
> 
> Am I missing something ?

I wanted to enable the watchdog timer without the watchdog application for
making sure the system alive.
However, I think I misunderstood the purpose of the watchdog driver.
The watchdog is for detecting user-space hangups rather than kernel stall.
Is it correct? If yes, this patch is totally wrong.

Thanks!

Milo

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