Re: [PATCH v3] watchdog: Add hook for kicking in kdump path

From: Eric W. Biederman
Date: Wed Apr 17 2013 - 17:50:35 EST


Don Zickus <dzickus@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> A common problem with kdump is that during the boot up of the
> second kernel, the hardware watchdog times out and reboots the
> machine before a vmcore can be captured.
>
> Instead of tellling customers to disable their hardware watchdog
> timers, I hacked up a hook to put in the kdump path that provides
> one last kick before jumping into the second kernel.
>
> The assumption is the watchdog timeout is at least 10-30 seconds
> long, enough to get the second kernel to userspace to kick the watchdog
> again, if needed.

Why not double the watchdog timeout? and/or pet the watchdog a little
more frequently.

This is the least icky hook I have seen proposed to be put on the kexec
on panic path, but I still suspect this may reduce the ability to take a
crash dump. What happens if it was the watchdog timer that panic'd for
example.

Eric
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