Internal watch dog?

Started by maurya, April 30, 2018, 05:24:27 AM

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maurya

Hello,
Is there a way to configure an internal watchdog in A64 board that will restart the board incase the processor hangs or we need to build it externally?

M

LubOlimex

There should be ways to restart the board if it hangs. I don't think that rebuilding anyting should be typically required (unless you want to enable the watchdog in the u-boot, aka if the u-boot hangs).

The A64 chip has a built-in hardware watchdog. It is described in the A64's datasheet. There would be some software effort to get it working but there are people that have succeeded in enabling it for the A64 chip. For example, check this tested kernel patch (a user enabled and tested the watchdog for our Teres-I laptop which uses A64 chip inside):

https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/10285143/

Furthermore, according to this wiki article, the watchdog should be supported in mainline kernel available for the A64 board: http://linux-sunxi.org/Linux_mainlining_effort

If you need to rebuild the official image (in order to apply the patch) you should use our instructions as a basis: https://github.com/hehopmajieh/olinuxino_configs/tree/master/A64-OLinuXino

Unfortunately, we don't have experience with the watchdog and I can't give you specific details or step-by-step guide. You should search online for more information about A64 and watchdog.
Technical support and documentation manager at Olimex