[SAGE] Sun Enterprise hardware watchdog enable experience

[Jeff Mallory <jmallory@pacbell.net>]

Hi all,

The Sun Enterprise machines have a hardware watchdog that can reboot the 
server if the OS misses resetting it (presumably because the system has 
crashed or hung). This feature is off by default (enabled with set 
watchdog_enable = 1 in /etc/system ) and my crusty brain cells tell me this 
was once a semi-flaky feature in earlier Sun hardware, hence the 
off-by-default setting.

There is a software watchdog that blinks the front panel operating light 
(among other things) but I believe it can only force the system to the 
OpenBoot prompt when it detects a problem.

Has anyone had experience one way or the other with using (or mis-using) 
this hardware watchdog reset feature?

thanks,

JJM