ILOM Watchdog Timer
ILOM features a watchdog mechanism to detect and respond to system hang, should one ever occur. The
ILOM watchdog is a timer that is continually reset by a user application as long as the operating system
and user application are running. In the event of a system hang, the user application is no longer able to
reset the timer. The timer will then expire and will perform an action set by the user, eliminating the need
for operator intervention.
One of the benefits of the Netra X4200 M2 Watchdog Timer functionality is the end-to-end coverage,
from power-on-reset, through BIOS and OS boot, to user application execution. If enabled in the BIOS
setup menus (default operation is disabled), the ILOM WDT will be set by initial BIOS code execution to
a configurable timeout threshold. If this time limit expires before the OS can boot, start critical services,
and the application begins to reset the timer, the ILOM can be configured to reset or power-off the host
server, generating an alert for remote management.
Standardized IPMI management interfaces will be provided to the user application to configure and reset
the ILOM watchdog function (final implementation plan is TBD).
Just the Facts, August 2007 Sun Confidential: Internal and Sun Channel Partners Use Only 30
