Netgate Discussion Forum
    • Categories
    • Recent
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Users
    • Search
    • Register
    • Login

    Need driver for hardware watchdog

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved 2.0-RC Snapshot Feedback and Problems - RETIRED
    64 Posts 8 Posters 41.0k Views
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • M Offline
      MrKoen
      last edited by

      Steve, uname -a shows the following here:

      FreeBSD <fqdn of="" my="" pfsense="" box="">8.1-RELEASE-p3 FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE-p3 #1: Fri Apr 29 21:17:50 EDT 2011    root@FreeBSD_8.0_pfSense_2.0-AMD64.snaps.pfsense.org:/usr/obj.pfSense/usr/pfSensesrc/src/sys/pfSense_SMP.8  amd64

      What does this actually tell me? Is it based on FreeBSD 8.1 or 8.0 since I see both being mentioned.

      I tried the PC-BSD ISO, but that didn't work within my VirtualBox image. I'll give it another try with FreeBSD 8.1. Thanks for the link!

      Cino, I was running pfSense 2.0 RC1 i386 within VMWare ESXi on my SuperMicro X7SPA-HF-D525 board. This was very unstable with crashes and hangs at least 5 times a day. So I tried an install of pfSense 2.0 RC1 AMD64 directly on the hardware. This is less unstable but still creates hangs at least twice a day. This is with it being updated up to the latest beta version. I tried returning to the stable pfSense 2.0 RC1 i386 release, but I couldn't get it gitsynced with the smos git to include the IPv6 support. I remember you stating in a different forum topic that your installation on similar hardware was stable. I would recommend keeping it like that. The only reason I'm trying to get this watchdog to work is because it is so unstable.</fqdn>

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • stephenw10S Offline
        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
        last edited by

        It's based on 8.1.

        The only thing I can say I've done personally is installed FreeBSD 8.1 x86 and copied files from that to pfSense 2.0Beta5.

        Steve

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • M Offline
          MrKoen
          last edited by

          It worked! Thanks guys for helping me out! I indeed needed the files from the FreeBSD 8.1 release and not the FreeBSD 8.2 release. To show my appreciation for you guys helping me out and deliver something back for it to the community, I took the time to put all steps required in one tutorial for both the i386 as well as the AMD64 versions of pfSense 2.0 RC1 together with the downloads for both of them. Find the tutorial and downloads here:

          http://www.zomers.eu/knowledge/pfSense/Pages/Configure-pfSense-2.0-RC1-to-use-Watchdog-functionality.aspx

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • W Offline
            wallabybob
            last edited by

            @Koen:

            To show my appreciation for you guys helping me out and deliver something back for it to the community, I took the time to put all steps required in one tutorial for both the i386 as well as the AMD64 versions of pfSense 2.0 RC1 together with the downloads for both of them.

            Great way to show your appreciation. Thanks.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • stephenw10S Offline
              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
              last edited by

              Great write up.  :)

              Steve

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • M Offline
                MrKoen
                last edited by

                Thanks. I'm glad to be able to help others with this great product. And you guys know what the funny thing about all of this is? Since I have the watchdog up and running, my pfSense installation hasn't crashed or freezed anymore for a whole day already! It used to crash or freeze at least 5 times a day before I got this up and running. Can't explain it, but I'm very happy with it ;)

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • C Offline
                  Cino
                  last edited by

                  Really nice write up!! I made have to try 64bit one of days now :-) Just need one more driver and i'll be good to go

                  Good to hear that your box is stable now

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • M Offline
                    MrKoen
                    last edited by

                    I want to express once more that following the steps to enable the watchdog really has made my pfSense system rock solid and stable now. It has been running for a week already without any problems, a single crash or single hang. I did a reinstall on a new disk last weekend and the crashes and hangs started right again. Once applying the watchdog driver again, the system is solid and stable again. Strange, but true. So if you're using the SuperMicro X7SPA-HF-D525 or equivalent board and experience an unstable pfSense installation, apply these easy steps.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • stephenw10S Offline
                      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                      last edited by

                      Weird?  :-
                      I sounds like the perhaps the ICH is not being correctly setup by either the bios or the standard ICH driver.
                      Loading the ICHWD driver sets the registers to known values preventing some unstable condition.
                      Speculation.  ;)

                      Steve

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • D Offline
                        dzeanah
                        last edited by

                        Nice write-up.

                        Does anyone know if this same procedure will work with a Netgate hamakua?

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • stephenw10S Offline
                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                          last edited by

                          It should work on anything that has an Intel ICH (I/O Controller Hub). Except that it can be disabled by the manufacturer.
                          See the man page here.

                          Steve

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • _ Offline
                            _igor_
                            last edited by

                            stephenw10: thanks for your tutorial, but seems as if it doesn't work when your harddisks are configured as AHCI: ichwd.ko does not work/load as expected. So i searched and found a reasonable thing to solve that problem:

                            First of all i installed freeipmi:

                            pkg_add -r freeipmi

                            That installs a bunch of nice tools to control your hardware like sensors, voltages and so on. But here only one program is interesting: bmc-watchdog.

                            Next i created a shell-script to start/enable the bmc-watchdog, i called it "watchdog.sh":

                            #!/bin/sh
# /usr/local/etc/rc.d/watchdog.sh
# First stop the running bios-watchdog:
/usr/local/sbin/bmc-watchdog -y
# Next start the watchdog with new settings
# -d start bmc-watchdog as daemon
# -i xx is the initial timer, which generates the reset
# -e xx is our timer which resets to initial timer
/usr/local/sbin/bmc-watchdog -d -i 16 -e 10

# alternative which should run too,
# but not in conjunction with bmc-watchdog
# not tested in my case :)
# /etc/rc.d/watchdogd forcestart

                            after creating the watchdog.sh, please change permissions:

                            chmod a+x /usr/local/etc/rc.d/watchdog.sh

                            Now we configure freeipmi, freeipmi.conf is located in /usr/local/etc/freeipmi/
                            The freeipmi.conf is rather big, but easy to understand. All options are disabled, so we have to enable some things:

                            The only relevant part is this one:

                            #####################################################################################################
#
# BMC-WATCHDOG OPTIONS
#
# The following options are specific to bmc-watchdog(8).  They will be
# ignored by other tools.
#
# bmc-watchdog-workaround-flags workaround1,workaround2,workaround3

bmc-watchdog-logfile /var/log/watchdog.log
#
# bmc-watchdog-no-logging DISABLE
#
#####################################################################################################

                            You can test your script by running it:

                            /usr/local/etc/rc.d/watchdog.sh

                            Now get the info via "bmc-watchdog -g". It will output something like this:

                            Timer Use:                  SMS/OS
                            Timer:                      Stopped
                            Logging:                    Enabled
                            Timeout Action:              None
                            Pre-Timeout Interrupt:      None
                            Pre-Timeout Interval:        0 seconds
                            Timer Use BIOS FRB2 Flag:    Clear
                            Timer Use BIOS POST Flag:    Clear
                            Timer Use BIOS OS Load Flag: Clear
                            Timer Use BIOS SMS/OS Flag:  Set
                            Timer Use BIOS OEM Flag:    Clear
                            Initial Countdown:          16 seconds
                            Current Countdown:          16 seconds

                            Next of it reboot your pfsense and enter the BIOS-settings.

                            Go to "Advanced", "IPMI Configuration" and enable the watchdog here, but ONLY here!
                            Set it to power-recycle or hard-reset, and timeout to 5 min.

                            That setting gives your pfsense enough time to get up and running after restart. Even when a file-system-check happens, it will be enough time!
                            (tested with a geom_mirror after a hard reset - disks have 250GB.)

                            After rebooting you can control the thing:

                            ssh into your pfsense and see what "bmc-watchdog -g" outputs:

                            Timer Use:                  BIOS POST
                            Timer:                      Running
                            Logging:                    Enabled
                            Timeout Action:              Power Cycle
                            Pre-Timeout Interrupt:      None
                            Pre-Timeout Interval:        0 seconds
                            Timer Use BIOS FRB2 Flag:    Clear
                            Timer Use BIOS POST Flag:    Clear
                            Timer Use BIOS OS Load Flag: Clear
                            Timer Use BIOS SMS/OS Flag:  Set
                            Timer Use BIOS OEM Flag:    Clear
                            Initial Countdown:          300 seconds
                            Current Countdown:          93 seconds

                            When your pfsense is started completely (after the little start-sound), control again:

                            bmc-watchdog -g
                            Timer Use:                  BIOS POST
                            Timer:                      Running
                            Logging:                    Enabled
                            Timeout Action:              Power Cycle
                            Pre-Timeout Interrupt:      None
                            Pre-Timeout Interval:        0 seconds
                            Timer Use BIOS FRB2 Flag:    Clear
                            Timer Use BIOS POST Flag:    Clear
                            Timer Use BIOS OS Load Flag: Clear
                            Timer Use BIOS SMS/OS Flag:  Set
                            Timer Use BIOS OEM Flag:    Clear
                            Initial Countdown:          16 seconds
                            Current Countdown:          15 seconds

                            e voila, all is running as expected!
                            Test it with a "killall -9 bmc-watchdog"
                            Your countdown goes to 0 and your pfsense reboots.

                            Looking at your watchdog.log you see the timer-resets:

                            [May 11 19:47:25]: BMC-Watchdog Timer Reset
                            [May 11 19:47:35]: BMC-Watchdog Timer Reset
                            [May 11 19:47:45]: BMC-Watchdog Timer Reset
                            [May 11 19:47:55]: BMC-Watchdog Timer Reset
                            [May 11 19:48:05]: BMC-Watchdog Timer Reset
                            [May 11 19:48:15]: BMC-Watchdog Timer Reset
                            [May 11 19:48:25]: BMC-Watchdog Timer Reset
                            [May 11 19:48:35]: BMC-Watchdog Timer Reset

                            So loading the "ichwd.ko" is not any more necessary!

                            edit (forgot it to mention): please create a new file in /boot:

                            /boot/loader.conf.local with following setting in:

                            ipmi_load="YES"

                            If you put that setting in your loader.conf, it will be lost with the next firmware-update.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • stephenw10S Offline
                              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                              last edited by

                              That's good stuff. What other treasures does IPMI hold?  ;D

                              Thanks should go to Koen Zomers for taking the time to write up the procedure. Your write up seems equally comprehensive. Two options for using a watchdog is better than one.

                              Steve

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • _ Offline
                                _igor_
                                last edited by

                                one other fine thing is that:

                                supermicro X7SBA-D525-HF:

                                ipmi-sensors
                                4: System Temp (Temperature): 37.00 C (-7.00/77.00): [OK]
                                71: CPU Temp (Temperature): 33.00 C (-8.00/90.00): [OK]
                                138: CPU FAN (Fan): 4840.00 RPM (585.00/29815.00): [OK]
                                205: SYS FAN (Fan): 5025.00 RPM (585.00/29815.00): [OK]
                                272: CPU Vcore (Voltage): 1.14 V (0.66/1.41): [OK]
                                339: Vichcore (Voltage): 1.04 V (0.82/1.18): [OK]
                                406: +3.3VCC (Voltage): 3.26 V (2.88/3.65): [OK]
                                473: VDIMM (Voltage): 1.53 V (1.33/1.66): [OK]
                                540: +5 V (Voltage): 4.96 V (4.32/5.60): [OK]
                                607: +12 V (Voltage): 12.30 V (10.60/13.20): [OK]
                                674: +3.3VSB (Voltage): 3.26 V (2.88/3.65): [OK]
                                741: VBAT (Voltage): 3.17 V (2.62/3.39): [OK]
                                808: Chassis Intru (Platform Chassis Intrusion): [OK]
                                875: PS Status (Power Supply): [Presence detected][Unrecognized State][Unrecognized State][Unrecognized State][Unrecognized State][Unrecognized State][Unrecognized State][Unrecognized State]

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • C Offline
                                  Cino
                                  last edited by

                                  igor, great find!! Took me a while to get this to work, I had added ipmi.ko to my loader.conf.local a while back. Removed it and all is working now on my X7SPA-D510-HF.. The ipmi-sensors is great add-on!!

                                  
ipmi-sensors
4: System Temp (Temperature): 54.00 C (-7.00/77.00): [OK]
71: CPU Temp (Temperature): 61.00 C (-8.00/90.00): [OK]
138: CPU FAN (Fan): NA (NA/NA): [Unknown]
205: SYS FAN (Fan): 4840.00 RPM (585.00/29815.00): [OK]
272: CPU Vcore (Voltage): 1.16 V (0.66/1.41): [OK]
339: Vichcore (Voltage): 1.04 V (0.82/1.18): [OK]
406: +3.3VCC (Voltage): 3.26 V (2.88/3.65): [OK]
473: VDIMM (Voltage): 1.83 V (1.48/1.99): [OK]
540: +5 V (Voltage): 4.96 V (4.32/5.60): [OK]
607: +12 V (Voltage): 12.29 V (10.50/13.06): [OK]
674: +3.3VSB (Voltage): 3.26 V (2.88/3.65): [OK]
741: VBAT (Voltage): 3.15 V (2.62/3.39): [OK]
808: Chassis Intru (Platform Chassis Intrusion): [OK]
875: PS Status (Power Supply): [Presence detected][Unrecognized State][Unrecognized State][Unrecognized State][Unrecognized State][Unrecognized State][Unrecognized State][Unrecognized State]

                                  btw, I have both watchdogd and bmc-watchdog running on my box. They both work, but I need to play with the options for bmc-watchdog. Watchdogd does a hard reset, but bmc-watchdog is doing a power cycle. Which I think is better for the hard drive but it still needs to clean the filesystem when it boots up.

                                  Thanks again everyone!

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • M Offline
                                    MrKoen
                                    last edited by

                                    Thanks igor for sharing your findings! Looking good. I'm going to give it a try in the next few days. Who can create a nice frontpage widget to parse and show the ipmi-sensors information? ;)

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • _ Offline
                                      _igor_
                                      last edited by

                                      cino: Thanks for the hint with ipmi="YES" in loader.conf. I forgot it to mention in my post. I added that setting there, it should be complete now.

                                      Best practise is to set this in /boot/loader.conf.local. So it survives upgrades of pfsense.

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • C Offline
                                        Cino
                                        last edited by

                                        @_igor_:

                                        cino: Thanks for the hint with ipmi="YES" in loader.conf. I forgot it to mention in my post. I added that setting there, it should be complete now.

                                        Best practise is to set this in /boot/loader.conf.local. So it survives upgrades of pfsense.

                                        I'm sorry, I had to remove that line to get bmc_watchdog to work. When ipmi.ko is loaded, the watchdog doesn't work for me. ipmi-sensors would also return an error. I unloaded the driver and both programs started to work with no errors. So i removed it from my loader.conf.local, rebooted the box and everything works. Sorry for the confusing

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • C Offline
                                          Cino
                                          last edited by

                                          @Koen:

                                          Thanks igor for sharing your findings! Looking good. I'm going to give it a try in the next few days. Who can create a nice frontpage widget to parse and show the ipmi-sensors information? ;)

                                          I copied page diag_system_activity.php and changed some of the code so it calls ipmi-sensors instead of top… It works :-)  Upload it to /usr/local/www and you can access it via http://pfsense/diag_ipmi-sensors.php.

                                          Scott created the page, and if i'm reading his copyright notice correct. We can make changes to it as long as we leave the notice there.

                                          diag_ipmi-sensors.php.txt

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • _ Offline
                                            _igor_
                                            last edited by

                                            hey cino, that sounds strange, i have to load ipmi to get that info. Reading at the freeipmi-docs i saw that freeipmi has the ability to load its own ipmi-drivers. Maybe there is something wrong with your system-ipmi. Don't know that. Its included in the pfSense, i didn't load it from other installation.
                                            My entry in /boot/loader.conf.local is ipmi="YES"

                                            Much thanks for that changed/new ipmi-sensors.php! I'll try that out.

                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                            • First post
                                              Last post
                                            Copyright 2025 Rubicon Communications LLC (Netgate). All rights reserved.