B4J Question Pi & Watchdog Timer

[iCAB]

Hi All,

We are considering using a Raspberry Pi as an SBC for an industrial application. The device must run 24/7 at a remote location.

When using embedded systems for critical applications, we usually enable a watchdog timer, so in case of a major application failure the embedded system reboots.
I was wondering if the same can be done with the PI.

I read few articles where the watchdog is enabled at system level, but I was unable to find anything on how to fully control the watchdog timer by the single application we are planning to run. The application should be able to prime the watchdog timer and strobe it independently from the system.

Does anyone know how to achieve this?

Thanks
iCAB

 

[Erel]

Create another non-ui app that somehow pings the main app. Run it with sudo. You can use jShell to run the reboot command.

 

[iCAB]

Thanks Erel. we will give it a try.

 

[Harris]

With the absence of a hardware heartbeat, one must deploy another software app that checks the state of the main - to ensure it is alive.
However, if the OS is completely unresponsive, the check app may fail as well - to reboot.

 

[iCAB]

It seems that the best way, is to have an external watchdog that controls the power to the board (which is exactly what we were trying to avoid)