Commit 4fc51e1f authored by Ville Herva's avatar Ville Herva Committed by Jens Axboe

[PATCH] NMI watchdog documentation

Documentation/nmi-watchdoc.txt doesn't actually tell what options need to be
enabled in kernel config in order to use NMI watchdog. I for one found it
confusing.
parent 49dfdcd2
......@@ -8,9 +8,20 @@ us to generate 'watchdog NMI interrupts'. (NMI: Non Maskable Interrupt
which get executed even if the system is otherwise locked up hard).
This can be used to debug hard kernel lockups. By executing periodic
NMI interrupts, the kernel can monitor whether any CPU has locked up,
and print out debugging messages if so. You must enable the NMI
watchdog at boot time with the 'nmi_watchdog=n' boot parameter. Eg.
the relevant lilo.conf entry:
and print out debugging messages if so.
In order to use the NMI watchdoc, you need to have APIC support in your
kernel. For SMP kernels, APIC support gets compiled in automatically. For
UP, enable either CONFIG_X86_UP_APIC (Processor type and features -> Local
APIC support on uniprocessors) or CONFIG_X86_UP_IOAPIC (Processor type and
features -> IO-APIC support on uniprocessors) in your kernel config.
CONFIG_X86_UP_APIC is for uniprocessor machines without an IO-APIC.
CONFIG_X86_UP_IOAPIC is for uniprocessor with an IO-APIC. [Note: certain
kernel debugging options, such as Kernel Stack Meter or Kernel Tracer,
may implicitly disable the NMI watchdog.]
To actually enable the NMI watchdog, use the 'nmi_watchdog=N' boot
parameter. Eg. the relevant lilo.conf entry:
append="nmi_watchdog=1"
......
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