Re: Status

[Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@linux-m68k.org>]

On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 10:07, schmitz
<schmitz@biophys.uni-duesseldorf.de> wrote:
>>> If Christian can bring his Amiga back online I'm sure we can either
>>> bisect his ariadneII problem or at least check whether it behaves
>>> better in the genirq branch.
>>> From memory, it was possible to remotely install kernels on the
>>> Amiga and reboot it successfully remotely, Christian?
>>>
>>
>> Yes, with the right mix of startup-sequences and kernels it was possible
>> to
>> autoboot and even change the kernel remotely. Only when the kernel hangs
>> you
>> have to reboot the machine via keyboard, it would pick the next kernel in
>
> The Amiga only has the keyboard to reset, no reset switch that could be
> wired up to some piece of electronics hanging off a port on your PC? (Not

At least the A4000 has a reset jumper on the mainboard, IIRC.
I know some people connected the key switch in the front panel to reset.

> that I have a clear idea how to implement such a thing but I'm sure
> something like the parallel port can be rigged to generate a suitable pulse
> for example.) You'd still need serial console output captured on another
> machine to check whether the kernel has panicked though.

At work we used small boards with a serial port and a few relays in the past.

>> the list then. I will have to set that up again on crest (aahz is not yet
>> upgraded to the TLS kernel). However, this only works as long as nothing
>> goes wrong. One kernel crash, and you need to reboot manually (or could we
>> enable the watchdog in the kernel to automatically reboot?).
>
> What would you use to reset the watchdog? Disk I/O, some device interrupts
> being serviced normally (a software watchdog timer does rely on timer
> interrupts still working normally so anything locking up the machine hard
> would require a hardware watchdog)?
>
> We might be able to trigger a reboot whenever the kernel throws a panic()
> perhaps, that might cover most of the common cases. If the system comes up
> without working ethernet, something like

Isn't there a kernel config option for reboot-on-panic?

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

                        Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
                                -- Linus Torvalds