I've recently acquired a SuperMicro X10SLL-F motherboard, which has a built-in BMC (Aspeed AST2400 chip). I want to use built-in watchdog controller when running linux on server (gentoo hardened).
I enabled watchdog function in bios then switched motherboard jumper from hard-reset to NMI (watchdog timeout action, for testing purposes to avoid rebooting). About soft -- I installed and added to default runlevel watchdog program (sys-apps/watchdog) which is configured to ping watchdog device (/dev/watchdog, which is present) every 10 seconds. Watchdog timeout is set to 250 seconds.
Programs apparently see watchdog hardware (ipmitool with openipmi enabled):
# ipmitool mc watchdog get
Watchdog Timer Use: SMS/OS (0x44)
Watchdog Timer Is: Started/Running
Watchdog Timer Actions: Hard Reset (0x01)
Pre-timeout interval: 0 seconds
Timer Expiration Flags: 0x10
Initial Countdown: 254 sec
Present Countdown: 253 sec
Freeipmi:
# bmc-watchdog --get
Timer Use: SMS/OS
Timer: Running
Logging: Enabled
Timeout Action: Hard Reset
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: 254 seconds
Current Countdown: 253 seconds
However, after certain amount of time I get (with good "current countdown" values reported by programs above):
[ 294.107534] Uhhuh. NMI received for unknown reason 21 on CPU 0.
[ 294.107998] Do you have a strange power saving mode enabled?
[ 294.108437] Dazed and confused, but trying to continue
Which is NMI, apparently caused by watchdog timeout. Little less than a minute after that machine hard-reset happens.
Where is a problem and which direction should I dig to?
EDIT: kernel messages related to ipmi:
[ 0.353090] ipmi message handler version 39.2
[ 0.353353] ipmi device interface
[ 0.353623] IPMI System Interface driver.
[ 0.353898] ipmi_si: probing via ACPI
[ 0.354172] ipmi_si 00:08: [io 0x0ca2] regsize 1 spacing 1 irq 0
[ 0.354444] ipmi_si: Adding ACPI-specified kcs state machine
[ 0.354790] ipmi_si: probing via SMBIOS
[ 0.355051] ipmi_si: SMBIOS: io 0xca2 regsize 1 spacing 1 irq 0
[ 0.355317] ipmi_si: Adding SMBIOS-specified kcs state machine duplicate interface
[ 0.355836] ipmi_si: probing via SPMI
[ 0.356095] ipmi_si: SPMI: io 0xca2 regsize 1 spacing 1 irq 0
[ 0.356362] ipmi_si: Adding SPMI-specified kcs state machine duplicate interface
[ 0.356906] ipmi_si: Trying ACPI-specified kcs state machine at i/o address 0xca2, slave address 0x0, irq 0
[ 0.390536] ipmi_si: The BMC does not support clearing the recv irq bit, compensating, but the BMC needs to be fixed.
[ 0.418476] ipmi_si 00:08: Found new BMC (man_id: 0x002a7c, prod_id: 0x0801, dev_id: 0x20)
[ 0.419004] ipmi_si 00:08: IPMI kcs interface initialized
[ 0.419272] IPMI SSIF Interface driver
[ 0.420350] IPMI Watchdog: driver initialized
[ 0.420635] Copyright (C) 2004 MontaVista Software - IPMI Powerdown via sys_reboot.
[ 0.421444] IPMI poweroff: ATCA Detect mfg 0x2A7C prod 0x801
[ 0.421710] IPMI poweroff: Found a chassis style poweroff function
EDIT: I tried to use bmc-watchdog with configuration "-u 4 -p 2 -a 0 -F -P -L -O -i 300 -e 10". So only SMS/OS time is in use, pre-timeout interrupt is set to NMI, timeout action is set to NONE:
# bmc-watchdog --get
Timer Use: SMS/OS
Timer: Running
Logging: Enabled
Timeout Action: None
Pre-Timeout Interrupt: NMI / Diagnostic Interrupt
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: 290 seconds
But this led to no change at all.
EDIT. Also when I trigger watchdog timer with echoing \0x00 to /dev/watchdog and then kept it untouched -- system is correctly rebooted after default 10 second timeout. So watchdog works good but at exactly 350 seconds from startup system reboots.
EDIT. I checked BMC system event log (SEL) and found this after reboot:
Sensor #202 | Watchdog 2 | Assertion Event | Timer interrupt ; Timer use at expiration = SMS/OS ; Interrupt type = none
Sensor #202 | Watchdog 2 | Assertion Event | Timer expired, status only ; Timer use at expiration = SMS/OS ; Interrupt type = none
What is interesting here -- is that event marked as "status only". And even so, system is rebooted. When I trigger watchdog timeout intentionally, logs are different:
Sensor #202 | Watchdog 2 | Assertion Event | Timer interrupt ; Timer use at expiration = SMS/OS ; Interrupt type = none
Sensor #202 | Watchdog 2 | Assertion Event | Hard Reset ; Timer use at expiration = SMS/OS ; Interrupt type = none
