Using the features 
  3.2 Watchdog 
Linux Support Package 
Installation Manual, 01/2021, A5E50719672-AA 
7 
Configuration 
After enabling the watchdog module, it has to be triggered periodically. The kernel watchdog 
daemon can be used to trigger the watchdog. On Industrial OS, which is based on Debian, 
the daemon is configured via "/usr/lib/systemd/system.conf.d/99-watchdog.conf". You can 
find details of the systemd conf man page on 
(https://manpages.debian.org/buster/systemd/systemd-system.conf.5.en.html) . 
The following entry defines the timeout, after an untriggered watchdog causes a system 
reset/reboot. 
To overwrite the standard configuration, it is recommended to create a user configuration 
file "/etc/systemd/system.conf.d/watchdog.conf" with the following content: 
 
Note 
Other distributions use other configuration files. For more information please refer to the 
documentation of your distribution. 
The hardware watchdog is able to use one of these timeout values: 
•  IPC227E, IPC277E, IPC427E, IPC477E: 2s, 4s, 6s, 8s, 16s, 32s, 48s, 64s 
•  IPC627E, IPC647E, IPC677E, IPC847E: 1s … 255s 
Testing 
Be sure you configured your watchdog. Then force a kernel panic with the following 
commands (Attention: This will make your system unresponsive): 
# echo 1 > /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq 
# echo c > /proc/sysrq-trigger 
After the configured timeout, the machine will reset, reboot and you can check the watchdog 
status with: 
$ cat /sys/class/watchdog/watchdog0/bootstatus 
It should be "1" in case of a reboot triggered by the watchdog and "0" in case of a normal 
reboot. 
You can also check the syslog. The following message is added: 
"simatic-ipc-wdt: last reboot caused by watchdog reset"