===============================================
The Linux WatchDog Timer Driver Core kernel API
===============================================

Last reviewed: 12-Feb-2013

Wim Van Sebroeck <wim@iguana.be>

Introduction
------------
This document does not describe what a WatchDog Timer (WDT) Driver or Device is.
It also does not describe the API which can be used by user space to communicate
with a WatchDog Timer. If you want to know this then please read the following
file: Documentation/watchdog/watchdog-api.rst .

So what does this document describe? It describes the API that can be used by
WatchDog Timer Drivers that want to use the WatchDog Timer Driver Core
Framework. This framework provides all interfacing towards user space so that
the same code does not have to be reproduced each time. This also means that
a watchdog timer driver then only needs to provide the different routines
(operations) that control the watchdog timer (WDT).

The API
-------
Each watchdog timer driver that wants to use the WatchDog Timer Driver Core
must #include <linux/watchdog.h> (you would have to do this anyway when
writing a watchdog device driver). This include file contains following
register/unregister routines::

	extern int watchdog_register_device(struct watchdog_device *);
	extern void watchdog_unregister_device(struct watchdog_device *);

The watchdog_register_device routine registers a watch                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   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