heartbeatools

heartbeatools is a software project that provides a collection of command-line utilities designed to interact with and manage hardware watchdog timers. Watchdog timers are hardware components that can reset a system if it becomes unresponsive, preventing prolonged downtime. The heartbeatools suite aims to simplify the configuration and monitoring of these timers across various hardware platforms.

The project typically includes tools for enabling and disabling watchdog devices, setting the timeout intervals, and sending "heartbeats" to the watchdog to indicate that the system is still operational. Failing to send a heartbeat within the configured interval will trigger the watchdog's reset function. heartbeatools often supports different watchdog drivers available in the Linux kernel, allowing for broad compatibility.

Users of heartbeatools can integrate these utilities into system startup scripts or monitoring daemons to ensure that their systems are automatically recovered in case of software hangs or critical failures. The command-line interface makes it suitable for scripting and automation within server environments. Documentation for heartbeatools usually outlines specific commands, their options, and examples of how to use them for common watchdog management tasks. The project is often found on code hosting platforms like GitHub and is typically distributed under an open-source license.