watchdog_start(9)

🎀 watchdog_start(9) 🎀

okay so this is straight from the Kernel API Manual, and the page is watchdog_start(9) — and bestie, it's giving "tiny wrapper, big responsibility" energy 💅✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

watchdog_start — wrapper to start the watchdog 🫶

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

int watchdog_start (struct watchdog_device *wdd );

🦋 ARGUMENTS 🦋

• wdd — the watchdog device to start 🐶💖

💫 DESCRIPTION 💫

So like, watchdog_start starts the watchdog if it is not active, and then marks it active. That's it, that's the whole slay ✨

⚠️ okay but listen: the caller must hold wd_data->lock. No cap, this is not optional. 🔒

🌈 RETURN 🌈

It returns 0 on success, or a negative errno code for failure — we love a predictable icon 💅

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

Kernel file ./drivers/watchdog/watchdog_dev.c — and these besties:

• watchdog_ping(9)
• watchdog_stop(9)
• watchdog_get_status(9)
• watchdog_set_timeout(9)
• watchdog_set_pretimeout(9)
• watchdog_get_timeleft(9)
• watchdog_ioctl_op(9)
• watchdog_write(9)
• watchdog_ioctl(9)
• watchdog_open(9)
• watchdog_release(9)
• watchdog_cdev_register(9)
• watchdog_cdev_unregister(9)
• watchdog_dev_register(9)
• watchdog_dev_unregister(9)
• watchdog_set_last_hw_keepalive(9)
• watchdog_dev_init(9)
• watchdog_dev_exit(9)

and that's the whole page, bestie 🫶 this cutie lives under ./drivers/watchdog, dated October 2026, and it's the watchdog_start(9) page — periodt 💅✨