Watchdog

[Nikos]

Is there any documentation for the watchdog service?
Sorry for being so clueless but how does it work and what's the purpose of it?
Our assumption is that it works like a "screen saver" that kicks in when the machine is running idle?

Thanks for your patience.

[anthony]

Hey Nikos,

    The watchdog is a service which watches for both keyboard and mouse interaction.  It talks to the worker to let it know if this is occuring.  To use it, you enable the service and switch the lock on the worker to watch dog. 

     Please keep in mind that the watchdog service is designed for 32 bit versions of windows.  If you are using 64 bit windows, it will cause issues with restarting the host.  We will be notifying everyone once qube! supports 64bit windows. Until then, we recommend you use the calendar feature of the worker.

    Thanks,
           Anthony

[Nikos]

Thanks Anthony,

I might be a bit dim, but I'm still not quite sure I get the full picture with the watchdog.
Does it require any custom configuration?

At the moment I'm just trying it on my workstation.
As soon as I set the lock to watchdog mode my machine starts to render.
Mouse/keyboard intervention doesn't seem to do anything, which makes one wonder what the
point of the whole thing really is, instead of just having the machine online all the time...

[anthony]

Hey Nikos,

    The watchdog is a separate daemon from the qubeworker.  It must be active in order to keep your machine locked.  (This is to prevent users from disabling the daemon so that they can subvert the system without you knowing)
 
    Normally the daemon is disabled.  To enable the daemon goto Control Panels->Administrative Tools->Services.

    Enable the qubewatchdog.

    Then set the worker's lock to watchdog.

    This is a 2 part locking mechanism.  It doesn't work unless both are turned on.

    Thanks,
         Anthony

[lloydalvarez]

Is the watchdog feature compatible with OS X?  If so how do you turn on the daemon?

And when someone comes back to the workstation.. is the worker stopped immediately or does it wait to finish the frame?

Thanks,

_lloyd

[anthony]

Hey Lloyd,

    Unfortunatly, the watchdog feature is limited to windows only.  In answer to your second question, the worker immediatly stops the frame it is currently working on.

      Thanks,
         Anthony