From userspace, how can I tell if Linux's soft watchdog is configured with no way out?

Question

I am writing a system monitor for Linux and want to include some watchdog functionality. In the kernel, you can configure the watchdog to keep going even if /dev/watchdog is clo

Answer 1

I think the watchdog device drivers are really intended for use on embedded platforms (or at least well controlled ones) where the developers will have control of which kernel is in use.

This could be considered to be an oversight, but I think it is not.

One other thing you could try, if the watchdog was built as a loadable module, unloading it will presumably abort the shutdown?