Introduction

For Controller instances a Watchdog Script is provided that serves the purpose to

• start and restart the Controller instance,
• provide logging.

Watchdog Script

The Watchdog Script is provided for Unix and Windows. It is not used when operating the Controller from a Windows Service.

The Watchdog Script is available from the following location:

• Unix
  • <controller-home>/bin/watchdog.sh
• Windows
  • <controller-home>\bin\watchdog.cmd

Starting Controller / Restarting Controller

Technically the Watchdog Script is used to start the Controller from its controller.sh|.cmd Start Script.

In the following situation the Watchdog Script will restart the Controller:

• For the command line operation: controller.sh|.cmd restart
• For the command line operation: controller.sh|.cmd abort

Both operations are similarly available from  the JOC Cockpit Dashboard view: 

Logging

The Watchdog Script will capture output to the stdout/stderr channels through the lifetime of a Controller.

Log output is stored to the <controller-data>/logs/watchdog.log file.

• The log file reports the command line used to start the Controller.
• The log file holds information about use of a JS7 - License.
• The log file is an important source for analyzing problems:
  • Any warnings and errors that will not make it for Log4j logging is reported to the log file.
  • The same applies to warnings and errors that occur before the JVM is initialized and before Log4j logging can start, for example if an incomptible Java version is used when starting the Controller.