[HH] Internet connectivity watchdog timer

[Tom Metro]

Tom Metro wrote:
> Here's the challenge: I have available an ASUS RT-N16 router running
> Tomato USB firmware attached to a fixed wireless receiver, and I'd like
> to have a watchdog timer that resets both when there is a loss of
> Internet connectivity.

A few years ago I searched for a commercial solution for this and didn't
turn up much useful. (A few PCI cards designed for servers. Nothing that
would work with a router.)

I just ran another search and uncovered that Tripp Lite has a bunch of
models that include a "Watchdog system service to restore operation to
locked equipment through soft reboot of application/OS or hard power
off/on reboot of connected equipment - ideal for unattended kiosk
applications."

Information about it is sparse, but they have some packaged software to
support it (for Windows):
http://www.tripplite.com/en/products/model.cfm?txtModelID=2590

I called them and confirmed the hardware does implement a watchdog
timer. It's just a matter of getting the necessary technical info to
create some software to talk to it from the router. By this point I was
over the heads of the 1st and 2nd level support people, so they asked
that I email a description of the info I wanted and they'd research it
and get back to me. Hopefully it isn't information they keep proprietary.

Some of their inexpensive models (like the INTERNET350U <$50) support
this. According to the marketing info it uses an "HID-compliant USB
interface." I see both NUT (http://www.networkupstools.org/) and libhid
(http://libhid.alioth.debian.org/) have been ported to similar router
platforms.

I expect the general UPS driver won't help with the watchdog feature,
but the source could be illustrative.

 -Tom