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I would like to use the systemd watchdog as described here on a Odroid-H4-Ultra. A BIOS update enabled the corresponding setting and the hardware is available (Wiki).

I installed the watchdog package which brings the wdat_wdt kernel module, but I'm not using the watchdog program itself. I can load the module manually via modprobe wdat_wdt (=> /dev/watchdog is available) and wdctl shows, that everything is working fine.

Unfortunately, I cannot load the kernel module automatically:

  • add a line to /etc/modules => reboot => module not loaded => watchdog does not work
  • add a file modules-load.d/wdat_wdt.conf => reboot => module not loaded ...

As far as I can see, the module is not blacklisted.

How can I load the kernel module automatically to use systemd watchdog?

Thomas P
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  • After the second attempt, did you check the journal for entries related to systemd-modules-load.service? There might be some indication why it failed (or at least, whether it tried to load). – steeldriver Sep 06 '25 at 14:05
  • Thanks for pointing me to the journal. It contains a line Module 'wdat_wdt' is deny-listed (by kmod) and wdat_wdt is blacklisted in /lib/modprobe.d/blacklist_linux_6.8.0-79-generic.conf (I overlooked this). This seems to be a autogenerated file (corresponding to the current kernel version). I guess editing this file manually is not a good idea. What to do about it? – Thomas P Sep 06 '25 at 14:49
  • TBH I wasn't even aware of that file, but you're right I think, it's provided by the corresponding linux-modules- package so - at best - editing it would only work until the next kernel upgrade. – steeldriver Sep 06 '25 at 16:47
  • There is an open Bug in the Ubuntu bug tracker that addresses a similar issue. My current workaround is to load the kernel module via crontab with @reboot. – Thomas P Sep 14 '25 at 09:56

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