= Watchdogs =

A '''watchdog''' is a mechanism for detecting system states
(e.g. full filesystems, database failures, etc.)
that require immediate attention by project staff.
Typically the desired response to such a condition is to notify a pager,
sending a short text description.

BOINC provides a framework for defining watchdogs:

 * A set of '''watchdog scripts''' are run as periodic tasks. Each script checks for an error condition, and present, it appends a descriptive line to an error log file. An example is '''wd_nresults_changing.php''', which makes sure that the number of results changes.
 * The script '''watchdogs.php''', also run as a periodic task, scans the error log file. If it has been updated since the last run, it sends email to a set of recipients, containing the last line of the file.

These files are in the html_ops/ directory.