How do I Add a Virtual Watchdog Timer Device to a Virtual Machine

To ensure self-reliance related to the system performance within a virtual machine, you can add a virtual Watchdog Timer (VWDT) device.

If the guest operating system stops responding and cannot recover on its own due to software glitches or errors, the VWDT waits for a predefined period of time and then restarts the system.

You can enable the VWDT to start either by the guest operating system, or by the BIOS or EFI firmware. If you chose the VWDT to start by the BIOS or EFI firmware, it starts before the guest operating system boots.

The VWDT has an important role in guest-based clustering solutions where each virtual machine in the cluster can recover on its own if it fails.

Add a Virtual Watchdog Timer Device to a Virtual Machine in the VMware Host Client

You can add a virtual Watchdog Timer device to a virtual machine to prevent the virtual machine from a guest operating system failure for an extended period of time.

Prerequisites

• Power off the virtual machine.

• Verify that you have the Virtual machine.Configuration.Add or remove device privilege on the virtual machine.
• Verify that the guest operating system of the virtual machine supports the VWDT device.
• Verify that the virtual hardware version is 17.

Procedure

1. Click Virtual Machines in the VMware Host Client inventory.
2. Right-click a virtual machine in the list and select Edit settings from the pop-up menu.
3. On the Virtual Hardware tab, select Add other device and click Watchdog Timer.
   The Watchdog Timer device appears in the hardware list.
4. (Optional) Select Start with BIOS/EFI boot to start the watchdog timer by the BIOS or EFI firmware.
   When you select this option, the VWDT device starts before the guest operating system. If the Guest OS boot takes too long or does not support the watchdog timer, the device might constantly restart the virtual machine.
5. Click Save.