CN100378617C - Network awakening device and method - Google Patents

Abstract

A network wake-up device includes a programmable control device, a computer system and an interface device. When the interface device receives a network wake-up packet, it will send a power management event signal to the programmable control device and the computer system respectively. If the computer system is in a normal state, such as a sleep state and an operating state, when it receives the power management event signal, the computer in the sleep state will be activated and restored to the operating state, and the computer system in the operating state will continue to operate. If the computer system is in an abnormal shutdown state, such as a crash state or its power is improperly cut off, when it receives the power management event signal, the programmable control device will use a restart module to restart the computer system. The present invention also relates to a method for realizing a network wake-up function using the above-mentioned network wake-up device.

Description

Device and method for wake-up from network

technical field

The present invention relates to a network wake-up device and method, and in particular to a network wake-up device and method capable of restarting a computer when the computer system is in a down state.

Background technique

In recent years, a wake-on-lan mechanism has been developed. Users can wake up the computer system at the other end through a remote terminal server (remote server). The Network Interface Card (NIC) used in this computer system must have the ability to wake up the remote terminal server, so that the computer system can have the above functions.

Generally speaking, there are two types of power supplies used in computer systems, one is core power and the other is suspend power. After the AC power plug of the computer system is plugged into the AC power, although the power switch of the computer system has not been activated, the backup power has been provided to the computer system. In addition, after the computer system is turned on, when the computer system detects that some devices are not in use, it can be set to a standby state (suspend state), and stop supplying core power to these devices and only provide backup power to achieve Power saving function.

When the computer system is turned on, the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) will execute the ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) program (routine) to perform comprehensive power management on the computer system. After booting, the operating system can turn off (tumoff) peripheral devices not in use, or put the system into a sleep state. And when the user presses the keyboard or moves the mouse, the ACPI program can automatically allow the computer system to obtain the core power supply again.

The above-mentioned steps of making the computer system obtain the core power supply again can also be completed by using the wake-on-lane method. Make the remote terminal of the network system send a network wake-up packet to the network adapter card. When the network adapter card receives the network wake-up packet, it immediately sends a signal, that is, a power management event (Power Management Event, PME), to the computer system South Bridge chip (south bridgechip), to wake up the computer system.

When it is necessary to set the Southbridge chip in the computer system to the state that can receive the power management event sent by the network adapter card, it must be done after the basic input/output system executes the ACPI program of the boot program, that is, it must After the user presses the power switch of the computer system and the computer system enters the boot process, the setting of the south bridge chip can be completed. Moreover, during the setting process, the high current of the core power supply must be used, which cannot be provided by the backup power supply. Therefore, in the traditional method, when the computer system is not turned on, the south bridge chip cannot respond to the power management event sent by the network adapter card, that is, the computer system cannot be woken up through the network at this time. In other words, traditionally, if the computer system has never been powered on, the computer system does not have the function of waking up from the network.

Moreover, when the computer has finished booting and has set the computer system to a state that can accept wake-on-lan, if the computer system is shut down abnormally at this time, for example, it crashes or its AC power supply is improperly cut off, It will make the computer system unable to respond to the above power management events. At this time, although the backup power in the computer system still exists, the computer cannot be woken up by the Wake-on-LAN packet of the remote terminal. Traditionally, only by manually pressing the power switch of the computer to restart the computer system and resetting the south bridge chip, can the computer system have the function of wake-up on LAN again.

As mentioned above, when the computer system is applied to the server system, because in the server system, multiple computer systems are often installed on the rack (Rack), so if one of the computer systems crashes, the user needs to Rebooting this crashed computer system is more difficult.

Contents of the invention

The purpose of the present invention is to provide a network wake-up device, which uses a programmable control device to restart the computer system when the network is used to wake up the computer system in a down state.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a wake-up method. When a computer system crashes, it can be judged whether the computer system can be restarted through wake-up according to the system status information obtained from the monitored computer system.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a method of wake-up on network, which can respond differently to different states of the computer system, so as to improve the problem that the existing method of wake-up on network cannot wake up the computer system that has been shut down.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a programmable control device, which uses the handshake protocol between the programmable control device and the computer system to confirm whether the computer system is in a normal state, when the computer system is not in a normal state , the computer system can be restarted with the programmable control device.

According to the above objective of the present invention, a wake-on-LAN device is proposed, which includes a programmable control device, a computer system and an interface device. When the interface device receives a Wake-on-LAN packet, it will send a power management event signal to the programmable control device and the computer system respectively. If the computer system is in a normal state, such as sleep state and running state, when it receives this power management event signal, the computer in the sleep state will activate and return to the running state, while the computer system in the running state will continue Keep running and not affected by this power management event signal. If the computer system is in an abnormal shutdown state, such as a crash state or its power supply is improperly cut off, when the computer system receives the power management event signal, its south bridge chip cannot respond to the power management event signal. the response to.

The programmable control device of the present invention includes a receiving module, a handshake module and a restart module, wherein the receiving module is used to receive a power management event signal from the interface device. The control logic of the programmable control device is that its handshake module communicates with the computer system by using a handshake protocol to determine whether the computer system is in a normal state or an abnormal shutdown state. When the programmable control device receives a power management event signal, if the computer system is in a normal state at this time, the programmable control device will not restart the computer system; if the computer system is in an abnormal shutdown state at this time, then The programmable control device can use its restart module to restart the computer system.

According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the interface device is a network adapter card. The programmable control device is a Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) chip, usually an 8051 chip directly configured on the motherboard of the computer system, responsible for monitoring the system status of the entire computer system and generating system status data . Moreover, the computer system in this embodiment uses a south bridge chip to receive the above power control signal. When the handshake module finds that the computer system is in an abnormal shutdown state through the handshake protocol, it can judge whether the system state of the computer system is suitable for restarting by using the Wake-on-LAN packet in conjunction with the system state data.

In this embodiment, the above-mentioned handshake protocol is implemented through a buffer. The programmable control device is set to send a first signal, and the computer system is set to receive a second signal respectively, and the two are alternately written into the register, and the first signal and the second signal have The opposite logical level. Therefore, when the logic level of the data stored in the register remains the same as the logic level of the first signal, that is, it has not been changed by the computer system to be the same as the logic level of the second signal, it can be known that the computer at this time The system is in an abnormal shutdown state.

As can be seen from the above, the wake-on-lan device of the present invention, through the operation logic set in its programmable control device, can make the central control program or server manager at the remote terminal directly use the wake-on-lan packet to restart the A computer system in an abnormal shutdown state. In addition, with the monitoring module in the programmable control device, before the above-mentioned steps of restarting the computer system, it is possible to confirm whether there are any problems with the hardware equipment of the computer system, in addition to avoiding restarting the computer system with hardware equipment problems and causing greater damage. losses, and also avoid the existing temporary difficulty of restarting multiple computers installed in the frame.

Description of drawings

Fig. 1 is the schematic diagram of a preferred embodiment of the present invention;

Fig. 2 is the flowchart of the preferred embodiment among Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 is a control logic flowchart of the programmable control device of the present invention;

Fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of a preferred embodiment of the handshake protocol of the present invention;

Figure 5 is a schematic diagram of another preferred embodiment of the present invention; and

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of the preferred embodiment in FIG. 5 .

Detailed ways

The following two embodiments are used to explain the wake-up device of the present invention, wherein the normal state of the computer system is defined as including the running state and the sleep state, and the sleep state includes the soft off mode (softoff mode) and the suspend mode in the operation of the computer system (suspend mode). An abnormal shutdown state of a computer system is defined as a state including a shutdown state or a state in which power is improperly cut off.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a preferred embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a flowchart of the preferred embodiment in FIG. 1 . Please refer to FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 for the following description.

First, the remote terminal of the network system sends a Wake-on-LAN packet to the network adapter card 104 (step 202). When the network adapter card 104 receives the wake-on-lan packet, it immediately sends a signal, that is, a power management event (PME) signal, to the programmable control device 102a and the computer system 106 (step 204).

In this embodiment, the computer system 106 uses a south bridge chip (not shown) to receive the power management event signal from the network adapter card 104 . According to different states of the computer system 106, the present invention will perform different corresponding steps (step 206). When the computer system 106 is in the running state, the south bridge chip ignores the power management event signal, and the computer system 106 will continue to maintain the normal running state (step 212 ). When the computer system 106 is in the sleep state, the south bridge chip will wake up the computer system 106 after receiving the power management event signal, so that the computer system 106 is activated and resumes the running state (step 214 ). And when the computer system 106 is in an abnormal shutdown state, such as a crash state or its power supply is improperly cut off, then after receiving the power management event signal, its south bridge chip cannot make a response to the power management event signal. Relative response (step 216).

The programmable control device 102 a of the present invention includes a receiving module 112 , a handshaking module 114 and a restarting module 116 . The receiving module 112 is used for receiving the aforementioned power management event signal from the network adapter card 104 . The handshake module 114 uses a handshake protocol to communicate with the computer system 106 to determine whether the computer system 106 is in a normal state or an abnormal shutdown state. The handshake protocol in this embodiment will be described in detail later.

Fig. 3 is a flow chart of the control logic of the programmable control device of the present invention. When the programmable control device 102a receives a power management event signal (step 302), if the computer system 106 is judged to be in a normal state by the handshake module 114 (step 304), the programmable control device 102a does not The computer system 106 is restarted (step 312). If the computer system 106 is judged to be abnormally shut down by the handshake module 114 (step 304), the programmable control device 102a will use its restart module 116 to restart the computer system 106 (step 314).

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of a preferred embodiment of the handshake protocol. In this embodiment, the handshake protocol is implemented through a buffer 402 . The programmable control device 102a is set to send a first signal, having a high logic level of 1, and the computer system 106 is set to send a second signal, having a low logic level of 0, which alternately writes into the buffer 402.

Therefore, when the logic level of the data stored in the register 402 remains the same as the logic level of the first signal (high logic level 1), it is not changed by the computer system 106 to be the same as the second signal as expected. When the logic levels of the signals (low logic level 0) are the same, it can be known that the computer system 106 is in an abnormal shutdown state at this time.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of another preferred embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 6 is a flow chart of the preferred embodiment in FIG. 5 . Please refer to FIG. 5 and FIG. 6 for the following description. The following embodiments are mainly used to illustrate how the present invention is applied in a server system with multiple computers. When a plurality of computer systems are installed on the rack (Rack), and one of the computer systems crashes, using the present invention can help users judge and restart the crashed computer system.

The programmable control device 102b in FIG. 5 has a monitoring module 122 and a data output terminal 124 more than the programmable control device 102a in FIG. 1 . In this embodiment, a baseboard management controller (BMC) chip is used as the programmable control device 102b in the present invention. The baseboard management controller chip is usually an 8051 chip directly configured on the motherboard of the computer system 106. The 8051 chip itself has a microprocessor, memory, and input/output ports, and is powered by a suspend power. The baseboard management controller chip collects system health and system status information about the computer system 106, and can immediately perform corrective actions when serious events occur.

Usually, the system health monitoring function of the baseboard management controller chip is implemented with several digital sensors. The digital sensors can monitor different system voltages, temperatures and fan speeds. The baseboard management controller chip adopts an active polling method to discover whether there are any sensors out of range among the several sensors connected to it.

Moreover, in order to make the monitoring work effective, the baseboard management controller chip can be configured according to different gate limit values. For example, when the baseboard management controller chip detects that the temperature of a certain sensor exceeds a certain warning threshold, it increases the speed of the fan corresponding to the position of the sensor. Furthermore, if the corrective action is not effective enough, the temperature exceeding a certain warning threshold will exceed another emergency threshold, at which point the baseboard management controller chip will cut off the system power, record the event process and report the event via the network. The remote terminal issues a warning.

First, the programmable control device 102b uses its monitoring module 122 to monitor the system status data of the computer system 106, and transmits the system status data to the remote terminal through the data output terminal 124 (step 602). When the computer system 106 is in an abnormal shutdown state, an observer at a remote terminal, such as a central control program or a server administrator, can judge whether to restart the computer system 106 according to the system status data (step 604).

How to determine whether the computer system 106 can be restarted will be discussed separately below. If the system status information of the computer system 106 shows that the hardware equipment of the computer system fails, for example, the failure of its cooling fan cannot effectively help the heat dissipation, or when the voltage value of any line is incorrect, then the hardware of the computer system must be corrected at this time. The equipment is further tested and repaired, and the computer system 106 cannot be restarted rashly (step 622).

On the other hand, if there is no problem with the hardware equipment of the computer system 106, it is only due to the influence of a certain noise (noise) that it crashes, or its power supply is improperly cut off, but it does not affect the computer system 106. If the hardware device causes any damage, a wake-on-lan packet can be sent to the network adapter card 104 to restart the computer system 106 (step 612).

Similarly, when the network adapter card 104 receives the wake-on-lan packet, it will send a power management event signal to the programmable control device 102b and the computer system 106 respectively (step 614 ). However, since the computer system 106 is already in an abnormal shutdown state, the power management event signal directly sent by the network adapter card 104 does not have any effect on the computer system 106 .

However, the programmable control device 102b of the present invention has used its handshake module 114 to confirm that the computer system 106 is in an abnormal shutdown state. Therefore, when the receiving module 112 of the programmable control device 102b receives the power management event signal from the network adapter card 104, the programmable control device 102b will use its restart module 116 to restart the computer system 106 (step 616 ).

In this embodiment, the programmable control device of the present invention is a programmable control chip, which is directly configured on the motherboard of the computer system. However, the programmable control chip can also be configured in an adapter card, and then connected to the computer system, or configured in another external computer system, and then connected to the computer system to be controlled and monitored by sensors and connection lines. It should be noted that the present invention can also be other programmable control devices, such as a circuit system on an adapter card or a monitoring/control program in an external computer system, which also conforms to the spirit and scope of the present invention.

As can be seen from the above, the wake-on-lan device of the present invention, through the operation logic set in its programmable control device, can make the central control program or server manager at the remote terminal directly use the wake-on-lan packet to restart the A computer system in an abnormal shutdown state. In addition, with the monitoring module in the programmable control device, before the above steps of restarting the computer system, it is possible to confirm whether there are any problems with the hardware equipment of the computer system, in addition to avoiding restarting the computer system with hardware equipment problems and causing greater losses. , and can also avoid the existing temporary difficulty of restarting multiple computers installed in the frame.

Claims (11)

1. WOL (Wake On LAN) device, it can be used for restarting computer system, it is characterized in that: described device comprises the interface arrangement that a programmable control device that is connected with described computer system and all is connected with described programmable control device and described computer system, wherein after described interface arrangement received a WOL (Wake On LAN) package, described interface arrangement can send a supervisory signal respectively to described programmable control device and described computer system; Wherein said programmable control device utilizes a Handshake Protocol to judge whether unusually off-mode of described computer system, and when described computer system receives described supervisory signal and be in described unusual off-mode simultaneously, described programmable control system is sent a starting-up signal to described computer system, to restart described computer system.

2. WOL (Wake On LAN) device according to claim 1 is characterized in that: described programmable control device further comprises the data output terminal that a monitoring modular and that is used for monitoring the system state of described computer system and produces a system state data is used for sending described system state data.

3. WOL (Wake On LAN) device according to claim 1, it is characterized in that: described programmable control device is a programmable control chip, described interface arrangement is an adapter, described supervisory signal is a power management event signal, and described computer system has a South Bridge chip that is used for receiving described supervisory signal.

4. WOL (Wake On LAN) method, it is characterized in that: described method comprises following steps:

Monitor the system state of a computer system and produce a system state data, and, judge whether to send a WOL (Wake On LAN) package according to described system state data;

Send described WOL (Wake On LAN) package to an interface arrangement;

After described interface arrangement receives described WOL (Wake On LAN) package, send supervisory signal to a programmable control device and a computer system respectively;

Wherein, when described computer system was in an operating condition, described computer system was ignored described supervisory signal,

When described computer system was in a dormant state, described supervisory signal woke described computer system up, and

When described computer system was in a unusual off-mode, described programmable control device can be restarted described computer system after receiving described supervisory signal.

5. WOL (Wake On LAN) method according to claim 4, it is characterized in that: described WOL (Wake On LAN) method further comprises a Handshake Protocol that utilizes between described programmable control device and described computer system, judge that described computer system is in a normal condition or described unusual off-mode, wherein said normal condition comprises described operating condition and described dormant state.

6. WOL (Wake On LAN) method according to claim 5 is characterized in that: utilize the step of described Handshake Protocol to comprise:

Described programmable control device and described computer system send one first signal and a secondary signal respectively alternately to be written into a buffer, and wherein said first signal is opposite with the accurate position of the logic of described secondary signal;

Wherein when the accurate position of the logic of the data of being deposited in the described buffer kept identical with the accurate position of the logic of described first signal, described computer system was in described when the machine state.

7. WOL (Wake On LAN) method according to claim 4, it is characterized in that: described programmable control device is a programmable control chip, described interface arrangement is an adapter, described supervisory signal is a power management event signal, and described computer system has a South Bridge chip, in order to receive described supervisory signal.

8. programmable control device, it is connected with a computer system, it is characterized in that: described programmable control device comprises a receiver module that is used for receiving from a supervisory signal of an interface arrangement at least, one handshake module and one is used for sending the restart module of a Restart Signal to computer system, described handshake module utilizes a Handshake Protocol and the contact of described computer system to judge whether described computer system is in a unusual off-mode, wherein work as described programmable control device and judge that described computer system is in described unusual off-mode, and when described programmable control device received described supervisory signal, described Restart Signal can be restarted described computer system.

9. programmable control device according to claim 8, it is characterized in that: described handshake module and described computer system send one first signal and a secondary signal respectively alternately to be written into a buffer, and described first signal is opposite with the accurate position of the logic of described secondary signal, when the accurate position of the logic of the data of being deposited in the described buffer kept identical with the accurate position of the logic of described first signal, described computer system was in described unusual off-mode.

10. programmable control device according to claim 8 is characterized in that: described programmable control device further comprises:

One monitoring modular is monitored the system state of described computer system and is produced a system state data; And

One data output terminal sends described system state data.

11. programmable control device according to claim 8 is characterized in that: described interface arrangement is an adapter, and described supervisory signal is a power management event signal.

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