Configuring managed server

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10177974-B2
Application number	US-201415324288-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 30, 2014
Priority date	Jul 30, 2014
Publication date	Jan 8, 2019
Grant date	Jan 8, 2019

Abstract

An example managed server system ( 102 ) includes a managed server ( 104 ), a baseboard management controller (BMC) ( 108 ), and a shared memory ( 106 ). An example configuration process ( 200 ) includes transmitting ( 201 ), by the BMC, a network-address request over an out-of-band network; receiving ( 202 ) received configuration information; writing ( 203 ), by the BMC, stored configuration information to the shared memory; accessing ( 204 ), by the managed server, the shared memory to read the stored configuration information; and configuring ( 205 ) the managed server using the stored configuration information.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A configuration process comprising:
transmitting, by a baseboard management controller (BMC), a network-address request over an out-of-band network to which the BMC is directly connected;
receiving, by the BMC in response to the network-address request, received configuration information;
writing, by the BMC to shared memory shared with a managed server, stored configuration information derived from the received configuration information, the managed server being separate from the BMC;
accessing, by the managed server, the shared memory to read the stored configuration information; and
configuring, by the managed server using the stored configuration information, the managed server to communicate over an in-band network to which the managed server is directly connected and which is separate from the out-of-band network,
wherein the stored configuration information includes an in-band pointer to an in-band network location accessible by the managed server over the in-band network, the configuring including the managed server accessing the in-band network location to obtain in-band configuration information, the configuring further including the managed server configuring the managed server based at least in part on the in-band configuration information.

2. The configuration process as recited in claim 1 wherein the pointer is included in the received configuration information.

3. The configuration process as recited in claim 1 wherein the configuring further includes the managed server identifying applicable in-band configuration information by distinguishing inapplicable in-band configuration information that is applicable to other managed servers but not to the managed server, the configuring involving configuring the managed server using the applicable in-band configuration information and not using the inapplicable in-band configuration information.

4. The configuration process as recited in claim 3 wherein the distinguishing involves distinguishing file-name extensions.

5. A configuration process comprising:
transmitting, by a baseboard management controller (BMC), a network-address request over an out-of-band network to which the BMC is directly connected;
receiving, by the BMC in response to the network-address request, received configuration information;
writing, by the BMC to shared memory shared with a managed server, stored configuration information derived from the received configuration information, the managed server being separate from the BMC;
accessing, by the managed server, the shared memory to read the stored configuration information;
configuring, by the managed server using the stored configuration information, the managed server to communicate over an in-band network to which the managed server is directly connected and which is separate from the out-of-band network,
wherein the received configuration information includes an out-of-band network address of an out-of-band network location accessible to the BMC via the out-of-band network; and
identifying applicable out-of-band configuration information stored at the out-of-band network location by distinguishing, from the applicable out-of-band configuration information, out-of-band configuration that is applicable other managed servers but not to the managed server.

6. The configuration process as recited in claim 5 wherein the distinguishing is based at least in part on file-name extensions of configuration files.

7. A managed server system comprising:
a shared memory;
a managed server to access the shared memory and to configure the managed server based on stored configuration stored in the shared memory, the managed server being a physical server, the managed server including an interface to an in-band network; and
a baseboard management controller (BMC) to
issue a network-address request, over an out-of-band network separate from the in-band network, for a network address to be assigned to the BMC,
write, to the shared memory, stored configuration information derived from received configuration information received in response to the network-address request;

access, in response to receipt of the received configuration information and via the out-of-band network, an out-of-band network location identified by a pointer in the received configuration information; and
derive the stored configuration information at least in part from out-of-band configuration information obtained from the out-of-band network location.

8. The managed server system as recited in claim 7 wherein the BMC is further to identify applicable out-of-band configuration information by distinguishing inapplicable out-of-band configuration information that is applicable to other managed servers but not applicable to the managed server.

9. The managed server system as recited in claim 7 wherein the BMC is to derive the stored configuration information at least in part from the applicable out-of-band configuration information and not from any of the inapplicable out-of-band configuration information.

Assignees

• Hewlett Packard Entpr Dev Lp

Inventors

• Garcia Jack
• Cisneros Jorge
• Preimesberger Lee
• Ramirez Eric
• Prajapati Sangita

Classifications

• H04L41/0806 Primary

  for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play · CPC title

• H04W8/26

  Network addressing or numbering for mobility support · CPC title

• H04L41/0896

  Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities (flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76) · CPC title

• H04L61/2015

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L41/344 Primary

  Out-of-band transfers · CPC title