Diagnostic fault management controller for distributed computing

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10437754-B1
Application number	US-201615274524-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Sep 23, 2016
Priority date	Sep 23, 2016
Publication date	Oct 8, 2019
Grant date	Oct 8, 2019

Abstract

A management controller may request units of diagnostic information from a BIOS of the management controller's host computing device. The management controller may trigger an interrupt, in response to which the BIOS, by the execution of a processor of the host, may cause the diagnostic information to be copied to a video memory of the management controller. Upon the completion of the interrupt handler, a graphics controller of the management controller may cause the diagnostic information to be transferred to a non-volatile memory, and transferred out-of-band to a client device.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system, comprising:
a first one or more processors;
a graphics controller;
a video memory addressable by the graphics controller and by the first one or more processors, the memory further connected to a second one or more processors of a computing device via a first communications bus;
a non-volatile memory, the non-volatile memory addressable by the first one or more processors;
one or more memories having stored thereon executable instructions that, upon execution by the first one or more processors, cause the system at least to:
send data indicative of a request to receive a first diagnostic information from a basic input/output system of the computing device;
receive data indicating that at least a subset of the first diagnostic information has been loaded into the video memory by the execution of basic input/output system instructions by the second one or more processors;
cause the graphics controller to transfer the first diagnostic information from the video memory to the non-volatile memory; and
send the data indicative of the first diagnostic information stored in the volatile memory over a second communications bus.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more memories have stored thereon further executable instructions which, upon execution by the first one or more processors, cause the system at least to:
trigger a first interrupt comprising the request to receive the first diagnostic information; and
trigger a second interrupt comprising a second request for a second diagnostic information.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more memories have stored thereon further executable instructions which, upon execution by the first one or more processors, cause the system at least to:
determine that a second subset of the first diagnostic information has not been loaded into the video memory; and
send data indicative of a request to receive the second subset of the first diagnostic information.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more memories have stored thereon further executable instructions which, upon execution by the first one or more processors, cause the system at least to:
cause the graphics controller to compress the at least a subset of the first diagnostic information prior to transferring the compressed at least a subset of the first diagnostic information to the non-volatile memory.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more memories have stored thereon further executable instructions which, upon execution by the first one or more processors, cause the system at least to:
determine, in response to data indicating that the computing device has recovered from a system failure, that the at least a subset of the first diagnostic information has been stored in the non-volatile memory;
load the at least a subset of the first diagnostic information into the video memory; and
send information indicating that the at least a subset of the first diagnostic information is available to be read from the video memory by the second one or more processors of the computing device.

6. A method of obtaining diagnostic information from a computing device, the method comprising:
triggering an interrupt of one or more processors of the computing device and providing, by the interrupt, information indicative of a request for a first diagnostic information;
receiving data indicating that at least a subset of the first diagnostic information has been stored in a first memory of the management controller, wherein the at least a subset of the first diagnostic information was received by a first communications bus;
causing the management controller to transfer the first diagnostic information from the first memory to a second memory of the management controller; and
sending data indicative of the first diagnostic information stored in the second memory over a second communications bus.

7. The method of claim 6 , further comprising:
triggering a second interrupt in response to determining that the first diagnostic information comprises a second subset of the first diagnostic information in addition to the at least a subset of the first diagnostic information.

8. The method of claim 6 , further comprising:
receiving, at the management controller, information indicative of a plurality of diagnostic information available from the computing device, the plurality of diagnostic information comprising the first diagnostic information; and
triggering the interrupt based on the information indicative of the plurality of diagnostic information.

9. The method of claim 6 , further comprising:
causing a graphics controller of the management controller to compress the at least a subset of the first diagnostic information.

10. The method of claim 6 , wherein the interrupt is processed by a management interrupt handler of an input/output system of the computing device.

11. The method of claim 6 , further comprising:
disabling a first frame buffer of a plurality of frame buffers used by a graphics controller of the management controller, each of the plurality of frame buffers corresponding to a non-overlapping region of the first memory; and
providing an address of the first frame buffer in the first memory in the information indicative of the request for the first diagnostic information.

12. The method of claim 6 , further comprising:
receiving, at the management controller, information indicating that the computing device has recovered from a system failure;
loading the at least a subset of the first diagnostic information into the first memory from the second memory;
triggering a second interrupt indicating that the at least a subset of the first diagnostic information has been loaded into the first memory; and
receiving, at the management controller, information indicating that the at least a subset of the first diagnostic information may be overwritten in the first memory.

13. The method of claim 6 , wherein a basic input/output system causes the at least a subset of the first diagnostic information to be written to the first memory and the basic input/output system sends, to the management controller, the data indicating that at the least a subset of the first diagnostic information has been stored in a video memory.

14. The method of claim 6 , wherein the second communication bus has a lower maximum bandwidth than the first communication bus.

15. The method of claim 6 , further comprising:
causing a graphics controller of the management controller to encrypt the at least a subset of the first diagnostic information prior to transferring the encrypted at least a subset of the first diagnostic information to the second memory.

16. A system comprising:
means for receiving a first set of diagnostic information over a first communications bus of a management controller and storing the first set of diagnostic information in a video memory of the management controller;
means for receiving data indicating that the first set of diagnostic information has been stored in the video memory;
means for transferring the first set of diagnostic information from the video memory to a second memory;
means for determining to request a second set of diagnostic information subsequent to the transferring of the first set of diagnostic information from the video memory; and
means for sending the first set of diagnostic information stored in the second memory to a client device via a second communications bus.

17. The system of claim 16 , wherein the video memory is addressable by a first processor of the

Assignees

• Amazon Tech Inc

Inventors

• Ebisuzaki Gavin Akira
• Patel Vijay
• Beserra Christopher James

Classifications

• G06F13/1668 Primary

  Details of memory controller · CPC title

• G06F13/24 Primary

  using interrupt (G06F13/32 takes precedence) · CPC title

• G06T2200/28

  involving image processing hardware · CPC title

• G06T1/60

  Memory management · CPC title