System and Method for Providing a Remote Keyboard/Video/Mouse in a Headless Server

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2017337147-A1
Application number	US-201615161835-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	May 23, 2016
Priority date	May 23, 2016
Publication date	Nov 23, 2017
Grant date	—

Abstract

An information handling system includes a host system, an embedded controller, and a management system. The embedded controller receives first serial data from the host system, converts the first serial data into first video frame information, and stores the first video frame information to a frame buffer of the embedded controller. The management system reads the first video frame information from the frame buffer.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method, comprising:
receiving, by an embedded controller of an information handling system, first serial data from a host system of the information handling system; converting, by the embedded controller, the first serial data into first video frame information; storing the first video frame information to a frame buffer of the embedded controller; and reading, by a management system, the first video frame information from the frame buffer.

2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining that the first serial data includes management status information from the host system, wherein converting the first serial data to first video frame information is in response to determining that the first serial data includes management status information.

3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the management status information comprises status information for a Nano Server operating system running on the host system.

4 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
storing, by the embedded controller, second video frame information from the management system to the frame buffer; reading, by the embedded controller, the second video frame information from the frame buffer; converting, by the embedded controller, the second video frame information to second serial data; and sending, by the embedded controller, the second serial data to the host system.

5 . The method of claim 4 , further comprising:
instantiating a Virtual Network Computing (VNC) server on the embedded controller.

6 . The method of claim 5 , wherein, in storing the second video frame information to the frame buffer, the method further comprises:
writing the second video frame information to the VNC server.

7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the host system comprises a headless server system.

8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the first serial data is converted into the first video frame information based upon a Remote Frame Buffer (RFB) protocol.

9 . An information handling system, comprising:
a host system; an embedded controller that:
receives first serial data from the host system;
converts the first serial data into first video frame information; and
stores the first video frame information to a frame buffer of the embedded controller; and
a management system that reads the first video frame information from the frame buffer.

10 . The information handling system of claim 9 , wherein the embedded controller further:
determines that the first serial data includes management status information from the host system, wherein converting the first serial data to first video frame information is in response to determining that the first serial data includes management status information.

11 . The information handling system of claim 10 , wherein the management status information comprises status information for a Nano Server operating system running on the host system.

12 . The information handling system of claim 9 , wherein the embedded controller further:
stores second video frame information from the management system to the frame buffer; reads the second video frame information from the frame buffer; converts the second video frame information to second serial data; and send the second serial data to the host system.

13 . The information handling system of claim 12 , wherein the embedded controller further:
instantiates a Virtual Network Computing (VNC) server on the embedded controller.

14 . The information handling system of claim 13 , wherein, in storing the second video frame information to the frame buffer, the embedded controller further:
writes the second video frame information to the VNC server.

15 . The information handling system of claim 9 , wherein the host system comprises a headless server system.

16 . The information handling system of claim 9 , wherein the first serial data is converted into the first video frame information based upon a Remote Frame Buffer (RFB) protocol.

17 . A non-transitory computer-readable medium including code for performing a method, the method comprising:
receiving, by an embedded controller of an information handling system, first serial data from a host system of the information handling system; converting the first serial data into first video frame information; storing the first video frame information to a frame buffer of the embedded controller; and reading, by a management system, the first video frame information from the frame buffer.

18 . The computer-readable medium of claim 17 , the method further comprising:
determining that the first serial data includes management status information from the host system, wherein converting the first serial data to first video frame information is in response to determining that the first serial data includes management status information.

19 . The computer-readable medium of claim 18 , wherein the management status information comprises status information for a Nano Server operating system running on the host system.

20 . The computer-readable medium of claim 17 , the method further comprising:
storing, by the embedded controller, second video frame information from the management system to the frame buffer; reading, by the embedded controller, the second video frame information from the frame buffer; converting, by the embedded controller, the second video frame information to second serial data; and sending, by the embedded controller, the second serial data to the host system.

Assignees

• Dell Products Lp

Inventors

• Patel Rajeshkumar I
• Jreij Elie A
• Poluri Syama S

Classifications

• G06F13/4282

  on a serial bus, e.g. I2C bus, SPI bus (on daisy chain buses G06F13/4247) · CPC title

• G06F13/36 Primary

  for access to common bus or bus system · CPC title

• Y02D10/00

  Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management · CPC title