Demand based USB proxy for data stores in service processor complex

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-8965749-B2
Application number	US-201313848133-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 21, 2013
Priority date	Sep 30, 2010
Publication date	Feb 24, 2015
Grant date	Feb 24, 2015

Abstract

A method, apparatus, system, and computer program product for secure server system management. A payload containing system software and/or firmware updates is distributed in an on-demand, secure I/O operation. The I/O operation is performed via a secured communication channel inaccessible by the server operating system to an emulated USB drive. The secure communication channel can be established for the I/O operation only after authenticating the recipient of the payload, and the payload can be protected from access by a potentially-infected server operating system. Furthermore, the payload can be delivered on demand rather than relying on a BIOS update schedule, and the payload can be delivered at speeds of a write operation to a USB drive.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
in a system having a platform controller coupled to an I/O controller capable of generating a System Management Interrupt (SMI), performing the following:
in response to an event indicating availability of updated system firmware, generating an SMI to cause the system to enter System Management Mode;
using a resource of the platform controller to create an emulated USB device, wherein the resource stores the updat…

Assignees

• Intel Corp

Inventors

• Sakthikumar Palsamy
• Rothman Michael A
• Zimmer Vincent J
• Swanson Robert C
• Bulusu Mallik

Classifications

• G06F21/572

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F2221/2105

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F13/105 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F9/4812 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F9/06

  Physics · mapped topic