Computer system

• US 20020138791A1
• Filed: 02/14/2002
• Published: 09/26/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 03/23/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle America, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Sun Microsystems Incorporated (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Harris, Jeremy, Durrant, Paul, Hanson, Stephen R., Gordon, David S.
• Granted Patent: US 7,137,039 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/43
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0745 in an input/output transactions management context input/output processing in general G06F13/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0772 Means for error signaling, e.g. using interrupts, exception flags, dedicated error registers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/079 Root cause analysis, i.e. error or fault diagnosis in a hardware test environment G06F11/22; in a software test environment G06F11/36

Abstract

A device driver (GRAPHICS, NETWORK, H2IO, IO2L, SERIAL) for use in a computer system comprising a processor (P), memory (M) and a device (GRAPHICS, NETWORK, H2IO, IO2L, SERIAL) operatively coupled to the computer system the device driver being operable to control the device to monitor an operational status of the device, and consequent upon a change in the operational status to generate a fault report data indicating whether the change of status was caused internally within the device or externally by another connected device which caused the change of operational status to occur. The fault reports may also include an indication of the operational status of the device. Furthermore, if the fault report data indicates that the change of status was caused externally, the device driver may generate fault direction information indicative of an apparent direction on a connection between the device and the other device suspected as causing the indicated external fault. By providing an indication as to whether a fault has occurred internally or externally, and if externally, a relative direction on a data path from which the fault is perceived, a fault response processor can estimate the location of a faulty device of the computer system with improved accuracy.

Claims

1. A device driver for use in a computer system comprising a processor, a memory and at least one device, said device driver being operable

to monitor an operational status of said device, and consequent upon a change in said operational status,

to generate fault report data indicating whether the change of status was caused internally within the device or externally by another connected device.

2. A device driver as claimed in claim 1, wherein said fault report data includes an indication of an operational status of the device.

3. A device driver as claimed in claim 1 or 2, wherein, if said fault report data indicates that said change of status was caused externally, said device driver is operable to generate fault direction information indicative of a connection from which the external fault is perceived.

4. A device driver as claimed in any of claims 1 to 3, wherein said operational status of said device is one of up, indicating no fault, degraded, indicating that the device is still operational but with impaired performance or down indicating that the device is not operational.

5. A device driver as claimed in claim 4, wherein said operational status is determined from at least one of a time to respond to a command, an amount of data communicated via an I/O bus, an amount of data processed by said device, whether information is being correctly processed or from an error interrupt signal generated by said device.

6. A device driver as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein said device driver is operable to generate environment data representative of at least one parameter value of at least one sensor associated with a device, a group of devices or a Field Replaceable Unit (FRU) containing one or more devices.

7. A device driver as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein said device driver generates said operational status information from at least one of a number of memory accesses performed, a time taken to respond to a command, and an amount of data processed.

14. A computer program providing computer executable instructions, which when loaded onto a computer configures the computer to operate as a device driver as claimed in any of claims 1 to 7 or perform the method according to claims 8 to 13.

8. A method of controlling a device of a computer system, said method comprising the steps of

monitoring an operational status of said device, and consequent upon a change in said operational status,

generating fault report data indicating whether the change of status was caused internally within the device or externally by another connected device.

9. A method of controlling a device as claimed in claim 8, wherein said fault report data includes an indication of an operational status of the device.

10. A method as claimed in claims 8 or 9, comprising

generating, if said fault report data indicates that said change of status was caused externally, fault direction information indicative of a connection from which the external fault is perceived.

11. A method of controlling a device as claimed in any of claims 8 to 10, wherein said operational status of said device is one of up, indicating no fault, degraded, indicating that the device is still operational but with impaired performance or down indicating that the device is not operational.

12. A method of controlling a device as claimed in claim 11, wherein said operational status is determined from at least one of a time to respond to a command, an amount of data communicated via an I/O bus and an amount of data processed by said device, whether information is being correctly processed or from error interrupt signal generated by a device.

13. A method as claimed in any of claims 8 to 12, said method comprising

generating environment data representative of at least one parameter value of at least one sensor associated with a device or group of devices, or a Field Replaceable Unit (FRU) containing one or more devices.

15. A computer readable medium having recorded thereon information signals representative of the computer program claimed in claim 14.

16. A device driver substantially as herein before described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

17. A method of controlling a device substantially as herein before described with reference to the accompanying drawings.