Use of off-motherboard resources in a computer system

• US 20060031668A1
• Filed: 09/30/2005
• Published: 02/09/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 09/10/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Veritas Technologies, LLC (Whitehouse Group Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Symantec Operating Corporation (Gen Digital Inc.)
• Inventors: Nanja, Sekaran, Miyamoto, Carleton, Bandhole, Jagadish
• Granted Patent: US 7,673,130 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/2
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4416 Network booting; Remote initial program loading [RIPL]

Abstract

A system uses a protocol stack on a card external to a motherboard in a target computer system. A processor on the motherboard is able to make use of the external protocol stack during boot-up of the computer, or at any other time, so that it is not necessary to load the protocol stack into the motherboard'"'"'s memory. This saves time, memory, and disk space and permits an external, managing, computer system to communicate with a computer just after power-up without loading and configuring a protocol stack so that the managing computer system can control the boot-up of the target computer system. The extra memory saved, especially, is important in running many MS-DOS applications, such as firmware flash utilities. A preferred embodiment of the invention uses a UDP/Internet Protocol (UDP/IP) stack resident in a Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) on, e.g, a network card. The approach described herein can be applied to other utilities, protocol stacks or resources (hardware and software) on other cards.

Claims

1-7. -7. (canceled)

8. A method comprising:

receiving a request for a remote resource;

identifying the remote resource;

encapsulating the request in an internal communication message formatted for the identified remote resource; and

transmitting the internal communication message to the remote resource.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the remote resource comprises a network interface card.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising:

providing the request to the network interface card if the request is for network communication; and

responding to the request from network data in a memory if the request is for network information, wherein

the network data was previously provided by the network interface card.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein

the network interface card comprises a communication protocol stack.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the communication protocol stack comprises a UDP/IP stack.

13. The method of claim 8 wherein the request for the remote resource is provided by a user program.

14. The method of claim 8 further comprising:

executing a first set of system configuration instructions, wherein

the first set of system configuration instructions provide the request for the remote resource, and

the request for the remote resource comprises a request for data from a network node.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein the data from the network node comprises:

a second set of system configuration instructions.

16. A system comprising:

a first circuit board comprising

a resource, and

a first memory comprising a resource protocol for the resource; and

a second circuit board comprising

a processor configured to execute

a first set of instructions configured to request the resource,

a second set of instructions configured to

encapsulate the resource request in an internal communications message, and

transmit the internal communications message to the first circuit board.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein the first circuit board further comprises:

a network interface.

18. The system of claim 17 wherein the resource protocol comprises:

a UDP/IP stack.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein the second circuit board further comprises:

a second memory configured to store network information data, wherein the network information data is provided by the first circuit board; and

the processor further configured to execute a third set of instructions configured to respond to the resource request using the network information data if the resource request is for the network information data.

20. The system of claim 17, wherein

the internal communication message comprises an instruction for the first circuit board and the resource request;

and

in response to receiving the internal communication message, the first circuit board is configured to execute the instruction for the first circuit board.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein

in response to the instruction for the first circuit board, the first circuit board is configured to transmit the resource request to the network node using the resource protocol, wherein

the resource protocol is a network communication protocol.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein

the network communication protocol is a UDP/IP stack.

23. A computer program product comprising:

a first set of instructions, executable on a processor, configured to encapsulate a request for data from a network node in a first internal communication message for a network card, wherein

the first internal communication message comprises arguments for the network card to transmit the encapsulated request for data to the network node; and

a second set of instructions, executable on the processor, configured to transmit the first internal communication message to the network card.

24. The computer program product of claim 23 further comprising:

a third set of instructions, executable on the processor, configured to submit the request for data from the network node.

25. The computer program product of claim 24 further comprising:

a fourth set of instructions, executable on the processor, configured to receive a second internal communication message from the network card, wherein

the second internal communication message comprises data from the network node responsive to the request for data; and

a fifth set of instructions, executable on the processor, configured to read the data from the network node.

26. The computer program product of claim 25 further comprising:

a sixth set of instructions, executable on the processor, configured to pass the data from the network node to a requestor of the data from the network node.

27. The computer program product of claim 26 wherein the data from the network node comprises operating data for the requestor of the data.