Method to have fault resilient booting

• US 20060294353A1
• Filed: 06/23/2005
• Published: 12/28/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 06/23/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Zimmer, Vincent J., Rothman, Michael A., Swanson, Robert C.
• Granted Patent: US 7,716,464 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0766 Error or fault reporting or storing

Abstract

A method and apparatus is described herein for fault resilient booting of a platform. Upon booting the platform, any boot routines marked are skipped. A current boot routine to be executed in a boot sequence is registered in nonvolatile memory. An attempt to execute the current boot routine is made. If the attempt is successful, the next boot entry is determined and skipped or executed, based on whether it is marked. However, if the execution fails the current boot routine is marked and, upon subsequent execution of the boot sequence, skipped.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

determining if a boot routine, in a boot sequence, failed during an attempted execution of the boot sequence;

marking the boot routine, if the boot routine failed during the attempted execution;

skipping the boot routine upon a subsequent execution of the boot sequence, if the boot routine is marked.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining if the boot routine is an essential boot routine, wherein the boot routine is not marked, if the boot routine failed during the attempted execution and the boot routine is determined to be an essential boot routine.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein an essential boot routine is predefined by platform policy.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein determining if a boot routine, in a boot sequence, failed during the attempted execution of the boot sequence comprises:

storing a reference to the boot routine in a currently executed field within a non-volatile memory;

attempting to execute the boot routine;

reading the currently executed field from the non-volatile memory upon a failure in the attempted execution of the boot sequence;

determining that the boot routine failed during the attempted execution, if the currently executed field references the boot routine.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

informing a user of the failure of the boot routine.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

informing a user when the boot routine is skipped upon the subsequent execution of the boot sequence.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the boot routine is marked, if the boot routine failed for the Nth time during the attempted execution and the boot routine is determined to not be an essential boot routine.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the boot routine comprises code to initialize a device selected from a group consisting of an embedded controller, a processor, a processing element, a co-processor, a digital signal processor, a controller hub, a memory device, an add-in card, a sound device, a graphics device, a video device, a network device, a bus device, an interconnect bridge, a data storage device, an input device, an output device, a removable media device, and an externally coupled device.

9. An article of manufacture including program code which, when executed by a machine, causes the machine to perform the operations of:

determining a current entry to be initialized, the current entry being one of a plurality of boot entries in a boot sequence;

skipping initialization of the current entry, if the current entry is marked as a failed entry; and

if the current entry is not marked as a failed entry,

registering the current entry to be initialized in a nonvolatile memory; and

attempting to initialize the current entry, wherein if the current entry failed to be initialized N times, marking the current entry as a failed entry.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising determining if the current entry has failed to be initialized N times, wherein N is any integer.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein determining if the current entry failed to be initialized N times comprises:

reading an entry registered in the non-volatile memory after a system hang during execution of the boot sequence;

determining that the current entry failed, if the entry registered in the non-volatile memory references the current entry; and

determining that the current entry failed to be initialized N times, if a stored count indicates that attempted initialization of the current entry previously failed (N-1) times.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the current entry comprises program code, when executed, to initialize a device within the machine selected from a group consisting of an embedded controller, a processor, a processing element, a co-processor, a digital signal processor, a controller hub, a memory device, an add-in card, a sound device, a graphics device, a video device, a network device, a bus device, an interconnect bridge, a data storage device, an input device, an output device, a removable media device, and an externally coupled device.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein attempting to initialize the current entry comprises executing code to initialize the device within the machine.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein registering the current entry in the nonvolatile memory comprises:

storing a reference to the current entry, which is to be executed, in the nonvolatile memory.

15. A system comprising:

logic to store a plurality of boot routines in a boot sequence and a last executed routine reference, each boot routine capable of being marked;

a processing element to execute the plurality of boot routines, wherein the processing element;

skips a current routine in the boot sequence and moves to a next boot routine, if the current routine is marked,

registers a reference to the current routine as the last executed routine in the logic and executes the current routine, if the current routine is not marked, and

marks the current routine, if the current routine fails during execution.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the processing element is selected from a group consisting of an embedded controller, a microcontroller, a controller hub, a microprocessor, a co-processor, a digital signal processor, a processing cell, and an out-of-order multi-thread capable microprocessor.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the logic is a memory device selected from a group consisting of a nonvolatile memory, an erasable programmable read only memory (EPROM), an electrically erasable programmable read only memory (EEPROM), and a programmable logic array (PLA).

18. The system of claim 17, wherein registering a reference to the current routine as the last executed routine in the memory device comprises storing a reference to the current routine in the memory device.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein marking the current routine comprises setting a flag referencing the current routine.

20. The system of claim 15, wherein marking the current routine comprises inserting a jump routine into the boot sequence before the current routine to jump to the next boot routine.