Restoring from a legacy OS environment to a UEFI pre-boot environment

• US 9,081,734 B2
• Filed: 04/16/2013
• Issued: 07/14/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 04/28/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Soderlund, Adam L., Tang, Wen Wei, Wu, Song Qing
• Primary Examiner(s): Riad, Amine
• Application Number:
  US13/863,523
• Publication Number:
  US 20130290778A1
• Time in Patent Office: 819 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1417 Boot up procedures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1438 Restarting or rejuvenating
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1471 involving logging of persistent data for recovery
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/865 Monitoring of software
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4406 Loading of operating system

Abstract

Restoring from a legacy OS environment to a Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) pre-boot environment, including: storing, under the UEFI pre-boot environment, context in the UEFI pre-boot environment that needs to be preserved, where the context in the UEFI pre-boot environment that needs to be preserved includes CPU execution context; restoring a first portion of the CPU execution context in response to the UEFI pre-boot environment failing to load the legacy OS; making a CPU associated with the UEFI pre-boot environment enter into System Management Mode, and restoring a second portion of the CPU execution context under the System Management Mode; and exiting from CPU System Management Mode, thereby returning to the UEFI pre-boot environment.

Claims

1. A method for restoring from a legacy OS environment to a Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) pre-boot environment, comprising:

storing, under the UEFI pre-boot environment, context in the UEFI pre-boot environment that needs to be preserved, wherein the context in the UEFI pre-boot environment that needs to be preserved comprises CPU execution context;

restoring a first portion of the CPU execution context in response to the UEFI pre-boot environment failing to load the legacy OS;

making a CPU associated with the UEFI pre-boot environment enter into System Management Mode, and restoring a second portion of the CPU execution context under the System Management Mode; and

exiting from CPU System Management Mode, thereby returning to the UEFI pre-boot environment.

2. The method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the context in the UEFI pre-boot environment that needs to be preserved further comprises address of a memory region where UEFI code and data reside and content of that memory region.

3. The method in accordance with claim 2, wherein in the step of storing context in the UEFI pre-boot environment that needs to be preserved, UEFI reserved memory is utilized to store the context in the UEFI pre-boot environment that needs to be preserved.

4. The method in accordance with one of claims 2, wherein UEFI pre-boot environment fails to load legacy OS is determined by one of:

determining that UEFI pre-boot environment fails to load legacy OS in response to receive a software interrupt from loader of the legacy OS;

adding a watchdog clock in UEFI firmware, wherein the watchdog clock triggers a hardware interrupt if UEFI pre-boot environment has not received a notification that booting of legacy OS boot is successful within a specified time preset by the watchdog clock, and determining that UEFI pre-boot environment fails to load legacy OS according to triggering of the hardware interrupt; and

determining that UEFI pre-boot environment fails to load legacy OS by utilizing a Machine-Check Exception mechanism.

5. The method in accordance with claim 4, wherein, further comprising:

restoring content of the memory region where UEFI code and data reside within the context in the UEFI pre-boot environment that needs to be preserved to address of the memory region where UEFI code and data reside in response to the UEFI pre-boot environment fails to load legacy OS.

6. The method in accordance with claim 5, wherein, further comprising:

shutting down memory mapped input output of PCI devices after restoring content of the memory region where UEFI code and data reside within the context in the UEFI pre-boot environment that needs to be preserved to address of the memory region where UEFI code and data reside.

7. The method in accordance with claim 4, wherein, further comprising:

restoring content of the memory region where UEFI code and data reside within the context in the UEFI pre-boot environment that needs to be preserved to address of the memory region where UEFI code and data reside in response to the CPU enters into System Management Mode.

8. The method in accordance with claim 7, wherein, further comprising:

shutting down memory mapped input output of PCI devices after restoring content of the memory region where UEFI code and data reside within the context in the UEFI pre-boot environment that needs to be preserved to address of the memory region where UEFI code and data reside.

9. The method in accordance with claim 5, further comprising:

modifying saved instruction pointer register in response to CPU enters into System Management Mode, such that the instruction pointer register points to an instruction next to an invocation instruction that conducts booting of legacy OS.

10. The method in accordance with claim 5, further comprising:

making drivers of controllers controlled by UEFI rerun in response to returning to the UEFI pre-boot environment.

11. A system for restoring from a legacy OS environment to a Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) pre-boot environment, comprising:

a storing means configured to store, under the UEFI pre-boot environment, context in the UEFI pre-boot environment that needs to be preserved, wherein the context in the UEFI pre-boot environment that needs to be preserved comprises CPU execution context;

a first restoring means configured to restore a first portion of the CPU execution context in response to the UEFI pre-boot environment failing to load the legacy OS;

a second restoring means configured to make a CPU associated with the UEFI pre-boot environment enter into System Management Mode, and restore a second portion of the CPU execution context under the System Management Mode; and

an exiting means configured to exit from CPU System Management Mode, thereby returning to the UEFI pre-boot environment.

12. The system in accordance with claim 11, wherein the context in the UEFI pre-boot environment that needs to be preserved further comprises address of a memory region where UEFI code and data reside and content of that memory region.

13. The system in accordance with claim 12, wherein in the storing means, UEFI reserved memory is utilized to store the context in the UEFI pre-boot environment that needs to be preserved.

14. The system in accordance with one of claims 12, wherein the first restoring means determines that UEFI pre-boot environment fails to load legacy OS by using one of:

a first determining means configured to determine that UEFI pre-boot environment fails to load legacy OS in response to receive a software interrupt from loader of the legacy OS;

a second determining means configured to add a watchdog clock in UEFI firmware, wherein the watchdog clock triggers a hardware interrupt if UEFI pre-boot environment has not received a notification that booting of legacy OS boot is successful within a specified time preset by the watchdog clock, and determine that UEFI pre-boot environment fails to load legacy OS according to triggering of the hardware interrupt; and

a third determining means configured to determine that UEFI pre-boot environment fails to load legacy OS by utilizing a Machine-Check Exception mechanism.

15. The system in accordance with claim 14, wherein the first restoring means is further configured to restore content of the memory region where UEFI code and data reside within the context in the UEFI pre-boot environment that needs to be preserved to address of the memory region where UEFI code and data reside in response to the UEFI pre-boot environment fails to load legacy OS.

16. The system in accordance with claim 15, wherein the first restoring means is further configured to shut down memory mapped input output of PCI devices after restoring content of the memory region where UEFI code and data reside within the context in the UEFI pre-boot environment that needs to be preserved to address of the memory region where UEFI code and data reside.

17. The system in accordance with claim 14, wherein the second restoring means is further configured to restore content of the memory region where UEFI code and data reside within the context in the UEFI pre-boot environment that needs to be preserved to address of the memory region where UEFI code and data reside in response to the CPU enters into System Management Mode.

18. The system in accordance with claim 17, wherein the second restoring means is further configured to shut down memory mapped input output of PCI devices after restoring content of the memory region where UEFI code and data reside within the context in the UEFI pre-boot environment that needs to be preserved to address of the memory region where UEFI code and data reside.

19. The system in accordance with claim 15, wherein the second restoring means is further configured to modify saved instruction pointer register in response to CPU enters into System Management Mode, such that the instruction pointer register points to an instruction next to an invocation instruction that conducts booting of legacy OS.

20. The system in accordance with claim 15, wherein the exiting means is further configured to make drivers of controllers controlled by UEFI rerun in response to returning to the UEFI pre-boot environment.