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

• US 9,372,754 B2
• Filed: 04/23/2015
• Issued: 06/21/2016
• 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:
  US14/694,213
• Publication Number:
  US 20150227427A1
• Time in Patent Office: 425 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:

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

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.

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

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

4. The method of claim 2, wherein UEFI pre-boot environment failing to load legacy OS is determined by one of:

receiving a software interrupt from a loader of the legacy OS;

receiving a hardware interrupt from a watchdog clock in UEFI firmware, wherein the watchdog clock triggers the 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

utilizing a Machine-Check Exception mechanism.

5. The method of claim 4, 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 of claim 5, 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 of claim 4, 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 entering into System Management Mode.

8. The method in of claim 7, 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 of 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 of claim 5, further comprising:

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

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 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; and

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.

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

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

14. The system of claim 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 receiving 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 of 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 of 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 of 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 entering into System Management Mode.

18. The system of 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 of 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 of claim 15, further comprising an exiting means configured to exit from CPU System Management Mode, thereby returning to the UEFI pre-boot environment, 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.