Fault detection method, gateway, user equipment, and communications system

• US 9,942,088 B2
• Filed: 06/28/2016
• Issued: 04/10/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 12/02/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Yu, Yijun
• Primary Examiner(s): Ehne, Charles
• Application Number:
  US15/195,676
• Publication Number:
  US 20160308711A1
• Time in Patent Office: 651 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0709 in a distributed system consisting of a plurality of standalone computer nodes, e.g. clusters, client-server systems
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/20 using active fault-masking, e.g. by switching out faulty elements or by switching in spare elements
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2025 using centralised failover control functionality
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/30 Monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3051 Monitoring arrangements for monitoring the configuration of the computing system or of the computing system component, e.g. monitoring the presence of processing resources, peripherals, I/O links, software programs verification or detection of system hardware configuration G06F11/2247
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0661 by reconfiguring faulty entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 by checking functioning
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4511 using domain name system [DNS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/40 for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection management of faults, events, alarms or notifications in data switching networks H04L41/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/04 Arrangements for maintaining operational condition
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/02 Terminal devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/16 Gateway arrangements

Abstract

Embodiments of the present invention provide a fault detection method. The method includes discovering that a fault occurs in a DNS server or a service server related to a UE, and performing, by a gateway, fault detection on the DNS server or the service server. The method also includes, after the fault is rectified, instructing the UE to establish a connection to the DNS server or the service server. Correspondingly, the embodiments of the present invention further provide a gateway, a UE, and a communications system.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

discovering, by a gateway, that a fault occurs in a domain name system (DNS) server or a service server related to a user equipment (UE);

detecting, by the gateway, whether the fault is rectified;

instructing, by the gateway, the UE to stop a DNS query or a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection attempt; and

after the fault is rectified, transmitting, by the gateway, a notification message to the UE, wherein the notification message is used for establishment of a connection to the DNS server or the service server.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein discovering that the fault occurs in the DNS server or the service server related to the UE comprises:

discovering that the fault occurs in the DNS server or the service server related to the UE in response to detecting, by the gateway by using a data packet inspection (DPI) or data flow inspection (DFI) mechanism, that the UE performs the DNS query or the transmission control protocol (TCP) connection attempt, and detecting that the UE fails to receive a response.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein detecting whether the fault is rectified comprises:

sending, by the gateway, a DNS detection message to the DNS server, or a connection establishment request message to the service server to detect whether the fault is rectified.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the notification message comprises address information of the DNS server or the service server in which the fault is rectified.

5. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

sending, by the gateway to the UE, in a data channel establishment process, or a default bearer establishment process, or a PDN connection establishment process, or a dedicated bearer establishment process, a capability indication of supporting that the gateway detects whether the fault is rectified as a proxy for the UE.

6. A method, comprising:

discovering, by a user equipment (UE), that a fault occurs in a domain name system (DNS) server or a service server related to the UE;

requesting, by the UE, a gateway to detect whether the fault is rectified for the UE;

receiving, by the UE, a notification message from the gateway after the fault is rectified; and

establishing, by the UE, a connection to the DNS server or the service server in response to the received notification message.

7. The method according to claim 6, wherein discovering that the fault occurs in the DNS server or the service server comprises:

discovering, by the UE, that the UE fails to obtain a response from the DNS server or the service server.

8. The method according to claim 6, wherein requesting the gateway to detect whether the fault is rectified comprises:

sending, by the UE to the gateway, an indication or address information of the DNS server or the service server to request the gateway to detect whether the fault is rectified.

9. The method according to claim 6, wherein requesting the gateway to detect whether the fault is rectified comprises:

providing, by the UE, address information of the DNS server or the service server to the gateway in a bearer update process.

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein requesting the gateway to detect whether the fault is rectified comprises:

sending, by the UE to the gateway, an update bearer request message, wherein the update bearer request message comprises address information of the DNS server or the service server.

11. The method according to claim 6, further comprising:

stopping, by the UE, detecting whether the fault is rectified.

12. The method according to claim 11, wherein before stopping detecting whether the fault is rectified, the method further comprises:

receiving, by the UE, a response to confirm that the gateway detects whether the fault is rectified as a proxy for the UE.

13. The method according to claim 6, wherein before requesting the gateway to detect whether the fault is rectified, the method further comprises:

receiving, by the UE, a capability indication that the gateway supports detecting whether the fault is rectified as a proxy for the UE.

14. A user equipment (UE), comprising:

a processor, configured to discover that a fault occurs in a domain name system (DNS) server or a service server related to the UE;

a transmitter, configured to request a gateway to detect, for the UE, whether the fault is rectified; and

a receiver, configured to receive a notification message from the gateway after the fault is rectified;

wherein the processor is further configured to establish a connection to the DNS server or the service server in response to the received notification message.

15. The UE according to claim 14, wherein the processor is further configured to:

discover that the UE fails to obtain a response from the DNS server or the service server.

16. The UE according to claim 14, wherein the transmitter is further configured to:

send to the gateway an indication or address information of the DNS server or the service server to request the gateway to detect whether the fault is rectified.

17. The UE according to claim 14, wherein the processor is further configured to stop detecting whether the fault is rectified.

18. The UE according to claim 17, wherein the receiver is further configured to receive, before the processor stops detecting whether the fault is rectified, a response to confirm that the gateway detects whether the fault is rectified as a proxy for the UE.

19. The UE according to claim 14, wherein the receiver is further configured to receive, before the transmitter requests the gateway to detect whether the fault is rectified, capability indication that the gateway supports detecting whether the fault is rectified as a proxy for the UE.