CN101232395B - A method for realizing automatic configuration and installation of network equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention proposes a method for realizing automatic configuration and installation of network equipment, which is used in a network management system composed of a network management client, a network management server, a software center, a configuration server, and a DHCP server to control the Internet-based interactive TV network. The blade server performs an automatic configuration installation. According to the global network planning, the blade server is pre-configured through the network management client, and the network interface configuration can be obtained through the extended DHCP according to the physical location information of the blade server, and then access the configuration server and software center to obtain the logical configuration and download the software for configuration. Automatic configuration and installation realizes plug-and-play of blade servers in the network. It avoids the cumbersome installation and setting operations of a large number of blade servers, and does not require operators to go to the local area to install and configure the blade servers one by one, saving maintenance and installation costs.

Description

A method for realizing automatic configuration and installation of network equipment

technical field

The invention relates to a method for automatic installation, in particular to a method for realizing the automatic deployment and configuration of a large number of blade servers in a telecommunication network based on the DHCP protocol and network planning information.

Background technique

The deployment and expansion of telecom networks often involve a large number of blade server (BLADE) installation configurations, which often require on-site personnel to do some tedious and repetitive work, including:

Network interface configuration: IP address, gateway, DNS, host name and other network interface information;

Firmware and basic service installation/upgrade: manually install/upgrade image/firmware components of the server;

Configuration of basic services that application software depends on: time zone, NTP, SYSLOG and other basic service information;

Network management function deployment: network management agent (AGENT) software installation and configuration;

Application service software installation.

These operations have some common characteristics: they need to be considered overall and planned and arranged in a unified manner, not only in terms of physical location, but also in terms of network and software configuration.

However, these steps are generally cumbersome, error-prone, and highly repetitive. At the same time, some operations need to be performed locally by operators (such as IP assignment), and blade servers may be distributed in different physical locations, which requires operators to travel around, thereby increasing the cost of operation and maintenance.

Therefore, people in the industry are actively looking for a method to automatically install blade servers. In the prior art, the network management system creates topology information and configuration files of network equipment, and performs identity verification on network equipment connected to the network according to the topology information. Verify that legal network devices join the management domain, and configure network devices according to the configuration files in the network management.

However, the existing methods usually solve the problem that the network equipment has been initialized, and the network management system automatically configures the parameters of the network equipment. It is impossible to achieve plug-and-install and use only based on the physical location of the network device.

Contents of the invention

The technical problem to be solved by the present invention is to realize the automatic installation and configuration of the network, realize plug-and-play automatic configuration and installation, access the DHCP server and obtain configuration information according to the physical location information of the network equipment, establish a network interface, access the software and configure the server, and perform Automatic installation and configuration.

The present invention is used in the network management system that is made up of network management client, network management server, software center, configuration server and DHCP server, realizes the automatic installation configuration of equipment in the network, is characterized in that comprising the following steps:

Step 1. Pre-configure the network equipment of each node of the network, and establish the corresponding relationship between the physical location information of the network equipment and the logical configuration;

Step 2 uploads the pre-configuration information to the DHCP server, software center and configuration server;

Step 3 is to install the network equipment on the physical location on the network node, and the said network equipment reports the physical location information of itself to the DHCP server;

Step 4 The DHCP server returns network configuration information to the network device;

The network device described in step 5 performs network interface configuration according to the network configuration information fed back by the DHCP server;

The network device described in step 6 accesses the software center and configures the server;

The network device described in step 7 downloads the configuration and software from the software center and the configuration server, and completes the installation.

In particular, the present invention is applied to an Internet-based interactive TV network to realize automatic configuration and installation of blade servers in the network. First, according to the network planning, the blade server is pre-configured on the network management client. The configuration method can be configured through the GUI graphical interface, or directly imported into the network management system through a spreadsheet. The pre-configuration content includes physical information, network interface information and logical configuration information. The physical information refers to the physical identification information of the blade server after it is inserted into the chassis slot, that is, the chassis and slot number where it is located; the network interface information includes the interface Name, IP address, subnet mask, broadcast address, gateway address; logical configuration information includes rack-frame-slot information, the services and configuration information on which the network equipment depends, that is, the NTP used by the NTP service Server address, destination server address of SYSLOG output LOG, and all application software that needs to be installed on the network device, and further includes parameters and configuration information necessary for these software to run on this network device.

The blade server has a built-in initialization process and firmware program before leaving the factory. The initialization process contains a DHCP client. The DHCP client expands the Option60 field of the DHCP information and adds the physical location information of the network device. The firmware program can automatically obtain the physical location information of the network device when the blade server is inserted into the slot. Then send the request information to the DHCP client through the DHCP client to obtain information such as the IP address, the address of the software center and configuration server, and the SYSLOG address.

After the blade server establishes a network interface, it immediately accesses the configuration server and software center to obtain logical configuration, and downloads software for automatic configuration and installation.

The method avoids the complicated installation and setting operations of a large number of blade servers in the network, and does not require operators to go to the local area to install and configure the blade servers one by one, thereby saving maintenance and installation costs.

Description of drawings

Fig. 1: Architecture diagram of the network management system of the present invention;

Figure 2: Formation and transmission diagram of the configuration file of the present invention;

Fig. 3: the sequence diagram of the DHCP protocol of the present invention;

Fig. 4: The sequence diagram of the system of the present invention.

Detailed ways

The network management system proposed by the present invention includes a DHCP server (DHCP Server), a software center and a configuration server (Software Center & Configuration Server), a network management client (NMSClient), and a network management server (NMS Server). The above-mentioned network management system is used to manage the blade servers in the IPTV (Internet-based interactive television network) network.

The software center and the configuration server can be located on the same server, providing an FTP server for the network management to upload software and configuration, and can be accessed by the blade server to download files.

The network management client provides a graphical user interface to configure the physical location information of the blade server, network interface information, and all logical configuration information such as network and service information related to the blade server.

The network management server receives the request from the network management client and sends it to other network management devices; converts the network planning entered by the user into a configuration file in XML format, and uploads it to the DHCP server, software center and configuration server.

At the same time, the blade server is installed with a firmware program and an initialization process (Blade InitialDaemon), which will communicate with other network management devices to realize specific configuration and installation operations locally on the blade server. The firmware program is equivalent to the hardware driver program, and can automatically obtain the physical location information of the network device when the blade server is inserted into the slot.

The corresponding steps of the present invention are as follows, as shown in Figure 1:

Step 1: Global network planning, pre-configuring the blade server on the network management client.

Utilizing telecommunications network planning information to realize automatic installation and configuration of blade servers will achieve twice the result with half the effort. Generally, before network installation, there will be a process of global network planning. This process generally forms a table for each subnet blade server that needs to be installed. The table includes physical information such as chassis and rack, and also includes basic network information such as IP and gateway. The user configures the physical information, network interface, and logical configuration of the blade server on the network management client according to this table.

The various configurations are detailed below:

·Physical information includes: 6-byte chassis physical ID; 1-byte slot number. They together form the 7-byte physical identification information of the blade server. They are available through firmware programs on the blade server as shipped from the factory.

·Network interface configuration includes: interface name, IP address, subnet mask, broadcast address, gateway address.

The logical configuration includes: rack-frame-slot; the services and configurations that the blade server depends on, including: the NTP server address used by the NTP service, the destination server address of the SYSLOG output log; it needs to be installed on this blade server All application software of the blade server, and further include the parameters and configuration information necessary for these software to run on the blade server. Depending on the specific function and type of the blade server, the installed software and configuration will be different.

The user establishes the corresponding relationship between the physical location of the blade server and the logical configuration based on the "frame ID-slot" on the network management system through a graphical interface. The chassis ID is a 6-byte chassis identifier. Together with the slot, it can uniquely determine the physical location of a blade server, forming 7-byte physical location information of the blade server. That is, the "rack-frame-slot" information where the blade server is located is also determined. In this way, the operator no longer needs to go to the local area to install and configure the blade servers one by one.

For the previous method of network planning through tables, the operator can also express the correspondence between the physical location of the blade server and the logical configuration in a spreadsheet (EXCEL table), as shown in Table 1, and then import it into the network management system to achieve the same effect .

Table 1: EXCEL sheet for BLADE configuration

Step 2:

The network management server (NMS Server) converts the corresponding relationship between the physical location and logical configuration of all blade servers configured by the user in the first step into an XML file, and sends it to the DHCP server (DHCP Server), and the file is also sent to the software center and configuration Server (Software Center & Configuration Server). as shown in picture 2.

The DHCP server parses this XML file. It only cares about the correspondence between physical information and network interfaces, and generates the correspondence between "chassis ID-slot" and network interfaces, as shown in the following table:

Table 2: Comparison table of DHCP physical information and network configuration

Step 3:

Through the network management system, the user uploads the software and firmware installation packages that need to be installed and upgraded to the software center and configuration server for later download and use by the blade server.

Step 4:

The blade server installed with the initialization process (Blade Initial Daemon) first obtains the physical information of the "frame ID-slot" from the inserted slot, sends out a broadcast through the DHCP protocol, and requests its own network configuration from the DHCP server.

The OPTION field of DHCP is the encoding method of T/L/V:

|type|length|value

In the sent request (REQUEST) packet, the Option60 field of DHCP is extended, as shown in Table 2:

Table 3: Extension of the Option60 field of the DHCP protocol

DHCP returns information such as its IP address, software center and configuration server address, and SYSLOG address.

In the DHCP protocol sequence diagram shown in Figure 3, the DHCP process is as follows:

1. The client sends a DISCOVER broadcast to find the server;

2. The server confirms with OFFER response;

3. The client sends REQUEST, which is different from the general DHCP protocol that uses the MAC address as the identity identifier. Here, the "frame ID-slot" is used as the blade server identifier;

4. The server uses the blade server ID as an index to search for configuration information such as the IP address corresponding to the blade server;

5. In the ACK response, the server sends information such as the IP address, software center, configuration server address, and SYSLOG address to the blade server to complete the interaction.

In step 3, the network configuration is requested from the DHCP server based on the physical location information of the blade server instead of the traditional MAC address, and the physical location of the blade server is associated with the logical configuration.

Step 5: After the blade server initialization process automatically establishes the network interface according to the configuration, it requests further logical configuration from the configuration server, and analyzes the services and configurations that the blade server depends on. Then, download the software that needs to be installed from the software center, and perform the installation steps. Finally, it is necessary to further monitor the running status of the service after installation, and send the installation result to a SYSLOG server.

Complete the entire automatic installation and configuration process of the blade server through the above five steps.

The complete system timing diagram is shown in Figure 4, and each step is described as follows:

Preparation Phase:

1: When the user changes the configuration of the blade server, the network management system organizes the configuration information of the blade server into a file in XML format and uploads it to the DHCP server through FTP;

2: After the upload is successful, the network management system notifies the DHCP server through the SNMP SET command. At this time, DHCP should reload the XML file to refresh the corresponding relationship data from the physical location to the logical configuration of the blade server;

3: The network management system uploads the XML configuration file to the software center and configuration server through FTP;

4: Before the initialization process of the blade server, it is also necessary to upload all the software packages that need to be installed and initialized to the software center and configuration server;

Blade server initialization phase:

5: The DHCP client broadcasts a DHCP discovery message (DHCPDISCOVERY) and waits for a response;

6: The DHCP server receives the DHCPDISCOVERY message and sends a DHCP response (DHCPOFFER) confirmation;

7: Once the DHCP server is known, the DHCP client sends a DHCP request (DHCPREQUEST) message. The message contains the 7-byte physical information of "chassis ID-slot", which can uniquely identify the blade server;

8: The DHCP server looks for the blade server configuration in the previously loaded data. These include: the IP address of the software center and configuration server, user name, password, and the version and name of the software to be installed;

9: The DHCP server sends a DHCPACK to the DHCP client;

10: The DHCP client configures the IP address, gateway, DNS service, and host name of the blade server according to the received information;

11: Then, parse out the information of the software center and the configuration server, and send it to the initialization process of the machine;

12: The initialization process obtains configuration data from the software center and configuration server through FTP;

13: The initialization process downloads the software to be installed through FTP. Here, the same FTP session as in step 12 should be used to improve performance;

14: Finally, install these software and complete other initialization steps, such as: configure NTP service.

Through the above method, the plug-and-play of the blade server in the IPTV network is realized. It is not necessary to configure and install the blade server on site. It only needs to be pre-configured on the network management client. According to the physical location information of the blade server, through The extended DHCP obtains network interface configuration, and then accesses the configuration server and software center to obtain logical configuration, and downloads software for automatic configuration and installation. It avoids the cumbersome installation and setting operations of a large number of blade servers in the network, and does not require operators to go to the local area to install and configure the blade servers one by one, saving maintenance and installation costs.

Claims (12)

1. realize the network equipment method of installation automatically for one kind, be used for the network management system formed by NM client, NM server, software center, configuration server and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol server, realize the automatic installation configuration of equipment in the network, it is characterized in that comprising the steps:

Each meshed network equipment of step 1 pair network carries out pre-configured, sets up the corresponding relation between network equipment physical location information and the logic configuration information, described pre-configured configures physical positional information, network interface configuration information and the logic configuration information of comprising;

Step 2 is uploaded to Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol server and software center and configuration server with preconfigured information;

Step 3 is installed to the network equipment on the physical location on the network node, and the described network equipment reports Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol server with the physical location information of self;

Step 4DHCP server returns the network interface configuration information and gives the described network equipment;

The described network equipment of step 5 carries out the network interface configuration according to the network interface configuration information of Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol server feedback;

Step 6 described network equipment access software center and configuration server;

The described network equipment of step 7 is finished installation from software center and configuration server download configuration and software.

2. a kind of method that realizes that the network equipment is installed automatically according to claim 1 is characterized in that the described network equipment is a blade server.

3. a kind of method that realizes that the network equipment is installed automatically according to claim 1 is characterized in that described physical location information is meant the residing machine frame of the described network equipment and the numbering of groove position.

4. a kind of method that realizes that the network equipment is installed automatically according to claim 1 is characterized in that described network interface configuration information comprises interface name, I P address, subnet mask, broadcast address, gateway address.

5. a kind of method that realizes that the network equipment is installed automatically according to claim 1, it is characterized in that described logic configuration information comprises frame-machine frame-groove position information, service that the described network equipment relied on and configuration information thereof, all application software that need install on the network equipment, and comprised that further these softwares move necessary parameter and configuration information on this network equipment.

6. a kind of method that realizes that the network equipment is installed automatically according to claim 5 is characterized in that service and configuration information thereof that the described network equipment relies on comprise that NTP serves the ntp server address of using, the destination server address of SYSLOG output LOG.

7. a kind of method that realizes that the network equipment is installed automatically according to claim 1 is characterized in that the described network equipment contains initialize process.

8. a kind of method that realizes that the network equipment is installed automatically according to claim 7 is characterized in that described initialize process contains dhcp client.

9. a kind of method that realizes that the network equipment is automatically installed according to claim 8 is characterized in that described dhcp client expanded the Option60 field of DHCP information, has added the physical location information of the network equipment.

10. a kind of method that realizes that the network equipment is installed automatically according to claim 1 is characterized in that the described network equipment contains firmware program.

11. a kind of method that realizes that the network equipment is automatically installed according to claim 10 is characterized in that described firmware program can obtain the physical location information of blade server automatically as the blade server insertion groove position of the network equipment time.

12. a kind of method that realizes that the network equipment is automatically installed according to claim 1, the configuration information that it is characterized in that the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol server feedback described in the step 4 comprises IP address, software center address, configuration server address and the SYSLOG address information of the described network equipment.

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