TWI742323B - Method for detecting a server - Google Patents

Abstract

A method for detecting a server is disclosed. The server has a baseboard management controller (BMC). The BMC has a plurality of pins coupled to a plurality of peripheral hardware elements. A hardware profile file, which would be used by the BMC, is configured so as to define functions of the plurality of pins of the BMC. Then, the BMC loads the hardware profile file. Afterward, the BMC executes a detection program to execute a plurality of detection procedures according to the hardware profile file so as to detect whether the operations of the pins and the peripheral hardware elements are normal.

Description

Server detection method

The present invention relates to a detection method for a server, and in particular to a detection method for a server's baseboard management controller (BMC) and peripheral hardware components based on a hardware circuit profile method.

With the advancement of computer technology, people gradually use information equipment to replace traditional manual operations. When daily or work affairs are already informatized, people have become highly dependent on information equipment. Therefore, once the information equipment fails to operate normally, it will have a serious impact. In particular, for an industrial society that emphasizes time efficiency, once a manufacturer's production line fails to operate normally and delivers to customers on time, it will cause irreparable damage to the manufacturer's goodwill and credit, and even face huge compensation. Therefore, the host of many servers has a Baseboard Management Controller (BMC). The baseboard management controller is a way to manage the entire system through various interfaces. For example, to perform state detection, power management... and other controls on the system. In order to ensure the reliability and stability of the baseboard management controller, the baseboard management controller and its associated peripheral hardware components must be brought up before the completion of the production of the information equipment using the baseboard management controller. (For example: central processing unit (CPU), fan, bus... etc.) Perform tests to verify whether the hardware can operate normally. However, the baseboard management controller has a very large number of pins, so if it is manually operated, there will often be a problem of wrong pin setting. In addition, there are a lot of hardware inspection items, so if you use manual methods Performing the test will be very time consuming. Therefore, there is a need to develop a method that can efficiently and correctly execute the above-mentioned detection procedures.

An embodiment of the present invention provides a detection method for a server. The server includes a baseboard management controller. The baseboard management controller has a plurality of pins, and the plurality of pins are coupled to a plurality of peripheral hardware components. The method includes: setting the hardware circuit profile used by the baseboard management controller to define the functions of the above-mentioned multiple pins; the baseboard management controller loads the hardware circuit profile; and the baseboard management controller executes The detection program executes multiple detection procedures according to the hardware circuit profile, and then detects whether the operation of the aforementioned multiple pins and the aforementioned multiple peripheral hardware components is normal.

10: Server

100: baseboard management controller

110: Firmware

112: detection program

114: hardware line profile

120: System control unit register

130: pin

150: Peripheral hardware components

201: System control unit module

202: Integrated circuit bus module

203: Universal Asynchronous Transceiver Module

204: Pulse width modulation module

205: Tachometer Module

206: Universal input and output module

207: Joint Test Workgroup Module

208: Serial peripheral interface module

209: Double Data Rate Module

210: Local Area Network Module

211: Analog-to-digital converter module

S310 to S330: steps

Figure 1 is a functional block diagram of a server according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Figure 2 is a functional block diagram of the firmware detection program of the baseboard management controller of the server shown in Figure 1.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of a method for detecting the baseboard management controller and multiple peripheral hardware components of the server shown in FIG. 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Please refer to FIG. 1, which is a functional block diagram of the server 10 according to an embodiment of the present invention. The server 10 includes a baseboard management controller (BMC) 100 and a plurality of peripheral hardware components 150. In this embodiment, the baseboard management controller 100 is illustrated by taking a BMC processor with a model number of AST2500 produced by Aspeed as an example, but the present invention is not limited to this. In other embodiments of the present invention, the baseboard management controller 100 may be other baseboard management controllers. Again Furthermore, the baseboard management controller 100 has a plurality of pins 130 (taking the BMC processor of AST2500 as an example, it has a total of 456 pins 130) for coupling to a plurality of peripheral hardware components 150 to control, manage, and coordinate Operation of these peripheral hardware components 150. In addition, the peripheral hardware component 150 may be, but is not limited to, a central processing unit (CPU), a fan, a memory, a network device, a power supply, a bus, and a device connected to the bus.

In order to conveniently and quickly check whether the operation of the multiple pins 130 and the multiple peripheral hardware components 150 of the BMC 100 is normal, the present invention will embed the detection program 112 and the firmware 110 of the BMC 100 Hardware circuit profile 114. Among them, the hardware circuit profile 114 is used to define the functions of the multiple pins 130 of the baseboard management controller 100, and the detection program 112 is used to execute multiple detection procedures according to the hardware circuit profile 114 to detect Whether the operation of the plurality of pins 130 and the plurality of peripheral hardware components 150 is normal. In an embodiment of the present invention, the test program 112 and the hardware circuit configuration file 114 can be transmitted to the baseboard management controller 100 through the Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) to transfer the test program 112 and the hardware The body circuit profile 114 is placed in the firmware 110 of the baseboard management controller 100. In another embodiment of the present invention, the detection program 112 and the hardware circuit profile 114 are first built-in in the firmware image file of the baseboard management controller 100, and then this The firmware image file is burned to the rewritable non-volatile memory of the baseboard management controller 100 for storing the firmware 110, and the detection program 112 and the hardware circuit configuration file are updated by updating the firmware 110 114 is embedded in the firmware 110 of the baseboard management controller 100. After the detection program 112 and the hardware circuit profile 114 are placed in the firmware 110, the baseboard management controller 100 can execute the detection program 112 and make the detection program 112 perform multiple detection procedures according to the hardware circuit profile 114 to Furthermore, it is detected whether the operation of the plurality of pins 130 and the plurality of peripheral hardware components 150 is normal.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the baseboard management controller 100 can adjust the hardware circuit profile 114 to change the definition of the multiple pins 130 according to the results of executing the multiple detection procedures. The same pins 130 have different uses and functions after changing their function definitions. Therefore, if in the process of executing the detection program 112, if it is found that some of the pins 130 are defined incorrectly, the detection program 112 can change the definition of the pins 130 by adjusting the hardware circuit profile 114. Check again whether the operation of the pin 1300 and the peripheral hardware components 150 is normal, thereby improving the overall detection efficiency. In addition, in an embodiment of the present invention, the baseboard management controller 100 may further include a system control unit (System Control Unit, SCU) register 120 for storing information about the baseboard management controller 100 for the plurality of pins 130. Definition of function. Among them, the firmware 110 of the baseboard management controller 100 initializes the system control unit register 120 according to the hardware circuit profile 114, so that the system control unit register 120 defines the function of the pin 130 after initialization Will be the same as the definition of the hardware line profile 114. During the detection process, the definition of the function of the pin 130 stored in the system control unit register 120 can be dynamically adjusted according to the needs of the detection. If the detection program 112 does not find any problems after executing all the detection procedures, the last definition of the function of the pin 130 stored in the system control unit register 120 can be restored to update the hardware circuit profile 114 and become a hard The final version of the physical circuit profile 114. Therefore, the baseboard management controller 100 can complete the adjustment of the hardware circuit profile 114 by adjusting the definition of the function of the pin 130 stored in the system control unit register 120.

Please refer to FIG. 2. FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram of the detection program 112 of the firmware 110 of the baseboard management controller 100 of the server 10 in FIG. 1. The detection program 112 includes a plurality of detection modules, and each detection module is used to execute a corresponding detection process to detect a corresponding peripheral hardware component 150 among the plurality of peripheral hardware components 150. Among them, the above-mentioned multiple detection modules can be selected from the following groups: system control unit (SCU) module 201, integrated circuit bus (Inter-Integrated Circuit, I2C) module 202, general asynchronous transceiver Transmitter (Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter, referred to as UART) module 203, pulse width modulation (Pulse Width Modulation, referred to as PWM) module 204, tachometer (Tachomerer, referred to as TACH) module 205, communication General-purpose input/output (GPIO) module 206, Joint Test Action Group (JTAG) module 207, Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) module Group 208, Double Data Rate (DDR) module 209, Local Area Network (LAN) module 210, and Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) module Group 211. Among them, the system control unit module 201 is used to set the system control unit register 120 of the baseboard management controller 100 to adjust the definition of the function of the pin 130 stored in the system control unit register 120; integrated circuit The bus module 202 is used to detect which pins 130 are used by the integrated circuit bus defined in the hardware circuit profile 114 to detect the status of the device coupled to the integrated circuit bus of the baseboard management controller 100 Whether the operation is normal; the universal asynchronous transceiving transmitter module 203 is used to detect the universal asynchronous transceiving transmitter coupled to the baseboard management controller 100 according to the definition of the function of the pin 130 stored in the system control unit register 120 Whether the operation of the interface device is normal; the pulse width modulation module 204 is used to detect the pulse width of the fan coupled to the baseboard management controller 100 according to the definition of the function of the pin 130 stored in the system control unit register 120 Whether the modulation is normal; the tachometer module 205 is used to detect whether the rotation speed of the fan coupled to the baseboard management controller 100 is normal according to the definition of the function of the pin 130 stored in the register 120 of the system control unit; The input/output module 206 is used to detect whether the general input/output interface of the baseboard management controller 100 is operating normally according to the definition of the function of the pin 130 stored in the register 120 of the system control unit; jointly test the working group module The group 207 is used to detect whether the operation of the joint test work group interface of the baseboard management controller 100 is normal according to the definition of the function of the pin 130 stored in the system control unit register 120; the serial peripheral interface module 208 is used to refer to The system control unit register 120 stores the definition of the function of the pin 130, and detects whether the device coupled to the serial peripheral interface of the baseboard management controller 100 is operating normally; the double data rate module 209 is used for system control The function definition of the pin 130 stored in the unit register 120 is to detect whether the memory coupled to the double data rate interface of the baseboard management controller 100 is operating normally; the local area network module 210 is used for system control Unit temporarily The memory 120 stores the definition of the function of the pin 130 to detect whether the network interface coupled to the baseboard management controller 100 is operating normally; and the analog-to-digital converter module 211 is used to temporarily store according to the system control unit The definition of the function of the pin 130 stored in the device 120 is to detect whether the analog-to-digital converter of the baseboard management controller 100 is operating normally.

It should be understood that some of the pins 130 have multiple functions (Multi functions), and each function corresponds to one of the multiple detection modules. For example, the pulse width modulation module 204 and the tachometer module 205 can share part of the pins 130, and use the shared pins 130 to detect whether the pulse width modulation and the rotation speed of the fan are normal.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the baseboard management controller 100 can generate an inspection report according to the result of executing the above inspection procedure. Wherein, the test report may not only include test results, but also relevant test modification suggestions (for example, a modification suggestion for the hardware circuit profile 114 to adjust the definition of the function of the pin 130). Furthermore, in an embodiment of the present invention, the firmware 110 may be the firmware of the OpenBMC (OpenBMC); and in another embodiment of the present invention, the firmware 110 may be the firmware of American Firmware provided by Megatrends Inc.; AMI).

Please refer to FIG. 3. FIG. 3 is a flowchart of a method for detecting the baseboard management controller 100 and a plurality of peripheral hardware components 150 of the server 10 in FIG. 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention. The method includes the following steps: Step S310: Set the hardware circuit profile 114 used by the baseboard management controller 100 to define the functions of the pins 130 of the baseboard management controller 100; Step S320: Baseboard management The controller 100 loads the hardware circuit configuration file 114; and step S330: the baseboard management controller 100 executes the detection program 112 according to the hardware circuit The profile 114 executes a plurality of detection procedures to detect whether the operation of the pins 130 and the plurality of peripheral hardware components 150 is normal.

In summary, the present invention defines the functions of the multiple pins of the baseboard management controller by preparing a hardware circuit profile for the baseboard management controller. After that, the baseboard management controller executes the inspection program to execute multiple inspection procedures according to the hardware circuit profile, and then detects whether the operation of the multiple pins of the baseboard management controller and the multiple peripheral hardware components is normal. Since the hardware circuit profile can be dynamically adjusted, the overall detection efficiency can be improved. In addition, compared to manual detection which takes a lot of time, the method of the present invention can greatly reduce the detection time. Therefore, the method of the present invention is particularly suitable for the bring up stage before the production of information equipment, which can greatly reduce the hardware debugging time.

The foregoing descriptions are only preferred embodiments of the present invention, and all equivalent changes and modifications made in accordance with the scope of the patent application of the present invention shall fall within the scope of the present invention.

S310 to S330: steps

Claims (9)

A detection method for a server, the server comprising a baseboard management controller, the baseboard management controller having a plurality of pins and a system control unit register, the system control unit register for storing the baseboard management controller For the definition of the functions of the pins, the pins are coupled to a plurality of peripheral hardware components. The detection method of the server includes: setting a hardware circuit profile used by the baseboard management controller to compare The functions of the pins of the baseboard management controller are defined; the baseboard management controller loads the hardware circuit profile; the baseboard management controller executes a test program to perform multiple tests according to the hardware circuit profile Program, and then detect whether the operation of the pins and the peripheral hardware components are normal; according to the results of the execution of the detection procedures, the baseboard management controller adjusts the system control unit register for the pins Adjust the hardware circuit profile; and if no problems are found after completing the detection procedures, restore the definitions of the functions of the pins stored in the system control unit register to update the Hardware circuit profile. The detection method of the server according to claim 1, further comprising: transmitting the detection program and the hardware line configuration file to the baseboard management controller through a simple file transfer protocol. The server detection method according to claim 1, further comprising: building the detection program together with the hardware circuit profile in a firmware image file of the baseboard management controller, and burning the firmware image file Record to the baseboard management controller. The detection method of the server according to claim 1, further comprising: executing the detection program according to the adjusted hardware circuit profile, and detecting the pins and the peripheral hardware coupled to the pins again. Whether the operation of the body component is normal. The detection method of a server according to claim 1, wherein the detection program includes a plurality of detection modules, and each of the detection modules executes a corresponding detection process to correspond to the peripheral hardware components Peripheral hardware components are tested. According to the detection method of the server according to claim 5, some of the pins have multiple functions, and each function corresponds to one of the detection modules. The server detection method according to claim 5, wherein the detection modules are selected from the group consisting of: a system control unit module for setting the system control unit register to Adjust the definition of the functions of the pins stored in the register of the system control unit; an integrated circuit bus module for detecting a device coupled to the baseboard management controller according to the hardware circuit profile Whether the operation of the integrated circuit bus device is normal; a universal asynchronous transceiver module for detecting the connection to the substrate according to the definition of the functions of the pins stored in the register of the system control unit Whether the operation of a universal asynchronous transceiver interface device of the management controller is normal; a pulse width modulation module is used to detect the function definition of the pins stored in the register of the system control unit Whether the pulse width modulation of the fan coupled to the baseboard management controller is normal; A tachometer module for detecting whether the rotation speed of the fan coupled to the baseboard management controller is normal according to the definition of the functions of the pins stored in the register of the system control unit; a universal input and output The module is used to detect whether the operation of a general input and output interface of the baseboard management controller is normal according to the definition of the functions of the pins stored in the register of the system control unit; a joint test work group The module is used to detect whether the operation of a joint test work group interface of the baseboard management controller is normal according to the definition of the functions of the pins stored in the register of the system control unit; a sequence of peripheral interface modules , Used to detect whether the operation of the device coupled to a series of peripheral interfaces of the baseboard management controller is normal according to the definition of the functions of the pins stored in the register of the system control unit; a double data rate modulus Group for detecting whether the operation of the memory coupled to a double data rate interface of the baseboard management controller is normal according to the definition of the functions of the pins stored in the register of the system control unit; The network module is used to detect whether the operation of a network interface coupled to the baseboard management controller is normal according to the definition of the functions of the pins stored in the register of the system control unit; and an analog digital bit The converter module is used for detecting whether an analog-to-digital converter of the baseboard management controller is operating normally according to the definition of the functions of the pins stored in the register of the system control unit. The detection method of the server according to claim 1, further comprising: the baseboard management controller generates a detection report according to the results of executing the detection procedures, and the detection report includes a detection result. The server detection method according to claim 1, wherein the baseboard management controller executes the inspection procedures through a firmware and according to the hardware circuit profile, and the firmware is an open baseboard management controller firmware.

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