CN114461286B

CN114461286B - Server starting method and device, electronic equipment and readable storage medium

Info

Publication number: CN114461286B
Application number: CN202210111508.3A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 张晓鹏
Original assignee: Suzhou Inspur Intelligent Technology Co Ltd
Current assignee: Suzhou Inspur Intelligent Technology Co Ltd
Priority date: 2022-01-29
Filing date: 2022-01-29
Publication date: 2023-08-04
Anticipated expiration: 2042-01-29
Also published as: CN114461286A

Abstract

The application discloses a method and device for starting a server, electronic equipment and a readable storage medium, and relates to the field of electronic information. According to the server starting method, corresponding initialization information is synchronously sent to the BMC after PCH initialization in a communication mode, and a BMC starting mirror image in a memory is sent to the BMC through an ESPI bus, so that the BMC is controlled to start, after a feedback signal is received, self codes are synchronously loaded, compared with the mode that two power rails are adopted originally, the method that the initialization information of the ESPI bus cannot be synchronized due to manual operation is prevented by means of automatic program and information interaction, synchronous power-on and starting of the BMC and the PCH are guaranteed, the server system is prevented from being down, and due to participation of the ESPI bus, the ESPI initialization information of the BMC and the ESPI of the PCH are identical and can be stored in the same memory space, so that the utilization rate of the memory space is enhanced.

Description

Server starting method and device, electronic equipment and readable storage medium

Technical Field

The present invention relates to the field of electronic information, and in particular, to a method and apparatus for starting a server, an electronic device, and a readable storage medium.

Background

In recent years, with the development of electronic information technology, server technology is mature, and currently, an ESPI bus is replacing a high-speed interface of an LPC interface for connecting a PCH to management controllers of a BMC.

In current designs of existing server systems, the PCH and BMC are 2 independent controllers, each with their own power rails. The power supply of PCH and BMC is independently controlled by respective power supply, because two power rails are controlled by human, the situation that the PCH and BMC are possibly out of sync in power-on is caused, when out of sync in power-on, if the BMC is powered on earlier than the PCH in power-on, the PCH and BMC can not synchronize the initialization information of ESPI bus at the moment, and therefore the system is down.

In view of the above-mentioned technology, finding a server startup method capable of preventing downtime is a problem to be solved by those skilled in the art.

Disclosure of Invention

The purpose of the application is to provide a server starting method so as to solve the problem that a server system is down due to power-on asynchronism caused by human factors.

In order to solve the above technical problems, the present application provides a server starting method, applied to a PCH, including:

acquiring an initialization signal sent by the BMC;

starting an ESPI process, and resetting the BMC through an ESPI_RST signal;

sending the configuration information to the BMC through the ESPI bus;

the BMC starting mirror image in the memory is sent to the BMC, and the BMC is controlled to start;

and receiving the wake-up signal sent by the BMC, loading codes and starting corresponding service functions.

Preferably, the acquiring the initialization signal sent by the BMC includes:

and acquiring an RSMRST initialization signal sent by the BMC through the GPIO port after the completion of the U-Boot startup.

Preferably, the sending the configuration information to the BMC through the ESPI bus includes:

and sending the hardware setting information, virtual Wire message, ME configuration information and configuration information of the SPI bus of the ESPI bus to the BMC through the ESPI bus.

Preferably, the memory is ESPI FLASH.

Preferably, after receiving the wake-up signal sent by the BMC and loading a code, starting a corresponding service function, the method further includes:

and sending a startup completion status signal to the BMC and a PLTRST signal to all the main controllers in the server.

Preferably, the ESPI FLASH is ESPI NAND FLASH.

Preferably, after acquiring the initialization signal sent by the BMC, the method further includes:

and if the wake-up signal sent by the BMC is not received within the preset time, alarming.

In order to solve the above problem, the present application further provides a server starting device, including:

the acquisition module is used for acquiring an initialization signal sent by the BMC;

the starting module is used for starting an ESPI process and resetting the BMC through an ESPI_RST signal;

the sending module is used for sending the configuration information to the BMC through the ESPI bus;

the control module is used for sending the mirror image BMC starting mirror image in the memory to the BMC and controlling the BMC to start;

and the receiving module is used for receiving the wake-up signal sent by the BMC, loading codes and starting corresponding service functions.

To solve the above-mentioned problems, the present application further provides an electronic device, including a memory for storing a computer program;

and a processor for implementing the steps of the server start method as described above when executing the computer program.

To solve the above-mentioned problems, the present application further provides a computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon a computer program which, when executed by a processor, implements the steps of the server startup method as described above.

According to the server starting method, PCH and BMC are connected through the ESPI bus, corresponding initialization information is synchronously sent to the BMC after PCH initialization through a communication mode, and BMC starting mirror images in a memory are sent to the BMC through the ESPI bus, so that the BMC is controlled to start, after feedback signals of the BMC are received, self codes are synchronously loaded, self-wake-up functions are completed, synchronous power-up is guaranteed, compared with the mode that two original independent controllers adopt two power rails, the scheme prevents the BMC power-up caused by manual operation from being earlier than initialization information of an asynchronous ESPI bus caused by PCH through a mode of automatic program and information interaction, synchronous power-up and starting of the BMC and PCH are guaranteed, meanwhile, due to participation of the ESPI bus, the ESPI initialization information of the BMC and the ESPI are identical and can be stored in the same memory space, and therefore the utilization rate of the memory space is enhanced. .

The server starting device, the electronic device and the computer readable storage medium provided in the application correspond to the server starting method, so that the beneficial effects are the same as those described above, and the detailed description is omitted here.

Drawings

For a clearer description of the embodiments of the present application, the drawings that are needed in the embodiments will be briefly described, it being apparent that the drawings in the following description are only some embodiments of the present application, and that other drawings may be obtained according to these drawings without inventive effort for a person skilled in the art.

Fig. 1 is a flowchart of a method for starting up a server according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a server starting device provided in an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 3 is a block diagram of an electronic device according to another embodiment of the present application.

Detailed Description

The following description of the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present application will be made clearly and completely with reference to the drawings in the embodiments of the present application, and it is apparent that the described embodiments are only some embodiments of the present application, but not all embodiments. All other embodiments obtained by those skilled in the art based on the embodiments herein without making any inventive effort are intended to fall within the scope of the present application.

The core of the application is to provide a server starting device so as to solve the problem that the server system is down due to the fact that power-on is not synchronous caused by human factors.

In order to provide a better understanding of the present application, those skilled in the art will now make further details of the present application with reference to the drawings and detailed description.

Fig. 1 is a flowchart of a server starting method provided in an embodiment of the present application, which is applied to a PCH, as shown in fig. 1, and the method includes:

s10: acquiring an initialization signal sent by the BMC;

platform management represents a series of monitoring and control functions, the object of operation being the system hardware. Such as by monitoring the temperature, voltage, fans, power supplies, etc. of the system and making corresponding adjustments to ensure that the system is in a healthy state. Of course, if the system is not normal, the system can be restarted by resetting. Meanwhile, platform management is also responsible for recording information and log records of various hardware and is used for prompting a user and positioning subsequent problems. The above functions may be integrated into a controller, which is referred to as a baseboard management controller (Baseboard Manager Controller, BMC). It should be noted that the BMC is a stand-alone system, and does not depend on other hardware on the system or on the basic input/output system (Basic Input Output System, BIOS).

An integrated platform control center (Platform Controller Hub, PCH), is an integrated south bridge of intel corporation. The memory controller and PCIE controller in the north bridge are integrated into the CPU, which is equivalent to the whole north bridge chip being integrated into the CPU, only the south bridge is remained on the main board, so PCH can be understood as the south bridge. Intel Xeon D series.

It should be noted that, in this embodiment, the manner of how to acquire the initialization signal from the BMC is not limited, it may be understood that the BMC and the PCH are connected through an interface, the communication manner between the BMC and the PCH may be synchronous or asynchronous, the communication transmission of the related files may be batch transmission or each single transmission, which is not described herein, and the specific content of the initialization signal is not limited.

S11: starting an ESPI process, and resetting the BMC through an ESPI_RST signal;

the enhanced serial peripheral interface (Enhanced Serial Peripheral Interface, ESPI) adopts a master-slave mode, namely a master controller can comprise a plurality of slave controllers, namely one end of an ESPI bus is connected with the master controller, and the other end is connected with the slave controllers, so that communication is realized, EPSI communication is synchronous communication, ESPI multiplexes four-time-speed pin definition of a serial peripheral interface (Serial Peripheral Interface, SPI) and adds an Alert pin and a Reset pin, and thus Flash, a TPM and the like which are originally connected to the SPI can keep compatibility. And the LPC signal and GPIO connected with BMC or EC can be used for transmitting ESPI bus as pipeline by adding transmission layer on the ESPI bus.

It can be understood that the ESPI process, i.e. the process of calling and initializing the ESPI bus, calls ESPI through the main controller PCH, so as to realize communication with the BMC, and in this embodiment, specific communication content, i.e. signals, etc. of the espi_rst signal reset BMC are not limited, reset of the BMC, i.e. the configuration of relevant control information between the BMCs is deleted and then initialized, and because the PCH is started by the relevant ESPI module, relevant information, such as the configuration of ESPI in the BMC, etc. is reset, so as to facilitate the subsequent starting flow.

S12: sending the configuration information to the BMC through the ESPI bus;

in this embodiment, the specific content of the configuration information is not limited, and may include, but is not limited to, hardware setting information, configuration information, startup entry information, ME configuration information, and the like, and it is understood that the configuration information is sent in this step to facilitate startup of the BMC, so that the configuration information should include all configuration information required for startup of the BMC, and since the configuration information has a plurality of files, the configuration information may be sent in multiple batches, or may be sent individually, which is not limited herein, and in consideration of communication efficiency, the configuration information may be sent in an asynchronously executed manner in this step.

S13: the BMC starting mirror image in the memory is sent to the BMC, and the BMC is controlled to start;

in this embodiment, the specific form, i.e., the content, of the memory is not limited, and it is understood that FLASH with strong ESPI correlation is preferably used as the memory because ESPI is used for communication.

S14: and receiving a wake-up signal sent by the BMC, loading codes and starting corresponding service functions.

In this embodiment, the wake-up signal and specific content of the BMC are not limited, and it can be understood that the wake-up signal and the BMC start to be sent synchronously, so that the wake-up signal may be a feedback power-on signal after the start of the BMC, and in this embodiment, the code refers to a PCH to execute a service function, that is, a related flow service code after the initialization is completed, which is not described herein.

According to the server starting method, PCH and BMC are connected through the ESPI bus, corresponding initialization information is synchronously sent to the BMC after PCH initialization through a communication mode, and BMC starting mirror images in a memory are sent to the BMC through the ESPI bus, so that the BMC is controlled to start, after feedback signals of the BMC are received, self codes are synchronously loaded, self-wake-up functions are completed, synchronous power-up is guaranteed, compared with the mode that two original independent controllers adopt two power rails, the method is used for preventing the BMC power-up caused by manual operation from being earlier than initialization information of an asynchronous ESPI bus caused by PCH through a program and information automatic interaction mode, synchronous power-up and starting of the BMC and PCH are guaranteed, meanwhile, due to participation of the ESPI bus, initialization information required by the BMC and PCH can be stored in the same memory space, and therefore the utilization rate of the memory space is improved.

In the above embodiment, the initial step, that is, the step of acquiring the start signal sent by the BMC is not limited, and a preferred solution is proposed herein, where the step of acquiring the start signal sent by the BMC includes:

The generic bootloader (Universal Boot Loader, U-Boot) is an open source item that complies with the terms of GPL. The U-Boot function is system Boot. U-Boot evolved from FADSROM, 8xxROM, PPCBOOT. The source code catalog and compiling form are very similar to those of Linux kernel, and in fact, a plurality of U-Boot source codes are formed by simplifying corresponding Linux kernel source programs, especially the drivers of some devices, and the point can be embodied from the comments of the U-Boot source codes.

RSMRST, an ACPI controller for resetting the south bridge, is high in potential and effective, and informs the south bridge that standby voltage is normal, each south bridge has relevant RSMRST information, even if the outside has no direct high level, the inside is also designed with a high level, and otherwise, initialization starting cannot be performed.

In this embodiment, the method defines the starting process of obtaining the starting information sent by the BMC, that is, the starting process of the whole step, that is, after the U-Boot of the BMC is started, the power-on signal is controlled to power on through the GPIO pin, so that the starting signal is optimized, and the power-on synchronization of the starting signal and the PCH is ensured.

In the above embodiment, the specific content of the configuration information is not limited, and in this embodiment, a preferred solution is provided, where sending the configuration information to the BMC through the ESPI bus includes:

hardware setting information, virtual Wire message, ME configuration information and configuration information of the SPI bus of the ESPI bus are sent to the BMC through the ESPI bus.

The hardware setting information of the ESPI bus comprises related information of the master controller, communication information and related information of the slave controller, wherein the related information of the slave controller is ESPI module information related to the BMC.

Because SPI is synchronous communication, there is a common Clock signal SCLK; a chip select SS; the configuration information of an input signal line MOSI, an output signal MISO, i.e., the relevant ESPI bus, includes the start information of the chip select SS, the relevant start information of the input signal and the output signal, etc.

Virtual Wire message is virtual line information, and ME configuration information is configuration information of related service systems, which is not described herein.

In this embodiment, the configuration information is specifically limited, and under the condition of ensuring the integrity of the starting configuration information of the BMC, effective information is transmitted in a minimized manner, that is, the effective rate of transmitting information is increased, and the transmission of useless information is prevented, thereby increasing the information transmission efficiency of the scheme.

In the above embodiment, the specific form of the memory is not limited, and may be a solid-state memory, a hard disk memory, a related buffer device, etc., and in view of the fact that ESPI is used for communication in this scheme, a preferred scheme is proposed herein, and the memory is ESPI FLASH.

It can be understood that the FLASH is a nonvolatile storage medium, and the above embodiments have been described with respect to ESPI, which is not described herein, and the storage and the transmission of relevant information are realized through the connection to the ESPI physical bus, so that the security and the long-term preservation property of the storage content are ensured.

Considering that the server needs to work normally after the PCH wakes up, the preferred scheme is provided herein, and after receiving the wake-up signal sent by the BMC and loading the code, and starting the corresponding service function, the method further comprises:

the startup completion status signal is sent to the BMC and the PLTRST signal is sent to all master controllers within the server.

It can be understood that, for the start-up completion status information, that is, the signal sent after the normal execution of the service of the PCH itself, in the whole process, the whole start-up flow from G3 to S5 can be understood, G3 is the off state before start-up, S5 is the normal running state of the service after start-up, the PLTRST signal is used for checking whether the south bridge sends a reset transition signal to the special IO, and the special IO outputs a PLTRST transition signal after receiving the reset transition signal, where the signal is a high-low transition signal, that is, the power-on information of the high-low level is input to all server controllers including the BMC, thereby completing the power-on of the whole server, ensuring the integrity of the scheme and ensuring the normal running of the server.

In the above embodiment, the memory is defined as ESPI FLASH, but the FLASH includes both NOR and NAND, so the memory is further defined as ESPI NAND FLASH in ESPI FLASH.

NOR FLASH is not hardware compatible (the number of data lines and address lines are not the same) and the package is relatively large, occupying a large PCB site, and is later gradually replaced by ESPI NOR FLASH. Meanwhile, ESPI NOR FLASH pins with different capacities are also smaller in compatible package, and a ESPI NAND FLASH scheme is adopted, so that a traditional NAND controller is not required for main control, and only ESPI interface operation access is required, thereby reducing cost. In addition, the ESPI NAND FLASH package is much smaller than the traditional package, so that the space of the PCB is saved.

In view of power-up failure possibly caused by a program error and the like, a preferred scheme is proposed herein, and after acquiring the initialization signal sent by the BMC, the method further includes:

And whether the power-on is successful is confirmed in an alarm mode, so that downtime of the server is prevented, and the power-on stability of the server is improved.

In the above embodiments, the server starting method is described in detail, and the application further provides a corresponding embodiment of the server starting device and the electronic device. It should be noted that the present application describes an embodiment of the device portion from two angles, one based on the angle of the functional module and the other based on the angle of the hardware.

Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a server starting device provided in an embodiment of the present application, as shown in fig. 2, where the device includes:

an obtaining module 10, configured to obtain an initialization signal sent by the BMC;

the starting module 11 is used for starting the ESPI process and resetting the BMC through an ESPI_RST signal;

a sending module 12, configured to send the configuration information to the BMC through the ESPI bus;

the control module 13 is used for sending the mirror BMC starting mirror image in the memory to the BMC and controlling the BMC to start;

the receiving module 14 is configured to receive the wake-up signal sent by the BMC, load a code, and start a corresponding service function.

Since the embodiments of the apparatus portion and the embodiments of the method portion correspond to each other, the embodiments of the apparatus portion and the corresponding advantageous effects thereof are described in the embodiments of the method portion, and are not repeated herein.

Fig. 3 is a block diagram of an electronic device according to another embodiment of the present application, and as shown in fig. 3, the electronic device includes: a memory 20 for storing a computer program;

a processor 21 for implementing the steps of the server start-up method as mentioned in the above embodiments when executing a computer program.

The electronic device provided in this embodiment may include, but is not limited to, a smart phone, a tablet computer, a notebook computer, a desktop computer, or the like.

Processor 21 may include one or more processing cores, such as a 4-core processor, an 8-core processor, etc. The processor 21 may be implemented in hardware in at least one of digital signal processing (Digital Signal Processor, DSP), field programmable gate array (Field-Programmable Gate Array, FPGA), programmable logic array (Programmable Logic Array, PLA). The processor 21 may also comprise a main processor, which is a processor for processing data in an awake state, also called central processor (Central Processing Unit, CPU), and a coprocessor; a coprocessor is a low-power processor for processing data in a standby state. In some embodiments, the processor 21 may be integrated with an image processor (Graphics Processing Unit, GPU) for rendering and rendering of content required to be displayed by the display screen. In some embodiments, the processor 21 may also include an artificial intelligence (Artificial Intelligence, AI) processor for processing computing operations related to machine learning.

Memory 20 may include one or more computer-readable storage media, which may be non-transitory. Memory 20 may also include high-speed random access memory, as well as non-volatile memory, such as one or more magnetic disk storage devices, flash memory storage devices. In this embodiment, the memory 20 is at least used for storing a computer program 201, which, when loaded and executed by the processor 21, is capable of implementing the relevant steps of the server startup method disclosed in any one of the foregoing embodiments. In addition, the resources stored in the memory 20 may further include an operating system 202, data 203, and the like, where the storage manner may be transient storage or permanent storage. The operating system 202 may include Windows, unix, linux, among others. The data 203 may include, but is not limited to, data involved in the server startup method described above, and the like.

In some embodiments, the electronic device may further include a display 22, an input-output interface 23, a communication interface 24, a power supply 25, and a communication bus 26.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the structure shown in fig. 3 is not limiting of the electronic device and may include more or fewer components than shown.

The electronic device provided by the embodiment of the application comprises a memory and a processor, wherein when the processor executes a program stored in the memory, the processor can realize the following method: the server starting method referred to in the above embodiment.

Finally, the present application also provides a corresponding embodiment of the computer readable storage medium. The computer-readable storage medium has stored thereon a computer program which, when executed by a processor, performs the steps as described in the method embodiments above.

It will be appreciated that the methods of the above embodiments, if implemented in the form of software functional units and sold or used as stand-alone products, may be stored on a computer readable storage medium. With such understanding, the technical solution of the present application, or a part contributing to the prior art or all or part of the technical solution, may be embodied in the form of a software product stored in a storage medium, performing all or part of the steps of the method described in the various embodiments of the present application. And the aforementioned storage medium includes: a U-disk, a removable hard disk, a Read-Only Memory (ROM), a random access Memory (Random Access Memory, RAM), a magnetic disk, or an optical disk, or other various media capable of storing program codes.

Since the embodiments of the readable storage medium portion and the embodiments of the method portion correspond to each other, the embodiments of the apparatus portion and the corresponding advantageous effects thereof are described in the embodiments of the method portion, and are not repeated herein.

The above describes in detail a method, an apparatus, an electronic device, and a readable storage medium for starting a server provided in the present application. In the description, each embodiment is described in a progressive manner, and each embodiment is mainly described by the differences from other embodiments, so that the same similar parts among the embodiments are mutually referred. For the device disclosed in the embodiment, since it corresponds to the method disclosed in the embodiment, the description is relatively simple, and the relevant points refer to the description of the method section. It should be noted that it would be obvious to those skilled in the art that various improvements and modifications can be made to the present application without departing from the principles of the present application, and such improvements and modifications fall within the scope of the claims of the present application.

It should also be noted that in this specification, relational terms such as first and second, and the like are used solely to distinguish one entity or action from another entity or action without necessarily requiring or implying any actual such relationship or order between such entities or actions. Moreover, the terms "comprises," "comprising," or any other variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, such that a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of elements does not include only those elements but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method, article, or apparatus. Without further limitation, an element defined by the phrase "comprising one … …" does not exclude the presence of other like elements in a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises the element.

Claims

1. A server start-up method, applied to a PCH, comprising:

acquiring an initialization signal sent by the BMC;

starting an ESPI process, and resetting the BMC through an ESPI_RST signal;

sending the configuration information to the BMC through the ESPI bus;

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the obtaining the initialization signal sent by the BMC comprises:

3. The server boot method of claim 1, wherein the sending the configuration information to the BMC over the ESPI bus comprises:

4. A server boot method according to claim 3, wherein the memory is ESPI FLASH.

5. The method for starting up a server according to any one of claims 1 to 4, further comprising, after the receiving a wake-up signal sent by the BMC and loading a code to start up a corresponding service function:

6. The server boot method of claim 4, wherein the ESPI FLASH is ESPI NAND FLASH.

7. The server boot method according to claim 6, wherein after acquiring the initialization signal sent by the BMC, the method further comprises:

8. A server starting apparatus, comprising:

9. An electronic device comprising a memory for storing a computer program;

a processor for implementing the steps of the server start-up method according to any one of claims 1 to 7 when executing said computer program.

10. A computer readable storage medium, characterized in that the computer readable storage medium has stored thereon a computer program which, when executed by a processor, implements the steps of the server start-up method according to any of claims 1 to 7.