KR20070116034A - Asynchronous network stack operation in an operating system independent environment - Google Patents

Abstract

Techniques for operation of an asynchronous stack in a pre-boot environment. A token-based stack design may be used to support communications between network stack layers.

Description

ASYNCHRONOUS NETWORK STACK OPERATION IN AN OPERATING SYSTEM INDEPENDENT ENVIRONMENT}

Embodiments of the present invention relate to network stack operation. More specifically, embodiments of the present invention relate to the use of an asynchronous network stack that can be used in an operating system independent environment (ie, pre-boot).

The pre-boot environment of the electronic device may be used for remote boot and / or remote installation purposes, which may require the electronic device to download one or more files from the remote server before control of the electronic device is transferred to the operating system. . In the pre-boot execution environment (PXE), the electronic device may receive one or more files from one or more remote servers. However, as the number of downloaded files increases and / or the functionality of PXE increases, the current synchronous interface for pocket transmission and reception will be a barrier to system performance. Thus, current techniques for data uploading and downloading in PXE do not provide optimal performance.

Embodiments of the invention are shown by way of example and not limitation, and like reference numerals in the accompanying drawings indicate like elements.

1 is a conceptual block diagram of one embodiment of an asynchronous network stack operating using tokens.

2 is a block diagram of one embodiment for an embedded firmware agent.

3 is a conceptual flow diagram of one embodiment of a token passing sequence between layers in an asynchronous network stack.

4 is a conceptual flow diagram of one embodiment for a sequence between layers in an asynchronous network stack to cancel a previously requested / planned operation using a token.

5 is a block diagram of one embodiment for an electronic system.

In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth. However, embodiments of the invention may be practiced without these specific details. As another example, well-known circuits, structures and techniques have not been shown in detail in order not to disturb the understanding of the present description.

Techniques for asynchronous network stack operation in an operating system independent environment are described herein. As one embodiment, asynchronous operation may be supported by a token-based stack design that can be used for network communications in a pre-boot environment or in any operating system independent environment. The technology provides an asynchronous calling framework for network stack drivers that represent the various operating layers. As one embodiment, driver operations (ie, transmit, receive) may be planned.

Techniques for use of a token that support the operation of an asynchronous network stack are described herein. As one embodiment, a token may have four characteristics: 1) the token is requested actions (eg, to send a data packet, to receive a data packet), 2) the current state of the token Or a status indicator for indicating the request result, 3) an event providing a notification of status change, and 4) a context. As an alternative embodiment, additional and / or other token features may be supported.

1 is a conceptual block diagram of one embodiment for an asynchronous network stack operating using tokens. The conceptual block diagram of FIG. 1 includes specific network layers and protocols; However, in alternative embodiments, other protocols and / or layers may be supported.

As one embodiment, the physical implementation for each network layer may be configured to communicate with the embedded firmware agent 190. As an alternative embodiment, one or more layers may not be configured to communicate with the embedded firmware agent 190. The application 100 may represent any type of application, or not operating system control, including functionality to communicate outside of the host device via a network. The application 190 may be any type of application known in the art.

In one embodiment, the application 190 may request services such as, for example, the transmission of network packets by passing the token to the Multicast Trivial File Transfer Protocol (MTFTP) layer 110. In general, TFTP is a transfer protocol that is simpler to use than FTP (File Transfer Protocol) but provides less functionality. For example, TFTP does not support user authentication or directory visibility. TFTP uses User Datagram Protocol (UDP) rather than Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). One embodiment for TFTP is officially shown in Request for Commnents (RFC) 1350, Rev. 2, published in July 1992.

TFTP has been extended to include multicast options, as shown in RFC 2090, published in February 1997. Multicast TFTP classifies client devices as either active clients or passive clients. There is only one active client at a time. The active client communicates with the server to download data to the negotiated group address using stop-and-wait ARQ flow and error control techniques. When the requested action is performed, the MTFTP layer 11 returns an event notification to the token requesting that action. The use of the token and event notification may cause the application 1900 to continue to operate and engage in other things for the time required to perform the requested action.

In one embodiment, token transfer techniques may be used between each network stack layer. That is, between the MTFTP layer 110 and the UDP layer 120, between the UDP layer 120 and the IP layer 130, between the IP layer 130 and the managed network protocol (MNP) layer, and the MNP layer 140. And NIC driver 150.

In one embodiment, MTFTP layer 110, UDP layer 120, IP layer 130 and MNP layer 140 may represent layered network drivers. In a synchronous network stack, the call layer will stop working while the call layer performs the requested operation. Conversely, by using the asynchronous network stack techniques described herein, a layer may request an operation from a lower layer using a token and perform tasks independent of the requested operation while the operation is performed by the lower layer. have.

For example, IP layer 130 may request the received IP packet and prepare a reception token and associated notification event. After passing the receiving token to the MNP layer 140, the IP layer 130 may be involved in other operations, such as, for example, preparing a packet for transmission. When a packet is received from the network and processed by the MNP layer 240, the received packet is stored and the MNP layer 240 sends the received packet through an event for a token received from the IP layer 140 to the IP layer. Notify 140. In response to the event, IP layer 140 processes the received packet.

In one embodiment, the embedded firmware agent 190 may cause the asynchronous network stack to operate in an operating system independent environment. 2 is a block diagram of one embodiment for an embedded firmware agent. As an example of FIG. 2, an embedded firmware agent is available from Intel Corporation of Santa Clara, California, as defined by the EFI specifications published on November 26, 2003, version 1.10, Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI). It may have an interface that conforms to As alternative embodiments, other firmware components may also be used.

In one embodiment, the embedded firmware agent may include an agent bus 200 coupled with the system interface 205. System interface 205 may provide an interface through which the embedded firmware agent communicates with a host system. The embedded firmware agent may further include an agent network interface 250 that is connected to an external network (not shown in FIG. 2) that allows the embedded firmware agent to communicate with a remote electronic device. Agent network interface 250 may support wired and / or wireless network communications.

In one embodiment, the embedded firmware agent further includes a dynamic memory 220 that may be coupled with the agent bus 200. Dynamic memory 220 provides storage for instructions and / or data to be used during operation. The embedded firmware agent may further include non-volatile storage 210, which may be coupled with the agent bus 200 to store static data and / or instructions. In one embodiment, the embedded firmware agent is in control circuitry coupled with an agent bus 200 that may perform control operations and / or execution instructions provided by dynamic memory 220 and / or non-volatile storage 210. 230.

As one embodiment, the embedded firmware agent may support independent operations for the host operating system. Such operations may be, for example, pre-boot operations performed before the operating system is loaded or before the operating system is loading but before transferring control to the operating system. These operations are also independent of the host operating system when the host operating system controls the host electronic device. For example, as an example, the embedded firmware agent may be connected to the host processor via an interrupt interface, e.g., the SMI pin of a Pentium processor or the PMI pin of an Itanium processor (typically, an xMI line). Other system shutdown signals may be used for other processors.

As indicated herein, hierarchical operations are made schedulable with the use of tokens, so that parallel techniques, including, for example, hyperthreading, multi-processor and multi-threading, are firmware level. It is also included in the design and may allow stack drivers to perform parallel operations. By way of example, with the use of interrupts or timers, the built-in firmware agent can be configured to asynchronous network so that network operations including, for example, a background web server or background telnet server can be supported in a pre-boot or operating system independent environment. Interact with the stack. The use of state and / or context that may be supported by the token may allow network stack layers to communicate state without the use of other channels, such as may be required by synchronous stack configurations.

3 is a conceptual flow diagram of one embodiment for a token transfer sequence between layers in an asynchronous network stack. In one embodiment, the higher network stack may generate or prepare a token to request special actions (ie, sending or receiving packets). As one embodiment, the token may include notification event and / or context information that can be used to communicate the state or context of the requested operation. In one embodiment, the higher stack layer may invoke a method or function on the lower stack layer to pass tokens to the lower stack layer.

In response to receiving the token, the lower stack layer may perform and / or schedule the requested operation (ie, transmit, receive) with the token. Upon completion of the requested operation, the lower stack layer may generate or prepare a signal event to communicate the completion of the requested operation to the embedded firmware agent. In one embodiment, the embedded firmware agent may notify the upper stack layer about the completion of the operation requested by the event notification. In response to receiving the event notification, the higher stack layer may perform any operation completion process and delete the token.

4 is a conceptual flow diagram of one embodiment for a sequence between layers of an asynchronous network stack to cancel a previously requested / scheduled operation using a token. In one embodiment, the higher network stack may generate or prepare a cancellation request to revoke a previously generated token. In one embodiment, the cancellation request may include token and / or context information that can be used to communicate the state or context of the token.

In one embodiment, the higher stack layer may invoke the methods or functions of the lower stack layer to forward cancellation requests to the lower stack layer. In response to receiving the cancellation request, the lower stack layer may abort the previous operation identified by the token and then create or prepare a signal event in the embedded firmware agent. In one embodiment, the embedded firmware agent may send a dispatch event signal to the higher stack layer, where the higher stack layer may perform any error handling and delete the token.

In one embodiment, the techniques of FIGS. 3 and 4 may be implemented with instructions executed by an electronic system. The commands may be stored by the electronic device or the commands may be received by the electronic device (ie, via a network connection). 5 is a block diagram of one embodiment for an electronic system. The electronic system shown in FIG. 5 is intended to represent a range of electronic systems such as, for example, computer systems, network access devices, and the like. Alternative electronic or non-electronic systems may include fewer and / or other components. The electronic system of FIG. 5 may represent a server device as well as one or more client devices.

The electronic system 500 includes a bus 505 or other communication device for communicating information and a processor 510 coupled to the bus 505 for processing information. While electronic system 500 is shown with a single processor, electronic system 500 may include multiple processors and / or co-processors. The electronic system 500 further includes a random access memory (RAM) or other dynamic storage device 520 (referred to as memory) coupled with the bus 505 for storing information and instructions to be executed by the processor 510. Memory 520 may also be used to store temporary changes or other intermediate information during instruction execution by processor 510.

Electronic device 500 further includes read only memory (ROM) and / or other static storage device 510 coupled with bus 5050 to store static information and instructions for processor 510. In one embodiment, the static storage device 530 may include an embedded firmware agent. In alternative embodiments, other firmware components may also be used.

The data storage device 540 is connected with the bus 505 to store information and commands. A data storage device 540, such as a magnetic disk or an optical disk, and a corresponding drive may be connected with the electronic system 500.

The electronic system 500 may also be connected via a bus 505 to a display device 550 such as a cathode ray tube (CRT) or a liquid crystal display (LCD) to display information to a user. An alphanumeric input device 560, including alphanumeric and other keys, is typically connected to bus 505 to communicate information and command selections to processor 510. . Another type of user input device communicates direction information and command selections to the processor 510 and cursor controls 570 such as a mouse, trackball, or cursor direction keys to control cursor movement for the display 550. )to be. The electronic system 500 further includes a network interface 580 that provides access to a network, such as a local area network. The network interface 580 may further include one or more antennas 585 that provide a wireless network interface according to any protocol known in the art.

Instructions may be used such as magnetic disks, ROM integrated circuits, CD-ROMs, DVDs, or the like via a remote connection (i.e., to a network via network interface 580) to provide wired or wireless access to one or more electronically accessible media. From storage to memory. As an alternative embodiment, hard-wired circuitry may be used instead of or in combination with software instructions. Thus, the execution sequence of instructions is not limited to any particular combination of hardware circuitry and software instructions.

Electronically-accessible media provide (ie, store and / or transmit) content (ie, computer executable instructions) in a form readable by an electronic device (ie, computer, personal digital assistant, mobile phone). It includes any mechanism. For example, machine-accessible media include read only memory (ROM); Random access memory (RAM); Magnetic disk storage media; Optical storage media; Flash memory devices; Electronic, optical, acoustical or other forms of propagated signals (ie, carrier waves, infrared signals, digital signals), and the like.

Reference herein to "one embodiment" or "an embodiment" means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present invention. The appearances of the phrase "one embodiment" in various places in the specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment.

While the invention has been described in terms of various embodiments, those skilled in the art will recognize that the invention is not limited to the embodiments described, but modifications and variations may be made within the spirit and scope of the appended claims. Therefore, the description is to be regarded as illustrative instead of limiting.

Claims (20)

Transmitting a request for a first network operation from a first network stack layer to a second network stack layer using a token-based asynchronous inter-layer communication protocol in an operating system independent environment; Performing, by the first network stack layer, a second network operation before receiving the first network operation complete indication; And Transmitting a completion indication of the first network operation from the second network stack layer to the first network stack layer through an embedded firmware agent in response to completing the first network operation. How to include. The method of claim 1, Wherein the first network stack operation comprises a data transfer operation. The method of claim 1, And said first network stack operation comprises receiving data over a network connection. The method of claim 1, And said operating system independent environment comprises a pre-boot execution environment. The method of claim 1, The first network stack layer and the second network stack layer are both communicatively coupled with a firmware agent embedded in a host system supporting an asynchronous token-based network stack. The method of claim 1, The completion indication includes at least the token. An embedded firmware agent capable of functioning in an operating system independent manner; Send a request for a first network operation from a higher network stack layer to a lower network stack layer using a request including a token, and before receiving the first network operation complete indication by the higher network stack layer; The embedded firmware to perform an operation and transmit an indication of the completion of the first network operation from the second network stack layer to the first network stack layer via an embedded firmware agent in response to completion of the first network operation. Control circuitry communicatively connected to the agent to support token-based asynchronous interlayer communication protocols Device comprising a. The method of claim 7, wherein Wherein the first network stack operation comprises a data transfer operation. The method of claim 7, wherein And said first network stack operation comprises receiving data over a network connection. The method of claim 7, wherein And the operating system independent environment comprises a pre-boot execution environment. The method of claim 7, wherein And the completion indication comprises at least the token. An article comprising a computer-readable medium having stored thereon instructions, The instructions, when executed, cause one or more processing components to: Send a request for a first network operation from a first network stack layer to a second network stack layer using a token-based asynchronous inter-layer communication protocol in an operating system independent environment; Perform a second network operation before receiving an indication of completion of the first network operation by the first network stack layer; In response to completing the first network operation to send the first network operation complete indication from the second network stack layer to the first network stack layer via an embedded firmware agent. Goods to say. The method of claim 12, And said first network stack operation comprises a data transfer operation. The method of claim 12, And said first network stack operation comprises receiving data over a network connection. The method of claim 12, The operating system independent environment includes a pre-boot execution environment. The method of claim 12, And the completion indication comprises at least the token. One or more processing components; A network interface coupled with the one or more processing components; And Computer-readable media associated with the one or more processing components and storing instructions Including; The instructions, when executed, cause the one or more processing components for a first network operation from a first network stack layer to a second network stack layer using a token-based asynchronous inter-layer communication protocol in an operating system independent environment. Send a request, perform a second network operation before receiving the completion indication of the first network operation by the first network stack layer, and through the embedded firmware agent in response to the completion of the first network operation; And transmit the first network operation complete indication from a second network stack layer to the first network stack layer. The method of claim 17, Wherein the first network stack operation comprises a data transfer operation. The method of claim 17, The first network stack operation includes receiving data over a network connection. The method of claim 17, The operating system independent environment includes a pre-boot execution environment.

Images