CN102169439A - Data transmission system - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention provides a data transmission system, which comprises a remote control end and a server end. The remote control end can provide a firmware update data to the server end. The server end comprises a memory at least divided into a first area and a second area, when the firmware update data is transmitted and overwritten to the second area, the first area is updated with overwriting state data and overwriting progress data, and the server end feeds back information for the remote control end to determine to transmit complete or residual firmware update data according to the overwriting state data. By adopting the data transmission system, the server can require the remote control end to continuously transmit the rest firmware and firmware update data after the firmware and firmware transmission program is interrupted, thereby saving the time for finishing overwriting data, reducing the invalid overwriting times of the memory, prolonging the service life of the memory and further improving the working efficiency and stability of the server.

Description

data transmission system

technical field

The invention relates to a server system, in particular to a server system for transmitting data.

Background technique

Traditionally, when updating the firmware of the Peripheral Interface Controller (PIC) of the server, it is necessary to completely transmit the firmware data to the server at the local end at one time. After a Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) in the server receives the complete firmware data, the Baseboard Management Controller can rewrite the firmware data into a memory.

During the process of overwriting firmware data to the internal memory, once the server is powered off or other special conditions occur, the baseboard management control unit stops the operation of overwriting the firmware data to the internal memory. After the server resumes normal operation and performs the above-mentioned firmware update again, the server will always request to start transferring the firmware data from the beginning regardless of the progress of the previous firmware data being written to the memory.

However, since the above-mentioned firmware update speed is limited, if the server requests to start transferring the firmware data from the beginning after the above-mentioned firmware transfer process is interrupted, it will not only waste the time when the previous firmware data has been overwritten to the memory At the same time, it also increases the number of invalid overwrites of the memory, reduces the service life of the memory, and then reduces the working efficiency and stability of the server.

Therefore, how to develop a solution that can continue to overwrite data after power failure and overcome the above-mentioned inconvenience and disadvantages is really an important issue that the relevant industry cannot delay at present.

Contents of the invention

An object of the present invention is to disclose a server system that can continue to overwrite data after a power failure, so as to avoid the time required for overwriting firmware data when the server system needs to retransmit firmware data after the firmware transmission program is interrupted. Waste and invalid memory overwriting times increase, thereby reducing the service life of the memory and the working efficiency and stability of the server.

The data transmission system includes a remote control terminal and a server terminal. The remote control terminal is used to provide a firmware update data. The server side includes a network transmission unit, a baseboard management controller, a memory and a peripheral interface controller. The baseboard management controller is connected to the remote control terminal through the network transmission unit. The memory is divided into at least a first area and a second area, and the first area is used to place overwrite status data and overwrite progress data. The second area is used to store the firmware update data. The peripheral interface controller is electrically connected to the memory and the baseboard management controller.

Among them, the peripheral interface controller reads the overwriting status data and judges whether the remote control end has transmitted complete firmware update data, and the baseboard management controller returns the judgment result of the peripheral interface controller to the remote control end, so that the remote control The terminal transmits complete or remaining firmware update data to the server according to the judgment result.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the server further includes a BIOS module and a BIOS memory. The BIOS memory is electrically connected to the BIOS module and the peripheral interface controller. The firmware update data is used to update the firmware in the peripheral interface controller or the BIOS memory.

In another embodiment of the present invention, the remaining firmware update data includes a plurality of consecutive data packets, wherein these data packets respectively have consecutive numbers, and the overwriting progress data records the last time sent in the previous firmware transfer procedure. The number of the incoming data packet.

In this embodiment, when the peripheral interface controller overwrites the firmware update data to the second area, the overwrite status data in the first area has information of "the firmware transfer process is not completed". In addition, the peripheral interface controller requests the remote control terminal to transmit remaining firmware update data according to the overwriting state data of the first area.

In yet another embodiment of the present invention, after the peripheral interface controller overwrites the firmware update data to the second area, the overwrite status data in the first area contains information of "the firmware transfer process has been completed". In addition, the peripheral interface controller requests the remote control terminal to transmit another complete firmware update data according to the overwriting state data of the first area.

To sum up, the present invention allows the server to request the remote control end to continue to transmit the remaining firmware update data after the firmware transmission process is interrupted. Therefore, the time for overwriting data can be saved, and the number of invalid overwriting of the memory can be reduced, the service life of the memory can be increased, and the working efficiency and stability of the server can be improved.

Description of drawings

Readers will have a clearer understanding of various aspects of the present invention after reading the detailed description of the present invention with reference to the accompanying drawings. in,

FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of an embodiment of the data transmission system of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the data transmission system of the present invention to implement the method for continuously overwriting data after a power failure in this embodiment.

[Description of main component symbols]

100: server side 421: first area

101: Server 422: Overwrite status data

200: Management module 423: Overwrite progress data

210: Network Transmission Unit 424: Second Area

220: Baseboard Management Controller 425: Data packet

300: Motherboard 430: BIOS module

400: peripheral interface control module 431: BIOS memory

410: peripheral interface controller 600: remote control terminal

411: Firmware update procedure 201-207: Steps

420: memory

Detailed ways

The following will clearly illustrate the spirit of the present invention with illustrations and detailed descriptions. After those skilled in the art understand the embodiments of the present invention, they can be changed and modified by the technology taught in the present invention, which does not depart from the present invention. spirit and scope.

The present invention provides a data transmission system, by recording the firmware overwriting progress of the previous firmware transmission program, so as to continue to overwrite the firmware data, and avoid overwriting the firmware data from the beginning.

As shown in FIG. 1 , FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of an embodiment of the data transmission system of the present invention. In an embodiment of the present invention, the data transmission system includes a server end 100 and at least one remote control end 600 . A server 101 of the server 100 has at least a management module 200 and a motherboard 300 . The management module 200 is at least provided with a network transmission unit 210 (Network interface connector) and a baseboard management controller 220 (BMC). The motherboard 300 has a peripheral interface control (PIC) module 400, and the peripheral interface control module 400 has a memory 420 and a peripheral interface controller 410 (PIC).

The network transmission unit 210 is electrically connected to the baseboard management controller 220, and can connect to multiple remote devices (such as file servers, etc.) body update data. The baseboard management controller 220 is electrically connected to the network transmission unit 210 for electrically connecting the remote control terminal 600 through the network transmission unit 210 to request the remote control terminal 600 to provide firmware update data. The baseboard management controller 220 is electrically connected to the peripheral interface controller 410 , for example, through an I2C bus, for controlling the peripheral interface controller 410 to perform firmware update.

The memory 420 is, for example, a flash memory 420 (FLASH), which can be independently installed on the motherboard 300 relative to the peripheral interface controller 410 and electrically connected to the peripheral interface controller 410 . A first area 421 and a second area 424 are pre-divided in the memory 420 , and the first area 421 can be used to place an overwrite status data 422 and an overwrite progress data 423 . The second area 424 can store the above-mentioned firmware update data. The peripheral interface controller 410 is electrically connected to the memory 420 and the BMC 220, and has a firmware therein.

In another variation of this embodiment, the first area can be a memory unit (not shown) built in the peripheral interface controller 410 for the peripheral interface controller 410 to directly read, write, and rewrite the state data 422 and Progress data 423 is overwritten.

In addition, the motherboard 300 of this embodiment can also be provided with a BIOS module 430 and a BIOS memory 431 . The BIOS module 430 is electrically connected to the peripheral interface controller 410 . The BIOS memory 431 is electrically connected to the BIOS module 430 and the peripheral interface controller 410 . The BIOS memory 431 can be used to place the BIOS firmware for reading when the BIOS module 430 starts. The firmware update data in the second area 424 can be an update firmware of a peripheral interface controller 410 and/or an update firmware of a BIOS module 430 according to the actual situation.

As shown in FIG. 2 , FIG. 2 shows the operation flowchart of the method for continuing to overwrite data after a power failure in the data transmission system of the present invention under this embodiment. The server 101 then proceeds according to the following steps: Step (201) when the server 101 is turned on, read the rewriting status data 422 and the rewriting progress data 423 in the internal memory 420:

In this step, when the server 101 of the server 100 is turned on, the baseboard management controller 220 , the network transmission unit 210 , the BIOS module 430 , the memory 420 and the peripheral interface controller 410 will respectively enter a startup procedure.

Wherein, when the BIOS module 430 enters the startup program, the BIOS module 430 reads the BIOS firmware in the BIOS memory 431 .

When the peripheral interface controller 410 enters the startup procedure, the peripheral interface controller 410 reads its own firmware, wherein the startup procedure of the peripheral interface controller 410 includes reading the overwriting status data 422 and overwriting progress data in the first area 421 423.

Step (202) waits for an instruction to perform a first-class transfer procedure:

After the above startup procedure, the peripheral interface controller 410 works normally according to its firmware. When the peripheral interface controller 410 receives an instruction of a firmware transfer procedure from the baseboard management controller 220, the peripheral interface controller 410 judges whether the firmware transfer procedure is completed according to the overwriting status data 422, which means that the peripheral interface controller 410 It can be determined whether the remote control terminal 600 has sent complete firmware update data. Specifically, the overwrite status data 422 in the first area 421 of the memory 420 may be approximately one byte in size, for example, "True", indicating that the firmware transfer process has been completed, or "False", indicating that the firmware transfer process has been completed. The program is not complete.

Step (203) judges whether the firmware transfer program is completed, if so, proceed to step (206), otherwise, proceed to step (204):

In this step, since the firmware transfer procedure may be interrupted due to power failure or other factors, the peripheral interface controller 410 needs to first determine whether the firmware transfer procedure has been completed.

Step (204) Feedback the first information to the remote control terminal 600 according to the overwriting progress data 423, so that the remote control terminal 600 can continue to transmit the remaining firmware update data;

In this step, when the peripheral interface controller 410 judges that the firmware transfer procedure is not completed according to the overwriting status data 422, the baseboard management controller 220 returns a first message to the above-mentioned according to the judgment result of the peripheral interface controller 410 Remote control terminal 600.

When the remote control terminal 600 obtains the first information, the remote control terminal 600 will know the information of “the firmware transfer process is not completed” and the overwriting progress data of the first area 421 of the current memory 420 . The remote control terminal 600 transmits the firmware update data to the server terminal 100 accordingly.

Specifically, the remote control terminal 600 parses the firmware update data into a plurality of consecutive data packets 425 , and these consecutive data packets 425 respectively have consecutive numbers. In this way, the overwrite progress data 423 in the memory 420 can be about four bytes in size, for example, it can record the serial number of the last data packet 425 sent in the previous firmware transfer program (for example, out of the total 100 packets 60th packet of ).

Step (205) overwrites the remaining firmware update data into the memory 420:

In this step, when the remote control terminal 600 obtains the first information, the remote control terminal 600 is based on the numbering of the data packet 425 in the overwriting progress data 423, and all data starting from the next data packet 425 after the numbering of the data packet 425 The packets 425 (from the 61st packet to the 100th packet in the above example) are transmitted to the server 101 in sequence.

Specifically, when the peripheral interface controller 410 overwrites the continuous data packets 425 to the second area 424, the peripheral interface controller 410 records the information of "the firmware transfer process is not completed" to the overwriting status of the first area 421 Data 422. When the peripheral interface controller 410 overwrites a continuous data packet 425 to the second area 424 each time, the peripheral interface controller 410 updates the serial number of the data packet 425 to the overwriting progress data 423 of the first area 421 . In this way, when the firmware transfer process is interrupted due to power failure or other factors, the peripheral interface controller 410 can judge that the previous firmware transfer process is not completed, and vice versa. Next, go to step (207).

In another embodiment, the above data packet 425 may be, for example, an Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) data packet. After the remote control terminal 600 sends the remaining data packet 425 to the baseboard management controller 220 via the network transmission unit 210, the baseboard management controller 220 parses the remaining data packet 425 into an intelligent platform management bus IPMB (Intelligent Platform Management Bus, IPMB) data packet 425 for the peripheral interface controller 410 to overwrite the firmware update data into the second area 424 .

Step (206) According to the overwriting progress data 423, feedback the second information to the remote control terminal 600, so that the remote control terminal 600 can transmit a complete firmware update data and overwrite it to the memory 420 in sequence: in this step, when When the peripheral interface controller 410 judges that the firmware transfer procedure has been completed according to the overwriting status data 422 , the baseboard management controller 220 feeds back the second information to the remote control terminal 600 according to the judgment result of the peripheral interface controller 410 .

When the remote control terminal 600 obtains the second information, the remote control terminal 600 knows that the firmware transfer procedure has been completed, and then transmits the complete firmware update data to the server terminal 100, wherein the remote control terminal 600. The complete firmware update data is sequentially parsed into a plurality of continuous data packets 425 and transmitted to the second area 424 in the memory 420 . These consecutive data packets 425 have consecutive numbers respectively.

Specifically, when the peripheral interface controller 410 overwrites the continuous data packets 425 to the second area 424, the peripheral interface controller 410 records the information of "the firmware transfer process is not completed" to the overwriting status of the first area 421 Data 422. When the peripheral interface controller 410 overwrites a continuous data packet 425 to the second area 424 each time, the peripheral interface controller 410 updates the serial number of the data packet 425 to the overwriting progress data 423 of the first area 421 .

In this way, when the firmware transfer process is interrupted due to power failure or other factors, the peripheral interface controller 410 can judge that the previous firmware transfer process is not completed, and vice versa. Next, go to step (207).

The aforementioned data packet 425 may be, for example, an intelligent platform management interface data packet. When the remote control terminal 600 sends these complete and continuous IPMI data packets 425 to the BMC 220 via the network transmission unit 210 . The BMC 220 parses these IPMI data packets 425 into IPMB data packets 425 and provides the peripheral interface controller 410 to overwrite the firmware update data into the second area 424 .

Step (207) After completing the transmission and overwriting of the firmware update data to the memory 420, use the complete firmware update data to perform firmware update:

In this step, after the peripheral interface controller 410 completes the overwriting of the data packet 425 to the second area 424, the peripheral interface controller 410 records the information of "the firmware transfer process has been completed" to the overwriting status of the first area 421 Data 422.

Wherein, when the remote control terminal 600 completes the transmission of the firmware update data, and the peripheral interface controller 410 also completes the overwriting of the data packet 425 to the second area 424, the peripheral interface controller 410 first records "The firmware transmission procedure has been completed." ” into the overwrite status data 422 of the first area 421 and the peripheral interface controller 410 clears the overwrite progress data 423 of the first area 421 .

In this way, the peripheral interface controller 410 can know that the previous firmware transfer process has been successfully completed.

Afterwards, when the firmware update data is a firmware for updating the peripheral interface controller 410, the peripheral interface controller 410 reads the firmware update data in the second area 424 according to a firmware update program 411, and updates the peripheral The interface controller 410 itself performs firmware updates.

Alternatively, when the firmware update data is a firmware for updating the BIOS module 430, the BIOS module 430 requires the peripheral interface controller 410 to transmit the firmware update data in the second area 424 to the BIOS memory 431 for further processing. A firmware update for the BIOS module 430 .

To sum up, since the memory 420 is a non-volatile memory, the overwriting status data 422, overwriting progress data 423, and firmware update data will not disappear due to power failure after being overwritten and updated to the memory 420. The control terminal 600 can know whether to transmit complete or remaining firmware update data through the feedback from the baseboard management controller 220 , so as to achieve the purpose of continuing to update after power-off and power-on again.

Therefore, the time for overwriting data can be saved, and at the same time, the times of invalid overwriting of the memory 420 can be reduced, the service life of the memory 420 can be improved, and the working efficiency and stability of the server can be improved.

Hereinbefore, specific embodiments of the present invention have been described with reference to the accompanying drawings. However, those skilled in the art can understand that without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention, various changes and substitutions can be made to the specific embodiments of the present invention. These changes and substitutions all fall within the scope defined by the claims of the present invention.

Claims (7)

1. A data transmission system, characterized in that the data transmission system comprises:

a remote control end for providing a firmware update data; and

a server side, comprising:

a network transmission unit;

a baseboard management controller connected to the remote control end through the network transmission unit;

the memory is divided into at least a first area and a second area, the first area is used for placing overwriting state data and overwriting progress data, and the second area is used for storing the firmware update data; and

a peripheral interface controller electrically connected to the memory and the baseboard management controller,

when the peripheral interface controller receives the firmware update data from the substrate management controller and overwrites the firmware update data to the second region, the peripheral interface controller updates the overwrite status data and the overwrite progress data of the first region, wherein the peripheral interface controller reads the overwrite status data and accordingly determines whether the remote control end has transmitted the complete firmware update data, and the substrate management controller feeds back the determination result of the peripheral interface controller to the remote control end so that the remote control end transmits the complete or the remaining firmware update data according to the determination result.

2. The data transmission system of claim 1, wherein the server further comprises a server, the server further comprises a management module and a motherboard, wherein the network transmission unit and the baseboard management controller are disposed in the management module, the motherboard has a peripheral interface control module, and the peripheral interface controller and the memory are disposed in the peripheral interface control module.

3. The data transmission system according to claim 1, wherein said data transmission system further comprises a BIOS module and a BIOS memory electrically connected to said BIOS module and said peripheral interface controller, wherein said firmware update data is used to update firmware in said peripheral interface controller or said BIOS memory.

4. The data transmission system of claim 1, wherein said firmware update data is divided into a plurality of data packets, wherein said data packets have consecutive numbers respectively, and said overwrite progress data records the number of said data packet last sent in the previous transmission of said firmware.

5. The data transmission system as claimed in claim 4, wherein the overwrite status data of the first area is updated when the peripheral interface controller overwrites the firmware update data to the second area, the overwrite status data being updated in real time each time the peripheral interface controller receives one of the data packets.

6. The data transmission system according to claim 5, wherein said peripheral interface controller requests said remote control end to send said remaining firmware update data according to said overwrite status data of said first area.

7. The data transmission system according to claim 1, wherein the overwrite status data of the first region is a complete status after the peripheral interface controller overwrites all of the firmware update data to the second region.

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