JP2008310567A - Failure diagnostic method and electronic device failure diagnostic system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To diagnose failure of an electronic device without changing the firmware of a diagnostic processor according to a configuration of an LSI of the electronic device or its change. <P>SOLUTION: At the occurrence of failure, the diagnostic processor 003 acquires failure log data 013 and a failure indication dictionary 014 from a chip set previously having the failure indication dictionary wherein a situation of a failure log and a failure part are associated, and analyzes the failure log data 013 according to the failure indication dictionary 014 to specify the failure part. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a failure diagnosis method and an electronic device failure diagnosis system for diagnosing a failure of an electronic device such as a server device.

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a diagnostic processor (hereinafter referred to as SP) having a fault location indication function is mounted on an electronic device such as a server device (see, for example, Patent Document 1 and Patent Document 2). Such a conventional fault location indication method using SP will be described with reference to FIG. In FIG. 7, 030 is SP, 031 is a failure indication dictionary (BID), 032 is a diagnostic bus, 033 is a chipset, 034 is a north bridge, 035 is a south bridge, and 036 is a memory controller.
When a failure occurs in the server device, the SP 030 collects a failure log from the chipset 032 via the diagnostic bus 032 and points out the failure location according to the failure indication dictionary 031.

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-187482 JP 2002-342121 A

However, the conventional failure indication dictionary has the following problems. The first problem is that since the failure indication dictionary is included in the SP firmware, it cannot cope with the change of the chip set. When the chipset is changed, especially when the failure log format is changed, it is necessary to update the firmware corresponding to the chipset.
The second problem is that the chipset and the failure indication dictionary correspond one-on-one, which makes it difficult to manage SP firmware at sites that operate multiple server devices with different versions and configurations. It is.

  As described above, the conventional failure indication dictionary is mainly included in the SP firmware, so that when a version upgrade of LSI or addition of a new module occurs, a new server configuration is supported. It was necessary to replace the firmware with the dictionary. For this reason, when there are sites that operate a plurality of server apparatuses with different revisions of the component modules, the management of the applied firmware becomes complicated, and the initial analysis of the failure log may not be possible due to an error in the application of the firmware.

  An object of the present invention is to provide a failure diagnosis method and an electronic device failure diagnosis system capable of performing failure diagnosis of an electronic device without changing the firmware of a diagnostic processor in accordance with the configuration of the LSI of the electronic device or the change thereof. There is.

The failure diagnosis method of the present invention is a failure indication dictionary in which a diagnosis processor acquires failure log data and the failure indication dictionary from an LSI having in advance a failure indication dictionary in which a failure log status and a failure location are associated with each other when a failure occurs. The acquisition procedure and the diagnosis processor include a failure location identification procedure for analyzing the failure log data according to the failure indication dictionary and identifying a failure location.
In addition, one configuration example of the failure diagnosis method of the present invention further includes a failure processing procedure acquisition procedure in which the diagnosis processor acquires a failure processing procedure that defines a failure processing procedure from the LSI when a failure occurs, The diagnostic processor includes a failure processing execution procedure for executing failure processing according to the result of the analysis and the failure processing procedure manual.

The electronic device failure diagnosis system according to the present invention includes an LSI of an electronic device that has a failure indication dictionary that associates a failure log status with a failure location in advance, and the failure log data and the failure indication dictionary from the LSI when a failure occurs. And a failure location dictionary acquisition unit for analyzing the failure log data in accordance with the failure indication dictionary and identifying a failure location.
In addition, one configuration example of the electronic device failure diagnosis system of the present invention further includes a failure processing procedure acquisition means for acquiring a failure processing procedure defining a failure processing procedure from the LSI when a failure occurs, and a result of the analysis And fault processing execution means for executing fault processing in accordance with the fault processing procedure manual.

In the present invention, the failure indication dictionary is provided in the LSI (chipset) itself of the electronic device that presents the failure log, and when a failure occurs, the diagnosis processor acquires both the failure log data and the failure indication dictionary from the LSI. The diagnostic processor has an interpreter function for interpreting a failure indication dictionary obtained from the LSI, and analyzes failure log data according to the failure indication dictionary obtained from the LSI to identify the failure location. Thereby, in this invention, there exists an effect as described below.
The first effect is that since the failure indication dictionary is mounted on the LSI, the occurrence of mismatch between the failure log and the failure indication dictionary can be prevented.
The second effect is that the failure indication dictionary is mounted on the LSI. Therefore, even if the failure log format is changed due to LSI rework or the like, the failure diagnosis of the electronic device is performed without updating the firmware of the diagnosis processor. It is possible to do.
The third effect is that even if a new LSI is mounted in the electronic device in the future, the failure indication dictionary is provided on the LSI side, so that the failure diagnosis of the electronic device can be performed without updating the firmware of the diagnostic processor. .
The fourth effect is that when the electronic device is configured as a separately insertable / removable module for each LSI, the combination of the modules constituting the device A may be different from the combination of the modules constituting the device B. Even in such a case, since the failure indication dictionary exists on the LSI side (module side), failure diagnosis of the electronic device can be performed without preparing individual firmware for each electronic device.

  In the present invention, when the failure occurs, the diagnostic processor obtains the failure processing procedure document from the LSI, and executes the failure processing according to the analysis result and the failure processing procedure document. It is possible to prevent an error in fault processing due to mismatch.

[First Embodiment]
Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a server apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention.
In FIG. 1, 001 is a server device, 002 is a CPU, 003 is a diagnostic processor (hereinafter referred to as SP), 004 is one of typical LSIs (chip sets) used in the server device 001, and the CPU 002 Northbridge to be connected, 005 is one of the chipset, a network switch that enables connection to other nodes (not shown), 006 is one of the chipset, southbridge that is connected to the network switch 005, 007 is a memory controller which is one of the chip sets, 008 is a diagnostic bus which is an interface for connecting SP003, North Bridge 004, Network Switch 005, South Bridge 006 and Memory Controller 007, 009 is a memory, 010 is South Bridge 006 Connected to A force interface (I / O).

In FIG. 1, for example, three CPU002 and two input / output interfaces 010 are provided.
The SP 003 uses the diagnostic bus 008 to initialize the north bridge 004, the network switch 005, the south bridge 006, and the memory controller 007, and collect and analyze logs when a failure occurs. This SP003 constitutes a failure indication dictionary acquisition means and a failure location identification means.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram in which only the fault location indicating function unit is extracted from the configuration of the server apparatus 001 in FIG. The SP003 has an interpreter (hereinafter referred to as IP) 011 that interprets the failure indication dictionary. IP011 can be realized by firmware.
When SP003 detects a failure by a failure report signal 012 from each chipset (north bridge 004, network switch 005, southbridge 006, and memory controller 007), it uses the diagnostic bus 008 to send a failure log 013 and The failure indication dictionary 014 is read out.

Here, as an example, the failure log 013 read from the north bridge 004, the failure indication dictionary 014 read from the log 1, BID1, the failure log 013 read from the south bridge 006, the failure indication dictionary 014 read from the log 2, BID2, and the network switch 005, respectively. Log 013 and failure indication dictionary 014 are Log3 and BID3, respectively, failure log 013 read from memory controller 007, and failure indication dictionary 014 are Log4 and BID4, respectively.
The SP003 firmware implements IP011 for interpreting the read fault indication dictionary 014. The IP011 interprets the fault log 013 according to the fault indication dictionary 014 read from each chipset, and points out the fault location. The signal 015 is output.

In this way, in this embodiment, the failure indication dictionary is provided in the unit that reports the failure log. Therefore, even if the failure log format is changed due to an LSI change or addition, the SP003 firmware is installed. Failure indications can be made without replacement.
Although the configuration of the embodiment has been described in detail above, the chip set of FIGS. 1 and 2 is well known to those skilled in the art and is not directly related to the present invention, so the detailed configuration of the chip set is omitted. To do. Also, since the detailed structure of the firmware of SP003 in FIG. 2 is not directly related to the present invention, its detailed configuration is omitted.

  In this embodiment, SP003 is connected to each chip set (north bridge 004, network switch 005, south bridge 006, memory controller 007) with a one-to-one interface. You may connect in the shape. Further, the number and functions of the chip sets are not directly related to the essence of the present invention, and thus are not limited to the configurations shown in FIGS.

Next, the operation of SP003 when a failure occurs in FIG. 2 will be described using the flowchart shown in FIG.
In FIG. 2, when the failure report signal 012 is asserted, the SP 003 uses the failure report signal 012 as a trigger for a failure interrupt (step S015 in FIG. 3), and the failure log Log1 and the failure indication from the north bridge 004 through the diagnostic bus 008. Dictionary BID1 is read (step S016). Similarly, SP003 reads out the failure log Log2 and the failure indication dictionary BID2 from the south bridge 006 (step S017), reads out the failure log Log3 and the failure indication dictionary BID3 from the network switch 005 (step S018), and outputs the failure log from the memory controller 007. Log4 and failure indication dictionary BID4 are read (step S019).

  FIG. 4 shows an example of the failure log 013. Generally, the LSI failure log 013 is composed of a bit string of several bytes, and the meaning of the failure is assigned to each bit. The example of FIG. 4 shows the failure log 013 of the North Bridge 004. This failure log 013 is composed of 16 bits from bit0 to bit15.

  FIG. 5 shows an example of the failure indication dictionary 014. The failure indication dictionary 014 is used to point out a failure location based on the failure log, and is used to determine the failure location based on the lighting / extinguishing status of each bit in the failure log. The example of FIG. 5 shows the failure indication dictionary 014 of the North Bridge 004. Note that “0x **” in FIG. 5 indicates that ** is a hexadecimal number. In this failure indication dictionary 014, if the value of the failure log 013 read from the north bridge 004 is 0x01, the failure location is A, and if the failure log 013 value is 0x02, the failure location is B, and the value of the failure log 013 If 0 is 0x03, the failure location is C.

  The SP 003 that has read the failure log 013 and the failure indication dictionary 014 from all the chip sets to be collected from the log analyzes the failure log 013 based on the failure indication dictionary 014, identifies the failure location, for example, a user of the server device A failure location indication signal 015 for indicating the failure location is output (step S020).

[Second Embodiment]
Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described. FIG. 6 shows the configuration of the fault location indicating function unit in the server device of the present embodiment. Also in the present embodiment, the configuration of the entire server device is the same as that of the first embodiment, but in the present embodiment, the present invention is extended to failure processing of the server device. SP003 of the present embodiment constitutes a failure processing procedure acquisition unit and a failure processing execution unit in addition to the failure indication dictionary acquisition unit and the failure location specifying unit.

  In the present embodiment, when the failure report signal 012 is asserted, the SP003 firmware (IP011a) causes a failure from each chipset (north bridge 004, network switch 005, south bridge 006, memory controller 007) through the diagnostic bus 008. The log 013 and the fault indication dictionary 014 are read out, and the fault processing procedure manual 016 is read out from each chip set.

  In the example of FIG. 6, as an example, the failure handling procedure 016 read from the north bridge 004 is Proc1, the failure handling procedure 016 read from the south bridge 006 is Proc2, the failure handling procedure 016 read from the network switch 005 is Proc3, and the memory controller The failure processing procedure document 016 read from 007 is Proc4.

The SP003 firmware analyzes the failure log 013 based on the read failure indication dictionary 014 and outputs a failure location indication signal 015 indicating the failure location. Then, in accordance with the read failure processing procedure document 016, for example, power off or fan A failure processing instruction signal 017 for designating appropriate failure processing such as increasing the number of rotations is output to the chipset. Thereby, failure processing is performed in the chip set.
As described above, in this embodiment, since the procedure set defining the failure processing is also provided on the chipset (LSI) side, the error in the failure processing due to the mismatch between the server device configuration and the diagnostic processor firmware is prevented. can do.

  The server devices of the first and second embodiments can be realized by a computer having a CPU, a storage device, and an external interface, and a program for controlling these hardware resources. In such a computer, a program for realizing the fault diagnosis method of the present invention is provided in a state of being recorded on a recording medium such as a flexible disk, a CD-ROM, a DVD-ROM, or a memory card. The CPU writes the program read from the recording medium into the storage device, and executes the above-described processing according to the program.

  In the first and second embodiments, the SP does not need to exist inside the server device, and may exist outside the server device as a single device so that a plurality of server devices can be controlled.

  The present invention can be applied to a technique for diagnosing a failure of an electronic device such as a server device.

It is a block diagram which shows the structure of the server apparatus which concerns on the 1st Embodiment of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows the structure of the fault location indication function part in the server apparatus of FIG. It is a flowchart which shows operation | movement of the diagnostic processor at the time of the failure generation in the 1st Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows an example of the failure log in the 1st Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows one example of the failure indication dictionary in the 1st Embodiment of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows the structure of the fault location indication function part which concerns on the 2nd Embodiment of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows the structure of the fault location indication function part in the conventional server apparatus.

Explanation of symbols

  001 ... Server device, 002 ... CPU, 003 ... Diagnostic processor, 004 ... North bridge, 005 ... Network switch, 006 ... South bridge, 007 ... Memory controller, 008 ... Diagnostic bus, 009 ... Memory, 010 ... I / O interface, 011 , 011a ... interpreter, 012 ... failure report signal, 013 ... failure log, 014 ... failure indication dictionary, 015 ... failure location indication signal, 016 ... failure processing procedure, 017 ... failure processing instruction signal.

Claims (4)

In a fault diagnosis method for an electronic device having an LSI,
A failure indication dictionary acquisition procedure for acquiring a failure log data and the failure indication dictionary from an LSI having a failure indication dictionary in which a diagnosis processor associates a failure log status and a failure location in advance when a failure occurs;
A failure diagnosis method comprising: the diagnosis processor comprising a failure location specifying procedure for analyzing the failure log data according to the failure indication dictionary and specifying a failure location. The failure diagnosis method according to claim 1,
Further, when a failure occurs, the diagnostic processor acquires a failure processing procedure document that defines a failure processing procedure from the LSI, and a failure processing procedure document acquisition procedure;
A failure diagnosis method, wherein the diagnosis processor comprises a failure processing execution procedure for executing failure processing in accordance with the result of the analysis and the failure processing procedure manual. An LSI of an electronic device having in advance a failure indication dictionary in which a failure log status and a failure location are associated with each other;
Fault indication dictionary acquisition means for acquiring fault log data and the fault indication dictionary from the LSI when a fault occurs;
An electronic device failure diagnosis system comprising: failure location specifying means for analyzing the failure log data according to the failure indication dictionary and specifying a failure location. The electronic device failure diagnosis system according to claim 3,
Further, a failure processing procedure acquisition means for acquiring a failure processing procedure defining a failure processing procedure from the LSI when a failure occurs,
An electronic device failure diagnosis system comprising failure processing execution means for executing failure processing according to the analysis result and the failure processing procedure manual.

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