JP2010181995A - Diagnostic system, network device, and diagnostic program - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a diagnostic system which easily diagnoses a connection failure between devices on a network. <P>SOLUTION: An AV device 20 uses a generation program 231 to generate network device information having its own IP and network addresses and other device information including the MAC (Media Access Control) addresses of other devices belonging to the same sub-network, and then writes the network device information and a diagnostic program 232 to a USB memory device 30. A user mounts the USB memory device 30 on a personal computer (PC), in which a connection failure to the AV device 20 occurs, and installs the diagnostic program to the PC. The diagnostic program diagnoses the connection condition between the PC and the AV device 20 by using the network device information, the information on the location of the PC and the identification information on the PC, and then reports the result of the diagnosis. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2010,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a diagnostic system, and more particularly to a diagnostic system including a computer device connectable to a network and a network device typified by home appliances such as AV devices connectable to the network.

  In a network such as a home local area network (LAN), devices that implement a protocol that can automatically construct a network can be automatically connected to each other without the user setting an IP address. . As a representative protocol that can automatically construct such a network, there is a UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) protocol. The UPnP protocol is implemented not only in personal computers (hereinafter referred to as PCs) but also in home appliances such as AV equipment, and can connect a PC and home appliances over a network.

  When a device that implements the UPnP protocol (hereinafter referred to as a UPnP device) is connected to the network, the UPnP device multicasts identification information such as its own IP (Internet Protocol) address to other devices on the same subnet. Announce that you are connected to the network (advertisement). The other UPnP device receives the multicast identification information and recognizes the newly connected UPnP device. The newly connected UPnP device further executes a search process (M-Search) based on the UPnP protocol to acquire the IP address and MAC (Media Access Control) address identification information of other UPnP devices and Recognize UPnP devices.

  In this way, UPnP devices can automatically connect to a home network without the user setting an IP address, and UPnP devices on the network can recognize other UPnP devices on the same subnet. Therefore, the user can control other UPnP devices on the network using a UPnP device such as a PC without setting anything.

  However, a UPnP device already activated on the network may not recognize another specific UPnP device due to some failure. In such a case, it is preferable that the cause of the failure can be easily analyzed.

  Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-354342 discloses a technique for analyzing the cause of a network failure. In this document, when a network failure occurs, failure information held by the broadband router is acquired via the network and displayed on the TV apparatus. However, this document does not disclose a method for analyzing a failure related to a connection state between specific devices on a home network.

JP 2005-354342 A

  An object of the present invention is to provide a diagnostic system that can easily diagnose a connection failure that occurs between devices on a network.

Means for Solving the Problems and Effects of the Invention

  A diagnostic system according to the present invention includes network equipment and computer equipment connected to a network. The network device includes a writing unit. The writing means writes the location information of the network device in a storage medium that can be attached to and detached from the network device and the computer device. The computer device includes a reading unit and a control unit. The reading means reads information from a storage medium attached to the computer device. The control means executes a diagnostic program. The diagnostic program executes, on the control means, a diagnostic step for diagnosing the connection state between the computer device and the network device and a notification step for notifying the diagnosis result based on the location information of the network device read from the storage medium Let

  In this case, the computer device can acquire predetermined information of the network device via the storage medium, and can easily diagnose the connection state between the computer device and the network device using the diagnostic program.

  Preferably, the writing means further writes other device information including identification information of one or more other devices belonging to the same subnet as the network device to the storage medium. In the diagnosis step, it is determined whether the identification information of the computer device is included in the other device information.

  In this case, the computer device can determine whether or not the network device recognizes the computer device.

  Preferably, the network device further includes storage means. The storage means stores a diagnostic program. The writing means further writes the diagnostic program to the storage medium. The control means executes the diagnostic program read by the reading means.

  In this case, even if the computer device does not have a diagnostic program, the connection state between the computer device and the network device can be easily diagnosed by reading the diagnostic program stored in the network device into the computer device via the storage medium.

  The network device and the diagnostic program according to the present invention are used in the above-described diagnostic system.

It is a functional block diagram which shows the structure of the personal computer which comprises the diagnostic system by embodiment of this invention. It is a functional block diagram which shows the structure of AV apparatus which comprises the diagnostic system by embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows an example of the connection relation on the network of the personal computer and AV apparatus shown in FIG.1 and FIG.2. FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing details of the operation of the AV device shown in FIG. 2. FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of a data structure of network device information created by the operation of FIG. 4. It is a flowchart which shows the detail of operation | movement of the personal computer shown in FIG. It is a figure which shows an example of the display screen displayed on the display of a personal computer by the operation | movement of FIG.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. In the drawings, the same or corresponding parts are denoted by the same reference numerals and description thereof will not be repeated.

[overall structure]
1 and 2, the computer device and the network device are devices that can be connected to each other via a network, for example, a UPnP device in which the UPnP protocol is implemented. The UPnP device is, for example, a computer, an AV device, a home appliance, or the like. Hereinafter, the computer device is assumed to be a personal computer (PC) and the network device is assumed to be an AV device. However, the computer device and the personal device only need to be network-connected to each other.

  1 and 2 show functional block diagrams of the PC 10 and the AV device 20. Both the PC 10 and the AV device 20 have a UPnP protocol and function as a media server, a media renderer, and a control point.

  Referring to FIG. 1, a PC 10 is a general-purpose computer, and includes a central processing unit (CPU) 110, a memory 120, a hard disk drive (HDD) 130, and others via a network. A communication unit 140 for communicating with the other device and a display 150. The PC 10 further includes a connector 160. The connector 160 is inserted with a USB (Universal Serial Bus) memory device 30 which is a storage medium detachable from the PC 10. The HDD 130 stores the UPnP protocol. The communication unit 140 may include a single network interface, or may include a plurality of network interfaces, for example, wired and wireless network interfaces.

  With reference to FIG. 2, the AV device 20 includes a CPU 210, a memory 220, an HDD 230, and a communication unit 240. The AV device 20 further includes a connector 260 into which the USB memory device 30 is inserted. Similar to the PC 10, the HDD 230 stores the UPnP protocol. The HDD 220 further stores a network device information creation program (hereinafter simply referred to as a creation program) 231 and a diagnostic program 232. The diagnostic program 232 may be a script written in a script language such as VBScript (Visual Basic Script: trademark) or Java (trademark) Script, or may be a Flash (trademark) file, for example.

[Operation overview]
When a UPnP device such as the PC 10 or the AV device 20 is connected to the same subnet such as a home LAN, other processing on the same subnet is performed by a discovery process based on SSDP (Simple Service Discovery Protocol) in the UPnP protocol. An IP address and network address that are location information of the UPnP device and a MAC address that is identification information are acquired. With these pieces of information, the PC 10 that is a UPnP device can recognize an AV device that is another UPnP device on the same subnet.

  However, the PC 10 may not recognize the AV device 20 connected to the network. Some examples of the cause of such a connection failure are described below.

  One possible cause of a connection failure between the PC 10 and the AV device 20 is that the PC 10 and the AV device 20 cannot communicate (cause 1). For example, when there is some cause in a device (such as a switch or a router) interposed between the PC 10 and the AV device 20, communication is disabled.

  As another example of the cause of the connection failure, it is conceivable that the PC 10 and the AV device 20 belong to different subnets (Cause 2). For example, as shown in FIG. 3, a subnet 90 in which a PC 10, a UPnP device 70, a wired router 50, and a wireless router 80 are connected to the switch 60 is assumed. The wired router 50 is connected to an external network 40 such as the Internet.

  Here, when the AV device 20 is connected to the wireless router 80, the AV device 20 belongs to a subnet 100 different from the subnet 90. Since the UPnP protocol discovery process is to notify and search for other UPnP devices on the same subnet in principle, it does not reach the PC 10 even if the AV device 20 makes a notification. Therefore, when the AV device 20 belongs to a different subnet from the PC 10, the PC 10 may not recognize the AV device 20.

  As yet another example of the cause of the connection failure, the PC 10 may not recognize the AV device 20 even though the AV device 20 recognizes the PC 10 (cause 3). In this case, it can be estimated that there is some problem in the setting of the PC 10.

  In the diagnostic system according to the present embodiment, when the AV device 20 is connected to the network, the AV device 20 executes the creation program 231 to locate the location information and identification information of other UPnP devices recognized by the discovery process. Create network device information including. The location information here includes the IP address of the UPnP device and the network address of the subnet to which the UPnP device belongs. The identification information is the MAC address of the UPnP device. The AV device 20 writes the network device information in the USB memory device 30 together with the diagnostic program 232.

  When the PC 10 cannot recognize the AV device 20 that should have been connected to the network, the user removes the USB memory device 30 from the connector 260 of the AV device 20. Then, the removed USB memory device 30 is attached to the PC 10 via the connector 160. At this time, the diagnostic program 232 in the USB memory device 30 is loaded (read) into the memory 120 of the PC 10 and is executed by the CPU 110 which is a control unit. The PC 10 in which the diagnostic program 232 is activated uses the network device information and the information related to the connection status of the PC 10 to determine whether the cause of the connection failure occurring between the network device information corresponds to the above causes 1 to 3. Determine whether.

  Details of the operations of the AV device 20 and the PC 10 will be described below.

[Operation of AV Device 20]
The AV device 20 newly connected to the network executes a startup process shown in FIG. The AV device 20 first executes an addressing process based on the UPnP protocol to acquire its own IP address and the network address of the subnet to which it is connected (S1). In step S1, the AV device 20 first transmits a DHCP message to a DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) server (not shown). In response to the DHCP message, the DHCP server notifies the AV device 20 of the IP address assigned to the AV device 20. At this time, the DHCP server also notifies the AV device 20 of the network address. After receiving the notification, the AV device 20 notifies the DHCP server of the use of the notified IP address. By the above method, the AV device 20 acquires its own IP address and network address. In this example, the AV device 20 acquires an IP address using a DHCP server. However, the AV device 20 may have an AutoIP function and determine an IP address based on the AutoIP function.

  Subsequently, the AV device 20 executes a discovery process based on the UPnP protocol, and acquires the IP address and MAC address of another UPnP device belonging to the same subnet (S2). In step S2, the AV device 20 first searches for another UPnP device already activated on the same subnet based on SSDP. Specifically, the AV device 20 multicasts a search request (M-Search) compliant with SSDP. In response to the multicast search request, another UPnP device that has already been activated on the same subnet transmits information for specifying its own IP address and MAC address to the AV device 20. The AV device 20 acquires the IP address and MAC address of the other UPnP device based on the response from the other UPnP device.

  After executing the addressing process and discovery process based on the UPnP protocol, the AV device 20 executes the creation program to create the network device information shown in FIG. 5 (S3). The network device information includes, as location information, the IP address of the AV device 20 itself and the network address of the subnet to which the AV device 20 belongs. The network device information further includes other device information. The other device information includes identification information (MAC address) of other UPnP devices on the same subnet acquired by the discovery process. When a plurality of MAC addresses of other UPnP devices are acquired by discovery, the acquired plurality of MAC addresses are included in the other device information. Note that other information, for example, the MAC address of the AV device 20 itself or another UPnP IP address may be included in the network device information.

  After creating the network device information, the AV device 20 writes the network device information and the diagnostic program 232 in the USB memory device 30 based on the creation program (S4).

[Operation of PC10]
Similarly to the AV device 20, the PC 10 also recognizes other UPnP devices on the same subnet by the discovery process. If the PC 10 normally recognizes the AV device 20 by the discovery process, for example, an icon indicating the AV device 20 is displayed on the display 150. However, for some reason, the PC 10 may not recognize the AV device 20 and information about the AV device 20 may not be displayed on the display 150.

  When such a connection failure occurs, the user removes the USB memory device 30 from the connector 260 of the AV device 20 and attaches it to the USB connector 160 of the PC 10. Referring to FIG. 6, when the PC 10 detects the installation of the USB memory device 30 (YES in S11), the PC 10 reads the diagnostic program 232 in the USB memory device 30 and stores it in the memory 120 (S12). Then, the diagnostic program 232 is executed by the CPU 110. By this operation, the PC 10 functions as a connection failure diagnosis device and executes diagnosis processing (S13 to S17). In the diagnosis process, it is determined whether or not the cause of the connection failure corresponds to the above-described causes 1 to 3.

  First, the PC 10 determines whether or not the cause of the connection failure corresponds to the cause 1 described above. The PC 10 reads the network device information in the USB memory device 30 (S13). Then, it is diagnosed whether the PC 10 can communicate with the AV device 20 using a ping program stored in advance in the HDDs 130 and 230 (S14). Specifically, the PC 10 transmits an ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) echo request to the AV device 20 using the IP address of the AV device 20 in the network device information in the USB memory device 30. The PC 10 determines whether an ICMP echo response has been received within a predetermined time. When the PC 10 receives the ICMP echo response, it is estimated that the cause 1 is not the cause of the connection failure. On the other hand, when the PC 10 does not receive the ICMP echo response, the cause 1 can be estimated as one of the causes of the connection failure. The PC 10 stores the determination result (whether or not it has received an ICMP echo) in the memory 120.

  When the PC 10 has a plurality of network interfaces, for example, when the PC 10 has wired and wireless network interfaces, each network interface has an IP address. In this case, an ICMP echo request is transmitted to the IP address of each network interface. When an ICMP echo response is received from any IP address, it is determined that cause 1 is not the cause of the connection failure. When no echo response is received from any IP address, cause 1 is the cause of the connection failure. It is estimated to one of these.

  Subsequently, the PC 10 determines whether or not the cause of the connection failure corresponds to the above-described cause 2 (S15). The PC 10 reads the network address of the subnet to which the PC 10 belongs from the location information received from the DHCP server and stored in the memory 120 when the PC 10 starts up. Then, it is compared with the network address in the network device information. If the two match, the cause 10 is not applicable because the PC 10 and the AV device 20 belong to the same subnet. On the other hand, if the two are different, cause 2 can be estimated as one of the causes of the connection failure.

  When the PC 10 has a plurality of network interfaces, the process of step S15 is executed for the network address of each network interface. When any network address matches the network address in the network device information, it is determined that cause 2 does not correspond as a cause of the connection failure, and any network address does not match the network address in the network device information. The cause 2 is estimated as one of the causes of the connection failure.

  Subsequently, the PC 10 determines whether or not the cause of the connection failure corresponds to the above-described cause 3 (S16). The PC 10 reads the MAC address that is its own identification information stored in the HDD 130 or the memory 120. Then, the other device information in the network device information is read, and it is determined whether or not the other device information includes a MAC address that matches the own MAC address. When the other device information includes its own MAC address, since the AV device 20 recognizes the PC 10 through the discovery process, the cause 3 can be estimated as the cause of the connection failure. The PC 10 stores the determination result in the memory 120.

  When the PC 10 has a plurality of network interfaces, the PC 10 has a MAC address for each network interface. In this case, in step S16, the PC 10 determines whether or not the other device information includes any of the plurality of MAC addresses that the PC 10 has. If any of them is included, the cause 3 is estimated as the cause of the connection failure.

  After executing the diagnosis of steps S14 to S16, the PC 10 notifies the diagnosis result of each step (S17). Specifically, the PC 10 displays the determination result on the display 150 as shown in FIG. 7 (S17). In FIG. 7, it is determined in step S14 that there is an ICMP echo response, in step S15 it is determined that the network addresses match, and in step S16 it is determined that the network device information includes the MAC address of the PC 10. It is a result. In the case of this diagnosis result, since the AV device 20 can communicate with the PC 10, belongs to the same subnet, and recognizes the PC 10, there is some cause in the PC 10, that is, the above-mentioned cause 3 is estimated as the cause of the connection failure. it can.

  Thus, in the diagnostic system according to the present embodiment, when a connection failure occurs between specific UPnP devices, for example, when a connection failure occurs between the PC 10 and the AV device 20 as described above, the network device The information is created by the AV device 20 and the network device information is read together with the diagnostic program 232 by the PC 10 via the USB memory device 30 so that the connection state between the PC 10 and the AV device 20 can be easily diagnosed and the cause of the connection failure Can be estimated by narrowing down to some extent.

  In the above-described embodiment, all the causes 1 to 3 are determined in steps S14 to S16, but any one of the causes may be determined. Alternatively, the process may proceed to step S15 only when an ICMP echo response is received in step S14, and may proceed to step S16 only when the network addresses match in step S15.

  In the above-described embodiment, the diagnosis program is stored in the AV device 20 and written to the PC 10 using the USB memory device 30 together with the network device information. However, the diagnosis program 232 may be stored in the PC 10 in advance. The diagnostic program may be downloaded from a server (not shown) on the Internet. However, if the diagnostic program 232 is stored in the AV device 20 in advance, the diagnostic program can be written in the PC 10 by attaching the USB memory device 30 to the PC 10 as described above. Therefore, complicated work such as downloading a diagnostic program from the server can be avoided.

  In the above-described embodiment, the USB memory device 30 is used as the storage medium that can be attached to and detached from the PC 10 and the AV device 20, but instead of the USB memory device 30, for example, a CD-ROM, DVD, flash memory, or the like. You may use the storage medium of.

  In the above-described embodiment, the diagnosis result is displayed on the display 150, but the diagnosis result may be notified by another method. For example, notification may be made by voice or warning sound.

  In the above-described embodiment, the network device is an AV device and the computer device is connected as a PC. However, the computer device may be an AV device or a home appliance that executes the UPnP protocol, and the network device is a PC. Also good. In short, the network device and the computer device may be devices that can be connected to each other via a network.

  While the embodiments of the present invention have been described above, the above-described embodiments are merely examples for carrying out the present invention. Therefore, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and can be implemented by appropriately modifying the above-described embodiment without departing from the spirit thereof.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Personal computer 20 AV apparatus 30 USB memory device 110,210 Control part (CPU)
120, 220 Memory 130, 230 Hard disk drive 140, 240 Communication unit 150 Display 160, 260 Connector 231 Network device information creation program 232 Diagnostic program

Claims (5)

A diagnostic system comprising network equipment and computer equipment connected to a network,
The network device is:
Writing means for writing location information of the network device to a storage medium removable from the network device and the computer device;
The computer device is:
Reading means for reading information from the storage medium attached to the computer device;
Control means for executing a diagnostic program,
The diagnostic program includes:
A diagnosis step of diagnosing a connection state between the computer device and the network device based on location information of the network device read from the storage medium;
A diagnostic system that causes the control means to execute a notification step of notifying the diagnosis result. The diagnostic system according to claim 1,
The writing means further writes other device information including identification information of one or more other devices belonging to the same subnet as the network device to the storage medium,
The diagnostic system according to claim 1, wherein the diagnostic step determines whether or not the identification information of the computer device is included in the other device information. The diagnostic system according to claim 1 or 2,
The network device further includes:
Storage means for storing the diagnostic program,
The writing means further writes the diagnostic program to the storage medium,
The diagnostic system characterized in that the control means executes a diagnostic program read by the reading means. A network device connectable to a network,
Storage means for storing a diagnostic program;
Writing means for writing location information of the network device when connected to the network and the diagnostic program to a storage medium removable from the network device and a computer device connectable to the network;
The diagnostic program includes:
A diagnosis step of diagnosing a connection state between the computer device and the network device based on location information of the network device;
A network device that causes the computer device to execute a notification step of notifying the diagnosis result. The network device connected to the network connects the computer device and the network device based on the location information of the network device written to the storage device removable from the network device and the computer device connectable to the network. A diagnostic step to diagnose the condition;
A diagnostic program for causing the computer device to execute a notification step of notifying the diagnosis result.

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