JP2759950B2 - Computer system - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Summary] Involved in tracing for collecting information on the operating status of adapters and device drivers in a computer system.
An object of the present invention is to provide a computer system capable of collecting trace data for facilitating investigation of control interference between a plurality of devices, for controlling an adapter for connecting one or more devices, and an adapter having a trace area. A command issued and received by one or more device drivers, the device comprising: a driver and a device driver for transmitting and receiving a command and response information relating to the command to and from the device via the adapter driver and controlling the device. And response information relating to commands are stored and held in the trace area in order of occurrence time. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a computer system that collects trace data for collecting information on an operating state, such as when testing an adapter and a device driver in a computer system. When a request is received from an application program in a computer system, an adapter for connecting a device, which is an input / output device connected to the computer, or a device driver for controlling the device via the adapter issues a command to perform input / output processing. On the other hand, the device responds when the command is issued, and response information is reported to the device driver via the adapter. The device driver determines and executes the next processing such as issuing the next command according to the content of the response information. Thus, a series of input / output processing is executed. Trace data in which such commands and response information relating to the commands are arranged in the order of occurrence times, so-called command trace data, is useful information for searching for the cause of the abnormality as information indicating the operating state of the adapter or device driver. . [Prior Art] A command trace is instructed to test an adapter or device driver and detect an abnormal state, or to collect information indicating the operating state of the adapter or device driver as necessary. . When command tracing is instructed and a trace area is secured, command tracing is started and trace data is collected until a halt is instructed. The command trace data is read out of the trace area by a means such as a memory dump when necessary, and is used for fault investigation or the like. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration example of a conventional computer system. In FIG. 2, 1 is a computer, 2 is an adapter, 3 is a device, 4 is a device driver, 5 is an application program, 6 is a control unit, and 7 is a trace area. The computer 1 includes a device driver 4 and an application program 5, and the computer 1, the adapter 2, and the device 3 form a computer system. In FIG. 2, two devices 3 are connected to the adapter 2, and a device driver 4 connects the adapter 2 including the control unit 6 corresponding to the device 3 to the application program 5, and has a trace area 7. In the computer system shown in FIG.
When the device driver 4 issues a command required for input / output processing, the command is stored and held in the trace area 7, and the adapter 2
To the device 3 via. On the other hand, when there is a response related to the command from the device 3, the response information is received by the device driver 4 via the adapter 2, and is stored and stored in the trace area 7 by the device driver 4. Although there are two application programs 5 in the figure, an input / output request from the application program may be issued to either device driver 4. The devices 3 include types such as an output device such as a printer, an input device such as a scanner, and a storage device such as a disk device, and two devices of the same type may be used, for example, a disk device. The types may be different, such as an apparatus and a printer. The device driver 4 stores the command information when issuing a command, and stores the response information when there is a response related to the command from the device 3 in the trace area 7 in the order of the time when each event occurs. When the device driver 4 stores and holds commands and response information related to the commands in the trace area 7, the information identifying the request source of the input / output processing and the device 3 may be used as trace data as necessary. Is stored and retained together with the data. As described above, information on commands issued by the device drivers 4 is stored and retained in the trace areas 7 of the device drivers 4 in the order of their occurrence time. In the adapter 2, when a command is issued from the computer 1, the command and control information related to the command is accessed to the main storage area in the computer 1, the command is issued to the device 3, and the specified control operation is performed. Run. The control unit 6 is provided corresponding to the device 3. When the execution of the processing based on the specified command is completed, the control unit 6 transmits completion information including response information from the device 3 to the device driver 4.
Pass to. The device driver 4 determines the next processing based on the completion information. In this case, the completion may be notified to the application program 5 or the next command may be issued. In this way, the processing corresponding to the input / output request proceeds. Since the adapter 2 receives a command from the plurality of device drivers 4 and receives response information related to the command from the plurality of devices 3, the adapter 2 receives the command from one device driver 4, and obtains another response before obtaining the response information related to the command. May receive another command from the device driver 4. [Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, two or more device drivers
When the above devices are controlled, there is a problem that the trace data collected separately cannot identify the context of commands issued to different devices and the response information related to the commands. Further, even when the trace data individually collected for two or more devices includes the time of occurrence, it is necessary to compare the individual trace data, which makes it difficult to investigate the operating state of a plurality of devices. there were. In view of the above, the present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and has been made in view of the above circumstances. It is an object of the present invention to provide a computer system that collects trace data while maintaining a time relationship of information. [Means for Solving the Problems] The above-mentioned problem is solved by a computer system of the present invention configured as follows. A computer system according to the present invention controls an adapter that connects one or more devices, exchanges a command and response information related to the command with an adapter driver having a trace area, and the device via the adapter driver. And an adapter driver that stores and holds commands issued by one or more device drivers and response information relating to the commands in the trace area in the order of occurrence time. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a computer system according to the present invention. 1, 2 is an adapter, 3 is a device, 6
Is a control unit. In FIG. 1, one or more, that is, two devices 3 are connected to the adapter 2, and the control unit 6 corresponding to the device 3 constitutes the adapter 2. 1 is a computer, 11 is an adapter driver,
12 is a device driver, and 13 is a trace area. The adapter driver 11 connects the adapter 2 and the device driver 12, and has a trace area 13. The device driver 12 passes through the adapter driver 11,
A command and response information relating to the command are exchanged with the device 3 to control the device 3. The computer 10 has an adapter driver 11 and a device driver 12
And a computer system is composed of the computer 10, the adapter 2, and the device 3. In the computer system of FIG. 1, a device driver
The command issued by 12 is stored and held in the trace area 13 by the adapter driver 11, and transmitted to the device 3 via the adapter 2. On the other hand, when response information relating to the command is received from the device 3 by the adapter driver 11 via the adapter 2, the response information relating to the command is transmitted to the adapter driver 11.
The data is stored and held in the trace area 13 by 11. In this manner, the commands issued by one device driver 12 and the response information relating to the commands are stored and held in the trace area 13 in the order of their occurrence time. Similarly, the commands issued by the other device drivers 12 and the response information relating to the commands are stored and held in the trace area 13 in the order of their occurrence time. Therefore, the commands issued by one or more device drivers and the response information relating to the commands are stored and held in one trace area 13 in the order of generation time. [Operation] By configuring as described above, the order of occurrence time is maintained for the trace information related to different device drivers, so that the commands issued from the different device drivers and the responses related to the commands have a temporal relationship between them. In-context investigations are possible, and effective tools for troubleshooting can be provided. Embodiment An embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a computer system to which the command trace processing method of the present invention is applied. 5 in FIG. 1 is an application program. Although there are two application programs 5 in the figure, the number may be one or three or more. The two devices 3 may be of the same type and may be, for example, a disk device, or may be of different types, for example, a disk device and a printer. That is, in response to an input / output processing request from the application program 5, the device driver 12 issues a command to each device 3 via the adapter driver 11 and the adapter 2, and the device driver 12 connects the adapter 2 and the adapter driver 11 to each other. It receives response information related to the command via the controller 3 and controls each device 3. Upon receiving the command from the device driver 12, the adapter driver 13 issues a command to each device 3 via the adapter 2, and issues a command to the trace area 13.
The command information is stored and held in the order in which the commands are generated. When the adapter driver 13 receives response information related to a command from the device 3 via the adapter 2,
The information is passed to the device driver 12 that is the request source of the input / output processing, and the response information is stored and held in the trace area 13 in the order of the generation time. The adapter driver 13 includes one or more device drivers 12
And receives response information relating to the command from one or more devices 3 via the adapter 2, so that the command is received from one device driver 12,
Before obtaining response information on the command, another command may be received from another device driver 12. When the adapter driver 13 stores and holds commands and response information related to commands in the trace area, information for identifying a request source and a device for input / output processing is stored as trace data along with the command and response information related to the command as necessary. Is retained. In this way, the input / output processing proceeds, and when the computer system tester detects, for example, an abnormal state of the input / output processing or detects an error state such as response information in the device driver 12, the input / output processing is promptly performed. The processing is stopped, and the trace data collected in the trace area 13, that is, the command trace is read and examined. In the trace area 13, trace data such as commands issued by the plurality of device drivers 12 and response information related to the commands are arranged in order of time, so that the context of the trace data can be clearly and easily understood. In the embodiment of the present invention, a case in which two devices are connected has been described. However, it is needless to say that three or more devices may be connected, or one device may be connected. It goes without saying that the device can be selected and specified. Further, in the embodiment of the present invention, it has been described that both the command and the response information relating to the command are traced. However, either the command or the response information relating to the command may be selected and traced may be selected. Of course. Further, in the embodiment of the present invention, the command and the response information related to the command are arranged in the order of the generation time. However, the generation time of the command or the response information related to the command may be added to the trace data. That is. [Effects of the Invention] As is clear from the above description, according to the present invention, information indicating the operating state of the adapter and the device driver of the computer can be collected by one command trace, and each command issued to a plurality of devices can be collected. Since the mutual time relationship can be grasped, there is an effect that it is easy to find out the cause of the abnormality.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a conventional configuration example. In the figure, 1 and 10 are computers, 2 is an adapter, 3 is a device, 4 and 12 are device drivers, 5 is an application program, 6 is a control unit, 7 and 13 are trace areas, and 11 is an adapter driver.

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1.1 Controlling an adapter for connecting a device or more, a command and a response related to the command between the adapter driver having a trace area and the device via the adapter driver A device driver for transmitting and receiving information and controlling a device, wherein the adapter driver stores and retains commands issued by one or more device drivers and response information related to the commands in a trace area in order of occurrence time A computer system characterized by: