JPH0827748B2 - Memory information automatic collection device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Industrial field of application) The present invention is directed to a fault-tolerant computer system in the event of a failure that leads to abnormal termination of the computer system.
The present invention relates to a memory information automatic collection device that automatically collects memory information for failure analysis.

(Prior Art) Computer systems are widely used for all kinds of business today, but various mechanisms are provided to ensure system reliability. For example, there is also provided a failure monitoring system or the like that monitors the occurrence of various errors such as data reading errors and transfer errors, and immediately takes measures for recovery when a failure occurs.

Here, for example, when a failure that leads to abnormal termination of the system occurs, memory information stored in a part of the main memory is collected after the failure in order to analyze where the cause of the failure is. There is also a mechanism to save it.

Conventionally, memory information is automatically collected every time a failure occurs, memory information is collected at a predetermined timing by an operator's manual operation after a failure occurs, and even if a failure occurs, no memory information is collected at all. Various devices are used, such as those that do not collect data.

FIG. 2 shows an example of a conventional memory information collecting device.

This device is a device configured to automatically collect memory information when a failure occurs.

This apparatus includes a main storage device 1 for arithmetic processing, an external storage device 2 including a floppy disk for storing various data, an IPL (initial program loading) processing unit 3 that operates at system startup, When a system failure occurs, a restart processing unit 4 that operates to restart the system after that, a normal processing unit 5 that performs normal arithmetic processing, and a failure processing that performs a certain procedure when a failure occurs Part 6, and in case of failure,
It is composed of a memory information collection processing unit 7 for collecting memory information.

The IPL processing unit 3 is a part that executes a known initial program loading process, and is a circuit that loads a series of operation programs after power is turned on or after the IPL switch is turned on, and sets the system in an operable state. Is. The normal processing unit 5 is composed of a processor, and is a unit that executes operations such as various arithmetic processes. The normal processing unit 5 is a circuit that monitors the operating state of the system during operation and outputs a fault occurrence notification 5a indicating that a fault occurs to the fault processing unit 6.

The failure processing unit 6 is a circuit which, when receiving the failure occurrence notification 5a, executes a certain process such as a failure removal necessary for restarting and activates the restarting processing unit 4. The restart processing unit 4 is a circuit that executes initialization of each unit of the system as necessary and restarts the system to a state in which normal processing can be executed again.

When the normal processing unit 5 detects some kind of failure and the failure occurrence notification 5a is output to the memory information collection processing unit 7, the memory information collection processing unit 7 outputs the memory information of the main memory device 1 and registers of other units. This is a circuit that performs an operation of collecting and storing this in, for example, a predetermined storage area of the external storage device 2.

According to the above-mentioned device, even if the system is abnormally terminated, the business can be continued by restarting the system in a certain case, and the memory information collection processing unit 7 works so that the memory at the time of the occurrence of the failure can be obtained. The information is stored in the external storage device 2, which allows the operator to carry out a failure analysis later.

(Problems to be solved by the invention) By the way, in the system as described above, the system is abnormally terminated due to a certain failure and restarted, and then the system is operated without removing the cause of the failure. Then, as a result, when the abnormal termination occurs secondarily or tertiary, the memory information collection processing unit 7 newly collects the memory information each time and saves it in the external storage device 2.

However, the capacity of the external storage device 2 is limited, and when a failure occurs repeatedly and the capacity of the external storage device 2 exceeds the limit, new memory information is overwritten on the area where the memory information has already been written. It will be written.

Therefore, a failure occurs first, and the memory information saved at the time of the failure is rewritten due to another abnormal termination of the system. This makes it difficult to accurately analyze the true cause of the failure.

The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and provides a memory information automatic collection device capable of protecting memory information collected when a failure occurs due to a primary cause even if a failure due to a secondary or tertiary cause occurs. It is intended to be provided.

(Means for Solving the Problem) The memory information automatic collection device of the present invention detects the occurrence of a failure at the time of a failure that leads to abnormal termination of the system,
It has a memory information collection processing unit that automatically collects memory information for failure analysis, and a collection control unit that prohibits automatic collection of the memory information for a certain period of time after restart of the system after the occurrence of the failure. It is a thing.

(Operation) In the above devices, the memory information collection processing unit automatically collects memory information when a system failure occurs, but even if the system is abnormally terminated again for a certain time after the system is restarted, Automatic collection of information is prohibited.
When the system is restarted due to secondary and tertiary factors and then abnormally terminated again, the abnormal termination occurs within a relatively short time. Therefore, if the automatic collection of memory information is prohibited for a time longer than this, it becomes possible to save the memory information based on the failure due to the primary factor as it is.

(Examples) Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to examples of the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a memory information automatic collecting device of the present invention.

Similar to the device shown in FIG. 2, the device shown in the figure has a main storage device 1, an external storage device 2, an IPL processing unit 3, a restart processing unit 4, a normal processing unit 5, and a failure processing. A section 6 and a memory information collection processing section 7 are provided. Further, the apparatus of the present invention is further provided with a timer processing section 8 and a collection control section 9.

A circuit for operating the timer processing unit 8 to start counting time when the restarting processing unit 4 executes restarting and switch off the flag of the collection control unit when a set fixed time has elapsed. Is. Further, the collection control unit 9
It is a circuit that stores a flag that is turned off when the collection of the memory information is permitted and is turned on when the collection is prohibited. This flag is configured to be turned off when the IPL processing unit 3 starts up the system, and turned on when the restarting processing unit 4 starts up the system.

The memory information collection processing unit 7 in the present invention refers to the flag of the collection control unit 9 and determines whether or not to collect memory information.

 The operating principle of the above device is as follows.

First, when a failure occurs, whether the failure is a primary factor or a secondary factor or later is a criterion for determining whether to collect memory information.

Here, the failure that occurs when the IPL processing unit 3 performs the start-up process and then the normal processing unit 5 executes the process is always the primary factor. Therefore, the IPL processing unit 3
When is started, the flag of the collection control unit 9 is turned off (3a). Further, after the system is abnormally terminated, the restarting processing unit 4 executes restarting, and immediately after that, the failure generated in the normal processing unit 5 is a secondary factor,
Or it is an obstacle based on secondary and subsequent factors. Therefore,
After the restart process of the restart process unit 4 is executed, the flag of the collection control unit is turned on (4a). However, after the restart, after a certain period of time or more has passed and the system operation stabilizes, the failure that occurs in the normal processing unit 5 is the primary factor.

From this, the timer processing unit 8 determines that the time required for the system to stabilize is, for example, 10 seconds in practice.
The time is measured for about a minute, and after that time, the flag of the collection control unit 9 is turned off (8a).

The collection of the memory information may be stored in a floppy disk of the external storage device 2 or may be stored in, for example, a certain area of the main storage device to facilitate reading from the host device. In that case, it is preferable that the memory information collecting unit 7 operates so as to add headers of various contents such as a terminal name to the head of the memory information. This is to facilitate management by the host device.

 The specific operation of the device of the present invention will be described below.

FIG. 3 is an operation flowchart of the device of the present invention.

In this flowchart, first, when the power of the system is turned on (step S1), the IPL processing unit 3 shown in FIG. 1 executes the IPL processing (step S2).
The IPL process is also performed when the operator turns on the IPL switch and forcibly resets the system. The procedure in that case is shown in step S1 ′ in FIG.

Then, the flag of the collection control unit 9 is turned off (step S3). Then, the normal processing unit 5 executes the normal processing (step S4). If the timer is operating during the execution of the normal processing, it is determined whether or not the time is up (step S5). Initially, the timer is not operating, so the process directly proceeds to step S7.

In step S7, the occurrence of failure is monitored. If there is no failure, normal processing continues (step 4). Then, when a failure occurs, it is first determined whether or not the flag of the collection control unit is on (step S8). Initially, the flag is off, so the process directly proceeds to step S10.

Here, failure processing is executed (step S10). This processing is performed by the fault processing unit 6 shown in FIG. Then, the restart process is executed by the restart processor 4 in FIG. 1 (step S11). at the same time,
The timer of the timer processing unit 8 starts (step S1
2). Then, the flag of the collection control unit 9 is turned on (step S13). When the restart is completed, the process returns to the normal process of step S4. Here, since the timer has started first, it is determined whether or not the timer has timed out (step S5). If the timer has timed out, the process immediately proceeds to step S7, and if no failure has occurred, normal processing is repeated. On the other hand, when the timer times out, the flag of the collection control unit 9 is turned off (step S6).

Next, when a failure occurs after restarting and the process proceeds from step S7 to step S8, it is determined whether the flag of the collection control unit 9 is on (step S8). If the flag is off, the memory information Are collected (Step S
9), if it is on, the memory information is not collected, and the process relating to the failure in steps S10 to S13 is directly performed.

As a result of the above operation, only the memory information due to the primary factor is stored, and the problem that the memory information is destroyed due to the secondary factor can be prevented.

 The present invention is not limited to the above embodiments.

Each functional block shown in FIG. 1 may be integrated or divided and replaced with a block that performs an equivalent operation. Further, the collection control unit 9 may be incorporated in the memory information collection processing unit. Further, the collection control unit 9 may be configured to store various kinds of information by a register or a counter of several bits, and the collection of memory information may be controlled according to the type and situation of the failure.

(Effect of the Invention) According to the memory information automatic collection device of the present invention described above, when a failure that causes an abnormal termination of the system occurs and the system is restarted, the failure is caused by the failure. Even if the system terminates abnormally again in a short time due to a failure after the next cause, the memory information most necessary for failure analysis, which is the primary cause of the failure, can be surely saved. Therefore, the failure analysis can be efficiently executed in a short time.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a memory information automatic collecting device of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a conventional memory information collecting device, and FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing the operation of the device of the present invention. 1 ... Main storage device, 2 ... External storage device, 3 ... IPL processing unit,
4 ... Reboot processing section, 5 ... Normal processing section, 6 ... Failure processing section, 7 ... Memory information collection processing section, 8 ... Timer processing section, 9
... Collection control unit.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A memory information collection processing unit which detects a failure occurrence and automatically collects memory information for failure analysis upon occurrence of a failure that leads to abnormal termination of the system, and from restarting of the system after the occurrence of the failure. An automatic memory information collection device, comprising: a collection control unit that prohibits automatic collection of the memory information for a certain period of time.