JPS62232055A - Method for preparing event trace data - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To speed up abnormal operation analysis of a computer system and make it possible to execute connection test to a terminal easily by detecting development with time of event of an input/output controlling device connected to a host and a terminal in synchronism with a timer in the host. CONSTITUTION:A timer 2b in an input/output controlling device 2 is reset to 0 by a trace starting and setting means at the time of event trace starting, and the time of a host timer 1c at the point of time is added later to trace data. Accordingly, the input/output controlling device timer 2b is synchronized with the host timer 1c at the time of trace starting, and the time of occurrence of event in the input/output controlling device 2 can be measured almost exactly by timing of the host timer 1c, and extra burden on the processor 2a for it is not caused. Further, in case of receiving a time data message from a terminal 3, connection test can be executed easily as timing of the terminal side timer is synchronized by a time error of the time of receiving.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to a method for creating event trace data in a computer system, and in particular, a method for creating event trace data that is effective for failure analysis of input/output devices in a computer system. Regarding the method.

[Conventional technology]

In computer systems, for events such as the occurrence of an interrupt or the start of a program, the internal state and time at that time are recorded as event trace data, and in the event of an abnormality, this is read out and used for operation analysis. used. A conventional method for creating such event trace data is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 59-111552. 59-22386
4 etc., starting a program that can be easily collected in a host computer (hereinafter simply referred to as host);
Control data such as termination and interrupts are recorded along with the time of occurrence measured by the timer in the host, while for events of input/output control devices connected to the host, the time of occurrence measured by the timer of that device itself is recorded. He also recorded independently.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

In the above conventional technology, if the input/output control bag connected to the host is highly functional, for example, one that uses a DMA control method as an interface with the host, or one that is equipped with a microcomputer, it is difficult to control the operation of the host program. It is not easy to correlate the timing of access to the input/output control device with the internal operation of the input/output control device and the timing of information transmission because it is measured by an independent timer. Trouble analysis and integration tests with terminals connected to the input/output control equipment required a great deal of effort, and it was also necessary to add dedicated monitoring tools.

On the other hand, in order to deal with these problems, there are methods in which the event trace function in the input/output control unit directly reads the date and time information given by the timer in the host and records trace data, and Although it is possible to consider ways to adjust the status of the I/O controller, these methods will cause a decline in the performance of the I/O operations that the host or I/O controller should normally perform, and will also cause the I/O controller to The disadvantage is that the operation becomes complicated.

The present invention can add time information synchronized with the host's timer to event trace data of an input/output control device connected to a host, and this does not reduce the performance of the host or input/output control device. The purpose is to provide a method for creating event trace data without the need for

[Means for solving problems]

The purpose of the above is to provide a timer in each of the host and input/output control device as in the past, record the time indicated by the timer of each device as the event occurrence time, and trace the event by starting the event trace based on commands from the host. The input/output control device is provided with a starting means and a reset means for resetting the built-in timer, and when the host commands the input/output control device to start tracing, it stores the start time indicated by the timer in its own device at that time, and then , when the event trace data recorded by the input/output control device is read, the above-mentioned stored start time is added to the occurrence time of each read event, and is achieved by setting the event occurrence time as When a message containing time data measured by the timer of the terminal is received from a terminal connected via the input/output control device, the difference between the time data of the terminal at the time of reception and the time measured by the host timer is calculated. , which is achieved by correcting the terminal's timer count.

[Effect]

By the trace start and set means described above, the timer in the input/output control device is reset to 0 at the start of event tracing, and the time of the host timer at that time is later added to the trace data, so the input/output control device timer starts tracing. It is synchronized with the host timer at the same time, and the time of event occurrence in the input/output control device can be measured almost accurately using the timing of the host timer, and no extra burden is placed on the processor.Furthermore, time data messages can be received from the terminal. In this case, the timing of the timer on the terminal side is synchronized by the time error at the time of reception, making it easy to perform a coupling test.

[Example] Hereinafter, an example of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. In this figure, the host 1 is connected to the input/output control device i22 via an interface 28, and information and control commands in a random access memory (RAM) 2d are transferred thereto.

Further, a terminal 3 is connected via the tanturf ace 2f, and data is transferred with this terminal as well. The host 1 has a main memory 1a in which programs and data are stored.
, a processor lb that executes a program, and a date and time counting mechanism 1c that can be read from the processor. The input/output control bag 212 decodes input/output commands from the host 1 and sends an interrupt signal I to the microprocessor 2a.
An interface 2e that outputs NTO and transfers data with the host 1, a random access memory 2d, a memory (ROM) 2c that stores a program, and a microprocessor 2a that executes this program.
It consists of a timer 2d that generates a periodic interrupt signal INT2, and an interface 2f with the terminal 3.

The interface 2f outputs an interrupt signal lNTl to the microprocessor 2a every time data transmission/reception with the terminal is completed.

FIG. 2 shows the development of the event trace data storage area 2dl in the random access memory 2d. Ca5s No. in the same area indicates the number of event trace data (number of cases) that have been delivered sequentially after address A+2,
A pair of data (i) and counter (i) is displayed as one case. The address pointer at address A+1 indicates the address where the next 1-race data is to be stored, as indicated by the dotted line in FIG. In area 2d2, the count value of timer 2b is B.
+0 address, event data is stored at B+11 address, and a flag indicating that a trace start command has been issued from the host is stored at B+12 address. As a result, this counter (i) and data (i) are stored in one case at the address indicated by the address pointer in area 2dl when an event occurs.

3 and 4 are programs for event tracing stored in the ROM 2c.6 In FIG. 3, the timer interrupt processing program 2cl is started by an interrupt INT2 from the timer 2b with a period of 1 rn s. The counter value at address B+O in FIG. 2 is updated by +1.

The host command processing program 2c2 is started by an interrupt INTO from the host, and if this interrupt is a trace command (step 200), B+ in area 2d2 in FIG.
Reset address O to 0 (Step 201, which corresponds to resetting the timer of the input/output control device), instruct the event trace function to start tracing (Step 202), and then set Ca5e No. of area 2dl to O.
Reset to . On the other hand, when the interrupt INTO is an input/output control command, data transfer between the main memory 1a and RAM 2d of the host is controlled (step 204).

The event generation processing program 2c3 is activated by an interrupt lNTl from the interface 2f when data is exchanged with the terminal 3, and operates an event tracing function (subroutine).

The event trace function 2c4 in FIG. 4 is activated by the event generation process 2c3, and the trace start flag is set by the host instruction process 2c in response to a trace start command from the host.
If it is turned on in step 2 (step 400)
, check the Ca5e No. of area 2dl in Figure 2 (
Step 401), if this is not the maximum, Ca5e N
o, by +1 step 402), store the timer count value of address B+O to the address pointed to by the address pointer of area 2dl (step 403), and move to the next address B+1
Step 404) to store the data at 1 location, step 405) to increase the address pointer by +2, and if the address pointer has not reached its maximum value A+N (step 40).
6) When the processing is finished and the maximum value has been reached, the value of the address pointer is set to address A+2 in preparation for the next event trace (step 407).

FIG. 5 shows the data storage area in the main memory la of the host 1. When the event trace start command is output, the date and time data 1al (address L) indicated by the internal host timer 1c, and the data stored in the received message from the terminal 3 are shown in FIG. date and time data 1a2 (address M) included in this terminal, and date and time data 1 of the host timer 1c at the time of data reception from this terminal.
a3 (address K) and input/output control bag b! 12 RAM2d
It consists of an area 1d4 in which event trace data (area 2d1 in FIG. 2) is read out and stored.

FIG. 6 shows a program stored in the main memory 1a of the host 1. The event trace start process 1a5 reads the date and time of the host timer IC at the time of start, and
The data is stored at address L in the figure (step 500), and a start command is output (step 501).

Event trace data 2dl is stored in area 1a of main memory.
Step 601), check whether to synchronize with the host timer or the terminal time (step 602; this selection depends on the operator settings), and if host synchronization is selected, select area 104. Add the time of the 5th dial address to the counter (i) in (step 603)
When the terminal is synchronized, the time difference between the address M and the address M in FIG.

The terminal data reception processing program 1a7 extracts the date and time information in the received data from the terminal 3 and stores it at address M in FIG. 5 (step 700).

The date and time of the host timer 1c at that time are stored in the address shown in FIG. 5 (step 701).

The detailed configuration of the embodiment of the present invention has been described above, and the overall operation thereof is as follows. In the case of event tracing in the input/output control device 2, the host 1 executes the event trace command processing program 1a5 shown in FIG. Interrupt INTO is turned on.

Then, the host command processing 2c2 in FIG. 3 is started,
Here, start the event tracer (step 202)
is served. It should be noted that the timer interrupt processing program 2cl is always in operation when the system is started up. -6 input/output control devices! ! Event generation processing 2c3 (FIG. 3) in 2 is activated by an interrupt lNTl when data is transmitted from the terminal 3, whereby the program shown in FIG. 4 is activated and event trace data is sequentially stored in area 2dl.

Thereafter, when receiving a command from the host operator or when an abnormality occurs, the event trace data real-time correction program 1a6 is executed, and time correction is performed on the trace data in synchronization with the time of the host timer.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As is clear from the above embodiments, according to the present invention, it is possible to detect the time course of events of input/output control devices and terminals connected to the host in synchronization with the timer in the host, so that abnormalities in the computer system can be detected. It has the effect of speeding up operation analysis and making it easy to perform connection tests with terminals. Moreover, for this purpose, it is only necessary to provide a simple timer in the input/output control device, and for synchronization, input/output There is no significant burden placed on the control device and host processor.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing one embodiment of the present invention. Figure 2 is an explanatory diagram of event trace data and timer area in the input/output control device, Figure 3 is a flowchart of the input/output control unit program, Figure 4 is a flowchart of the event trace function, and Figure 5 is a diagram of the memory in the host. The explanatory diagram, FIG. 6, is a flowchart of the host program. 1...Host, 2...I/O control device, 3...Terminal. 1a...Host memory, 1c...Date and time counting mechanism. 2b...Timer, 2dl...Event trace data, 2d2...Timer counting counter, 2c2...Host command processing, 2c4...Event trace function, 1
85...Event trace command processing, 1a6...Real-time correction processing of event trace data.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. When the host computer outputs an event trace start command, the time indicated by the built-in clock means is stored as the initial time, and the input/output control device that received the start command starts its own timer. After resetting the timer, the timer starts counting and moves to the event trace state, and if an event occurs in that state, the event data indicating the event and the count value of the above timer at the time of occurrence are stored in the built-in memory as an event. The host computer reads the contents of the event data area in the memory of the input/output control device when there is an instruction from the operator or an abnormality is detected, and converts the timer count value in the read data to the time indicated by the value. and an initial time stored at the time of the start command. 2. When data including the current transmission time measured by the timer on the terminal side is sent from a terminal connected to the input/output control device to the host computer, the host computer Claim 1, characterized in that the difference between the time indicated by the built-in timer and the transmission time is calculated and used as an initial time in place of the initial time stored at the time of the start command. How to create event trace data.