Reducing boot times via intrusion monitoring
View Patent ↗The time required to boot a computer is reduced by reducing or eliminating the need to discover many or all devices within the computer and the machine topology. Access panels are monitored so that it is detected when they are opened. For the access panels that have not been opened, it is assumed that the system configuration, topology, devices, etc. have not changed since the last boot process and there is no need to spend time discovering these devices and machine topology. Stored, instead of discovered, configuration information is then used to configure these devices. This reduces the time required to boot since discovery of devices is not performed. A service processor or other logic may be used to detect which access panels are opened. Also, only those elements of the configuration that may be affected by the particular access panels that were opened need to be re-discovered.
1. A method of booting a computer, comprising:
determining whether power to an intrusion monitor was removed before said booting;
if said power was removed, configuring a first hardware component from information discovered about said first hardware component;
if said power was not removed, testing for an intrusion into an access panel associated with a first hardware component using said intrusion monitor and configuring said first hardware component from a stored profile if an intrusion was not detected.
2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
if said power was not removed, constructing a profile for said first hardware component if an intrusion was detected and storing said profile for said first hardware component.
3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
configuring a second component from information discovered about said component.
4. The method of claim 3 wherein said information is discovered regardless of detection of an intrusion into said second component.
5. A computer system, comprising:
a chassis intrusion detection system;
a main tower supply;
a standby power supply that powers said chassis intrusion detection system; and,
a state machine that configures a component of said computer system from a stored profile of said component if said chassis intrusion detection system indicates that said component has not been altered since said computer system was last booted and configures said component from information discovered about said component if said chassis intrusion detection system indicates that said component may have been altered, wherein when said main power supply and said standby power supply have both turned off since said computer system was last booted, said state machine configures said component from said discovered information.
6. The computer system of claim 5 wherein said chassis intrusion detection system comprises a service processor.
7. The computer system of claim 6 wherein said chassis intrusion detection system comprises switches coupled to said service processor whereby the state of at least one of said switches indicate when at least one access panel on a chassis of said computer system is open.
8. A program storage medium readable by a computer, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the computer to perform method steps for booting a computer, said method steps comprising:
reading an indicia that indicates whether a change may have been made to a hardware component, wherein said indicia corresponds to whether an access panel has been opened and to whether main and standby power have been turned off;
discovering information about said hardware component if said indicia indicates that a change may have been made to said component or that main and standby power have been turned off, and configuring said hardware component based upon said discovered information; and,
configuring said hardware component based upon stored information if said indicia indicates a change has not been made to said hardware component.
9. The program storage medium of claim 8 wherein a service processor that operates on standby power generates said indicia.
10. The program storage medium of claim 8 wherein a main processor communicates with said service processor to read said indicia.
11. A method of booting a computer, comprising:
determining whether a first access panel and a second access panel have been opened since a last boot process;
discovering information about at least one first hardware component that is accessed via said first access panel if said first access panel was opened since said last boot process;
discovering information about at least one second hardware component that is accessed via said second access panel if said second access panel was opened since said last boot process;
reading said information about said at least one first hardware component from a first stored profile if said first access panel was not opened since said last boot process;
reading said information about said at least one second hardware component from a second stored profile if said second access panel was not opened since said last boot process;
configuring said at least one first hardware component based on said information about said at least one first hardware component; and
configuring said at least one second hardware component based on said information about said at least one second hardware component.
12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising updating said first stored profile with said information discovered about said at least one first hardware component if said first access panel was opened since said last boot process.
13. The method of claim 11 , further comprising updating said second stored profile with said information discovered about said at least one second hardware component if said second access panel was opened since said last boot process.
14. The method of claim 11 , further comprising determining if power was removed from an intrusion monitor for said first and second access panels since said last boot process, and if so, discovering said information about said at least one first and second hardware components, configuring said at least one first and second hardware components based on said information, and updating said first and second stored profiles with said information.