Universal diagnostic hardware space access system for firmware
View Patent ↗Numerous types of hardware devices and memory included in a computing system can be accessed with a universal interface that has common interface commands. The universal interface aids engineers and technicians working on the system. This is particularly useful in a data storage system that includes a plurality of nodes for providing access to a data storage facility.
1. A method for an interface application to provide a user access to device registers in different types of computer hardware devices in a computer system for debugging the system, the method comprising:
providing a set of universal commands for accessing the device registers in the computer hardware devices;
receiving a first universal command entered by one or more users to access first data in first device registers of a first computer hardware device;
translating the first universal command to read and write commands in a first command structure of the first computer hardware device;
transmitting the read and write commands in the first command structure to the first computer hardware device over a first bus;
receiving a second universal command entered by the one or more users to access second data in second device registers of a second computer hardware device, the second device registers having a different bit width size than the first device registers;
translating the second universal command to read commands in a second command structure of the second computer hardware device, the first and the second command structures being different; and
transmitting the read commands in the second command structure to the second computer hardware device over a second bus, the second bus being a different bus type than the first bus.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein the first and the second universal commands are selected from a group comprising at least one of display, change, search, compare and copy commands.
3. The method of claim 2 wherein the change command comprises reading contents of device registers of a computer hardware device, changing the contents, and writing the changed contents back to the device registers.
4. The method of claim 2 wherein the copy command comprises reading contents of device registers of a computer hardware device and copying the contents to other device registers of the same or another computer hardware device.
5. The method of claim 1 wherein the computer hardware devices comprise at least one or more of PCI devices, I 2 C devices, microprocessors, and application specific integrated circuits.
6. The method of claim 1 wherein the computer hardware devices are accessed over an I 2 C or PCI bus and protocol.
7. The method of claim 1 wherein the universal commands each comprises a base command and modifiers to the base command.
8. The method of claim 7 wherein the base command comprises address information and size information.
9. A computer system comprising:
a first computer hardware device with first device registers, the first computer hardware device having a first command structure for accessing the first device registers;
a second computer hardware device with second device registers, the second computer hardware device having a second command structure for accessing the second device registers, the first and the second command structures being different, the second device registers having a different bit width size than the first device registers;
an interface application for one or more users to debug the system, the interface application being configured to:
provide a user interface for receiving a set of universal commands for accessing the first and the second device registers;
receive first and second universal commands entered by the one or more users;
translate the first universal command to read and write commands in the first command structure of the first computer hardware device;
transmit the read and write commands in the first command structure to the first computer hardware device over a first bus;
translate the second universal command to read commands in the second command structure of the second computer hardware device; and
transmit the read commands in the second command structure to the second computer hardware device over a second bus, the second bus being a different bus type than the first bus.
10. The system of claim 9 wherein the first and the second computer hardware devices are each selected from the group consisting of one or more PCI devices, I 2 C devices, microprocessors, and application specific integrated circuits.
11. The system of claim 9 wherein the universal commands are configured to trigger reading and writing to and from device registers of computer hardware devices.
12. The system of claim 9 wherein the universal commands each comprises a base command and modifiers to the base command.
13. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving the first data in the first device registers and displaying the first data to the one or more users; and
receiving the second data in the second device registers and displaying the second data to the one or more users.
14. The system of claim 9 , wherein the interface application is further configured to:
receive first data in the first device registers and displaying the first data to the one or more users; and
receive second data in the second device registers and displaying the second data to the one or more users.