Method for extracting BIOS attributes for BIOS management and system therefor

1. A method comprising:

annotating Visual Forms Representation (VFR) data with a property identifier to identify configuration attributes to be included at a Platform Level Data Model (PLDM) management profile;

parsing Internal Forms Representation (IFR) data to collect the configuration attributes identified by the property identifier, the configuration attributes defining configurable features at an information handling system;

generating a configuration attribute file including the configuration attributes parsed from the IFR data;

including the configuration attribute file at a basic input/output system (BIOS) image; and

storing the BIOS image at a BIOS non-volatile random-access memory (NVRAM) at the information handling system, the configuration attribute file accessible during initialization of the information handling system by BIOS instructions.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

accessing the configuration attribute file at the BIOS NVRAM by the BIOS instructions during initialization of the information handling system;

determining current values of the configuration attributes identified in the configuration attribute file;

generating the PLDM management profile based on the current values; and

storing the PLDM management profile at the information handling system.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the parsing, generating, and storing are performed prior to initialization of the information handling system and at a location other than at the information handling system.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the BIOS image is a Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) image.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the IFR data includes a Human Interface Infrastructure (HII) opcode resource file and an HII language resource file.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the annotation identifies configuration attributes at the information handling system that are visible to a management system remote to the information handling system, the management system providing out-of-band configuration management at the information handling system.

7. A method comprising:

accessing a configuration attribute file from a basic input/output system (BIOS) non-volatile random-access memory (NVRAM) at an information handling system, the configuration attribute file generated during a BIOS image build time based on annotation included at Visual Forms Representation (VFR) data, the accessing during execution of BIOS instructions during initialization of the information handling system;

accessing Human Interface Infrastructure (HII) Internal Forms Representation (IFR) data included at the BIOS;

determining current values of the configuration attributes identified in the configuration attribute file based on the IFR data;

generating a Platform Level Data Model (PLDM) management profile based on the current values; and

storing the PLDM management profile at the information handling system.

8. The method of claim 7 , further comprising:

parsing BIOS information to collect configuration attributes configurable by a management system;

generating the configuration attribute file based on the configuration attributes;

including the configuration attribute file at a BIOS image; and

storing the BIOS image at a BIOS NVRAM.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the parsing of the BIOS information, the generating of the configuration attribute file, and the storing of the configuration file are performed prior to initialization of the information handling system and at a location other than at the information handling system.

10. The method of claim 8 , further comprising annotating the VFR data to identify the configuration attributes to be parsed.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the annotation identifies configuration attributes at the information handling system that are visible to a management system remote to the information handling system, the management system providing out-of-band configuration management at the information handling system based on the PLDM management profile.

12. The method of claim 8 , wherein the BIOS image is a Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) image and the parsing further comprises parsing the IFR data.

13. The method of claim 7 , wherein updating the configuration attribute file further comprises determining current SuppressIf values.

14. An information handling system comprising:

a management engine (ME) operable to provide out-of-band management services at the information handling system; and

a non-volatile random-access memory (NVRAM) for storing:

a Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) basic input/output system (BIOS) including Internal Forms Representation (IFR) data;

a configuration attribute file identifying attributes configurable by a management system, the configuration attribute file generated prior to initialization of the information handling system based on the IFR data, the configuration attribute file accessible by BIOS instructions during initialization of the information handling system; and

a Platform Level Data Model (PLDM) management profile, the PLDM management profile accessible by the ME and generated during BIOS initialization of the information handling system based on current values of the configuration attributes identified in the configuration attribute file.

15. The information handling system of claim 14 , wherein the configuration attribute file is generated by parsing the IFR data to identify configuration attributes identified by a designated property identifier, the parsing performed at a location other than at the information handling system.

16. The information handling system of claim 14 , wherein the BIOS includes instructions executable by a processor during initialization of the system to:

access the configuration attribute file at the NVRAM;

determine current values of configuration attributes identified in the configuration attribute file;

generate the Platform Level Data Model (PLDM) management profile based on the current values; and

store the PLDM management profile at the information handling system.

17. The information handling system of claim 14 , where in the PLDM management profile is accessible, via the ME, by the management system, the management system remote to the information handling system.

18. The information handling system of claim 14 , wherein the PLDM management profile is stored at the NVRAM at a partition associated with the ME.