Use of off-motherboard resources in a computer system
View Patent ↗A system uses a protocol stack on a card external to a motherboard in a target computer system. A processor on the motherboard is able to make use of the external protocol stack during boot-up of the computer, or at any other time, so that it is not necessary to load the protocol stack into the motherboard's memory. This saves time, memory, and disk space and permits an external, managing, computer system to communicate with a computer just after power-up without loading and configuring a protocol stack so that the managing computer system can control the boot-up of the target computer system. The extra memory saved, especially, is important in running many MS-DOS applications, such as firmware flash utilities. A preferred embodiment of the invention uses a UDP/Internet Protocol (UDP/IP) stack resident in a Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) on, e.g, a network card. The approach described herein can be applied to other utilities, protocol stacks or resources (hardware and software) on other cards.
1. A method for allowing a processor on a motherboard to communicate with a network without loading a network communication protocol, the method comprising:
directing the processor to use an off-motherboard communication protocol, wherein
a network interface card is configured to communicate with the network using the off-motherboard communication protocol;
generating arguments for the network interface card usin an internal communication protocol, wherein
said generating is performed by the processor; and
providing the arguments to the network interface card.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein said directing further comprises:
modifying a vector in the processor so that an access to the off-motherboard communication protocol is effected.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the off-motherboard communication protocol includes a UDP/IP stack.
4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
providing said generating using a programming interface.
5. The method of claim 4 wherein said generating arguments comprises:
providing user arguments from a user program to the programming interface, and
encapsulating the user arguments into arguments for the network interface card using the internal communication protocol.
6. The method of claim 1 wherein the internal communication protocol comprises:
a pre-boot extension environment (PXE) protocol.
7. An apparatus for allowing a managing computer to control the boot-up of a target machine, the apparatus comprising
a network card, wherein
the network card comprises an off-motherboard communication protocol; and
a processor on a motherboard of the target machine and coupled to the network card, wherein
the processor is configured to use the off-motherboard communication protocol to communicate with the managing computer to effect a
controlled boot-up,
generate arguments for the network interface card usin an internal communication protocol, and
provide the arguments to the network interface card.
8. The apparatus of claim 7 , wherein the processor is disposed to execute instructions for redirecting the processor through a vector location 0xA1.
9. A computer-readable medium for allowing a managing computer to control the boot-up of a target machine, the computer readable medium comprising:
a first set of instructions, executable by a processor in the target machine, configured to use an off-motherboard communication protocol to communicate with the managing computer to effect a controlled boot-up;
a second set of instructions, executable on the processor in the target machine, configured to use generate arguments for the network interface card using an internal communication protocol; and
a third set of instructions, executable on the processor in the target machine, configured to provide the arguments to a network interface card, wherein
the network interface card comprises the off-motherboard communication protocol.
10. An apparatus comprising:
a network interface card, wherein the network interface card comprises an off-motherboard communication protocol;
a processor on a motherboard of a target machine and coupled to the network interface card;
means for directing the processor to use the off-motherboard communication protocol;
means for generating arguments for the network interface card using an internal communication protocol; and
means for providing the arguments to the network interface card.