Patent Application
20140380294
This Application claims priority of Taiwan Patent Application No. 102122109, filed on Jun. 21, 2013, the entirety of which is incorporated by reference herein.
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to firmware upgrade, and in particular, relates to methods for upgrading firmware and electronic devices using the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic device manufacturers typically add or improve functions by upgrading internally stored firmware. However, when upgrading the firmware, an electronic device needs to add new version parameters so as to adapt to the newly added functions. In addition, the user values being configured during the execution of the old firmware version need to be applied to the new firmware version for use. Thus, it is desirable to have methods for upgrading firmware and electronic devices using the same to not only add new version parameters but also preserve the previous user values.
An embodiment of a method for upgrading firmware, executed by a processing unit, is disclosed. Factory settings corresponding to a first firmware version with user configuration values corresponding to a second firmware version to generate combined user configuration values. System initiation for an electronic device is performed using the first firmware version with reference to the combined user configuration values.
An embodiment of an electronic device for upgrading firmware is disclosed. The electronic device contains at least a memory and a processing unit. The memory is configured to store factory settings corresponding to a first firmware version, and user configuration values corresponding to a second firmware version. The processing unit, coupled to the memory, is configured to combine the factory settings with the user configuration values to generate combined user configuration values, and perform system initiation for the electronic device using the first firmware version with reference to the combined user configuration values.
The factory settings may be provided by a manufacturer of the electronic device and the user configuration values may be established through a configuration interface by a user. The first firmware version may represent a new firmware version and the second firmware version may represent an old firmware version. The aforementioned combining not only adds factory settings of new parameters associated with the new firmware version but also preserves the user configuration values, which was established when the old firmware version was run.
A detailed description is given in the following embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings.
The present invention can be fully understood by reading the subsequent detailed description and examples with references made to the accompanying drawings, wherein:
The following description is of the best-contemplated mode of carrying out the invention. This description is made for the purpose of illustrating the general principles of the invention and should not be taken in a limiting sense. The scope of the invention is best determined by reference to the appended claims.
The present invention will be described with respect to particular embodiments and with reference to certain drawings, but the invention is not limited thereto and is only limited by the claims. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises,” “comprising,” “includes” and/or “including,” when used herein, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof.
Use of ordinal terms such as “first”, “second”, “third”, etc., in the claims to modify a claim element does not by itself connote any priority, precedence, or order of one claim element over another or the temporal order in which acts of a method are performed, but are used merely as labels to distinguish one claim having a certain name from another element having the same name (but for use of the ordinal term) to distinguish the claim elements.
Several embodiments are introduced to describe that an electronic device uses methods for upgrading firmware to not only add new version parameters but also preserve the previous user values set in the execution of an old firmware version. The following introduces a router as an example to specify embodiments of the methods for upgrading firmware.
The router 10 may include a bus 160 or other communication mechanism for communicating information across and among various parts of the router 10. The processing unit 310 can be implemented in numerous ways, such as with dedicated hardware, or with general-purpose hardware (e.g., a single process, multiple processors or graphics processing units capable of parallel computations, or others) that is programmed using microcode or software instructions to perform the functions recited hereinafter. The router may transmit packets from the Internet 30 to one of the electronic devices 21, 22 and 23, and transmit packets front one of the electronic devices 21, 22 and 23 to the Internet 30. The router 10 may implement QoS (quality of service) applications to provide data delivery with reference to the parameters negotiated with any of the electronic devices 21, 22 and 23, or any application executed therein.
Several examples are disclosed to describe the data stored in the default value partition 230. The default value partition 230 may store a preset pair of an administrator account and a password, and a variety of factory settings for network management, such as various items of firewall settings, WAN (Wide Area Network) settings, LAN settings, wireless network settings and system settings. The firewall settings may contain an item for configuring whether the router 10 runs in the NAT (network address transition) mode or the bridge mode (also referred to as an item of the router running mode). The router 10 running in the NAT mode modifies source addresses of passed-through packets with public addresses, which are received from of the electronic devices 21, 22 and 23 and to be transmitted to the Internet 30, and stores the NAT-related information, such as records each containing one of the private addresses of the electronic devices 21, 22 and 23, a source port, a destination address, a destination port and the allocated public address. After that, the router 10 receives packets from the Internet 30, refers to the stored NAT-related information and modifies the public addresses, which are stored in the destination address fields of the received packets, with the private addresses accordingly, so that the designated electronic devices 21, 22 and 23 can receive the packets. Note that, the public addresses are network addresses recognized by any node presented in the Internet 30 while the private addresses are network addresses only recognized by the electronic devices presented in the LAN, such as the router 10, the electronic devices 21, 22 and 23, etc., where the available quantity of public addresses is typically fewer than the quantity of the electronic devices presented in the LAN. The router 10 running in the bridge mode allocates each of the electronic devices 21, 22 and 23 a public address, so that the packets from the Internet 30 and the electronic devices 21, 22 and 23 are directly passed through without any address transition. In some embodiments, the factory setting indicating which mode the router 10 runs suggests the NAT mode. The WAN settings may contain the following items, such as a MAC (Media Access Control) address of the router 10 and a preset connection type to the Internet, such as one of the static IP (Internet Protocol) address and the dynamic IP address. Note that, after the firmware is successfully upgraded, the router 10 may have more network service functions and the default value partition 230 therefore stores factory settings of newly added items associated with the new functions.
The current value partition 240 may store the appended pairs of a user account and a password, and a wide range of user configuration values for network management, which are set by users, and parameter values for upgrading firmware. The router 10 may further provide a user interface which facilitates in the editing of the aforementioned data by users. Several examples are introduced to describe the data stored in the current value partition 240. The current value partition 240 may store multiple firewall configuration records appended by users to suggest the blocking of incoming and outgoing data associated with particular IP addresses and/or port numbers. The current value partition 240 may store user configuration values of the WAN setting items, such as the IP address of the router 10 assigned by the ISP (Internet Service Provider), the subnet mask, the default gateway, and the primary and secondary DNS (Domain Name Server). The WAN setting items may further contain sub items associated with the Internet connection type selected by a user, such as the static IP address and the dynamic IP address. The current value partition 240 may store configuration values of LAN setting items set by users, such as the router address of the LAN and the name of the router 10. The current value, partition 240 may store configuration values of wireless network setting items set by users, such as the SSID (Service Set Identification), the encryption method, and the private key, etc. The current value partition 240 may store configuration values of system setting items set by users, such as the time zone, the language, and the file path of the debug log, etc. The current value partition 240 may further store a merge flag which indicates whether a data-renew procedure is needed to be performed. The merge flag is set to “True” after a new firmware version is successfully downloaded and stored in the firmware storage partition 250 or 260, so as to trigger the data-renew procedure subsequent to the firmware upgrade. Note that, the stored items of the current value partition 240 are diverse and numerous, typically more than a few thousand. Accordingly, users need much time to reconfigure the user values if the currently stored user configuration data is lost after the firmware upgrade,
As to the firmware storage partitions 250 and 260, the firmware code and the related data files are stored in the firmware body partition 253 or 263 while firmware profile data is stored in the firmware header partition 251 or 261. The firmware header partitions 251 and 261 store firmware version information associated with the firmware code stored in the firmware body partitions 253 and 263, respectively, The processing unit 110 may inspect the firmware version information recorded in the firmware header partition 251 and 261 to determine whether the firmware version used by the router 10 is out of date and needs to be upgraded. After a firmware upgrade is successfully performed, the environment parameter partition 220 stores information which indicates the location of the currently used firmware among the firmware storage partitions 230 and 240.
The embodiments of the invention describe the following technical features of combining multiple user configuration values corresponding to an old firmware version with multiple factory settings corresponding to a new firmware version to generate combined user configuration values. After that, an electronic device, such as the router 10, performs system initiation using the new firmware version and the combined user configuration values. The aforementioned combining not only adds factory settings of new parameters associated with the new firmware version but also preserves the user configuration values, which was established when the old firmware version was run.
For the data-renew procedure subsequent to the firmware upgrade, the processing unit 110 first duplicates factory settings of different items of the default value partition 230 into the memory 120 as a copy, which are associated with the new firmware version, and overwrites the duplicated factory settings with the user settings of the items recorded in a patch file, which is provided by a user (step S440). For example, if the patch file contains a user setting which indicates that the router 10 runs in the bridge mode, the user setting overwrites the factory setting of the same item of the memory 120, regardless of which router running mode the factory setting indicates. The user settings within the patch file can be considered as user-defined factory settings. Meanwhile, the memory 120 includes, but is not limited to, two regions: one is referred to as a default value region for storing the modified factory setting; and the other is referred to as a current value region for storing the duplicated user configuration values copied from the current value partition 240 of the storage unit 130 (described in step S410). Although the embodiment has been described by having specific features, such as importing a patch file, it is noted that these are merely the preferred features, and the invention is equally applicable to the data-renew procedure directly using the duplicated factory settings without any modification by importing a patch file. Subsequently, the factory settings of the memory 120 are combined with the user configuration values of the memory 12.0 to generate new user configuration values (step S450). The factory settings and the user configuration values of all items may be organized into one or more table(s) of a database. It should be understood that the factory settings of the memory 120 are associated with newly downloaded firmware version and the user configuration values of the memory 120 are set by users operating in the environment of the old firmware version.
Although the embodiment has been described by having specific elements in
While the invention has been described by way of example and in terms of the preferred embodiments, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiments. To the contrary, it is intended to cover various modifications and similar arrangements (as would be apparent to those skilled in the art). Therefore, the scope of the appended claims should be accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and similar arrangements.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 102122109 | Jun 2013 | TW | national |
