Patent Application
20070283003
One or more specific embodiments of the present invention will be described below. In an effort to provide a concise description of these embodiments, not all features of an actual implementation are described in the specification. It should be appreciated that in the development of any such actual implementation, as in any engineering or design project, numerous implementation-specific decisions must be made to achieve the developers' specific goals, such as compliance with system-related and business-related constraints, which may vary from one implementation to another. Moreover, it should be appreciated that such a development effort might be complex and time consuming, but would nevertheless be a routine undertaking of design, fabrication, and manufacture for those of ordinary skill having the benefit of this disclosure.
As described above, Active Management Technology (“AMT”) and other suitable remote access systems typically condition access to controllable computer systems by a remote console with provisioning information, such as passwords and/or keys. Furthermore, to improve security, many remote access systems employ provisioning information including 40 or more characters (e.g., AMT employs a 40 character pre-shared key and a 8 character administrator password). It may be difficult, however, for a user to manually create a random 40 character key and/or manually enter this key into both the computer system to be controlled and the remote console (entry of the provisioning information is referred to as “provisioning” a system). As such, one or more of the embodiments described herein may be directed towards a system or method for provisioning a computer system and/or a remote console. Specifically, in one embodiment, there is provided a computer system configured to generate provisioning information for itself and to store the provisioning information on a storage medium suitable for accessing by a remote console.
Turning now to
The CPU 12 may be communicatively coupled to a north bridge 14, such as an Intel 82451NX Memory and I/O Bridge Controller (“MIOC”). The north bridge 14 may be an interface (either directly or indirectly) between the CPU 12 and the rest of the components of the system 10. The north bridge 14 may contain a memory controller for accessing a main memory 16 (e.g., dynamic random access memory (“DRAM”)). The north bridge 14 may also be communicatively coupled to an accelerated graphics port (“AGP”) 18. The AGP 18 can transmit video data through an AGP video card (not shown) to a video display 20, which can display the video data for a user.
The north bridge 14 may also be communicatively coupled to a south bridge 22. The south bridge 22 is an integrated multifunctional component, such as the Intel 82371 (a.k.a. PIIX4). The south bridge 22 may include a controller which may enable the south bridge 22 to communicate and/or control a data storage device 24. The data storage device 24 may include any one of a variety of suitable data storage devices. For example, in one embodiment, the data storage device 24 is an IDE or ATA hard drive. In alternate embodiments, the data storage device 24 may be a small computer system interface (“SCSI”) drive or a fibre channel drive. In still other embodiments, the date storage device may be a solid state data storage device or optical data storage device.
The south bridge may also be coupled to a basic input/output system (“BIOS”) read-only memory (“ROM”) 26. The BIOS ROM 26 may be configured to store code or instructions for setting up or configuring the operation of the computer system 10. For example, in one embodiment, the code or instructions stored in the BIOS ROM 26 may, when executed, produce a setup or configuration interface that can be accessed by pressing the F10 key on a keyboard (hereafter referred to as “the F10 setup”). As described further below, the BIOS ROM 26 may also be configured to store code or instructions for generating provisioning information for the computer system 10 and/or for storing the provisioning information on a storage medium.
The south bridge 22 may also be coupled to a variety of human input devices 28, such as the keyboard and/or a mouse. Further, while not illustrated in
The south bridge 22 may also be communicatively coupled to an expansion bus 30. The expansion bus 30 may permit the addition of expansion cards into the computer system 10. The expansion bus 30 may employ any one of a number of suitable expansion bus technologies, including Peripheral Component Interconnect (“PCI”), PCI-X, PCI express, and the like. As such, it will be appreciated that PCI, PCI-X, and PCI express are merely exemplary, and in alternate embodiments, other suitable expansion bus technologies may be employed as well.
Returning to
The expansion bus 30 may also be communicatively coupled to one or more ports 34. The ports 34 may include a Universal Serial Bus (“USB”) port, an IEEE-1394 port, or another suitable type of port. In addition, the ports 34 may also include or be communicatively coupled to a wireless transceiver, such as a Bluetooth transceiver or I.E.E.E. 802.11 transceiver, capable of be being communicatively coupled wirelessly to the external storage device. The ports 34 may be communicatively coupled to a storage device, such as a flash memory device (not shown) to store provisioning information generated by the computer system 10. As described further below with regard to
Further, it should be noted that the embodiment of the computer system 10 illustrated in
As described above, the computer system 10 may be configured to generate provisioning information for itself and to store this provisioning information on a storage medium, such as a smart card, the USB flash memory device 36, a Bluetooth flash memory device, and the like. Accordingly,
As indicated by block 42 of
If the provisioning information is located on the storage medium (block 46), the computer system 10 may be configured to upload the stored provisioning information in the remote access system of the computer system 10, as indicated by block 48. In one embodiment, uploading the provisioning information may include uploading a PSK and/or administrator password into the AMT system. If, on the other hand, provisioning information is not found on the storage medium, the computer system 10 may be configured to generate its own provisioning information, as indicated by block 50. In one embodiment, generating provisioning information may include randomly generating a PSK and/or administrator password as described above. In alternate embodiments, however, generating provisioning information may include generating any suitable form of passphrase, password, and/or key.
After the computer system 10 has generated the provisioning information, it may upload the provisioning information in the remote access system, as indicated by block 52. In one embodiment, uploading the provisioning information may include uploading the PSK and/or administrator password into the AMT system. Alternatively, the provisioning information may be stored in the data storage device 24 or other storage media for use by the AMT system at a later time.
In addition, the computer system 10 may also be configured to write the provisioning information to a storage device capable of being accessed by a remote console, as indicated by block 54. In various embodiments, this storage device may include a smart card, a memory card or stick, a solid state or semiconductor memory device, such as the USB flash memory device 36, a personal digital assistant, such as an iPAQ, a diskette, an optical medium, a wireless device, a Bluetooth-enabled device, or any other suitable form of external storage media that can be communicatively coupled to the computer system 10. For example, the storage device may be a flash memory device including a rigid body (e.g., a plastic body) affixed to a tangible machine readable medium, such as a semiconductor memory, which may be configured to store the PSK and/or administrator password.
As described further below with regard to
In addition to writing the provisioning information to the storage device, the computer system 10 may also be configured to write identification information associated with the provisioning information to the storage device, as indicated by block 56. For example, in one embodiment, the computer system 10 may be configured to write its serial number (“S/N”) and/or universally unique identifier (“UUID”) to the storage device. It will also be appreciated that writing the identification information to the storage device may enable the storage device to be used to store provisioning information for multiple computer systems.
As described above, the computer system 10 may be configured to write provisioning information and system identification information to a storage device, such as a USB flash memory device 36. As described below, this provisioning information may be subsequently accessed by a remote console that is being configured to access and/or control the computer system 10. Accordingly,
As indicated by block 62 of
Next, the remote console 82 may be configured to search the storage device (see
After identifying the computer system associated with the provisioning information, the remote console 82 may upload the provisioning information from the storage device, as indicated by block 72. In one embodiment, uploading the provisioning information may include storing the provisioning information in a location accessible by the software program or package configured to remotely access (e.g., maintain, upgrade, or repair) the computer system 10. For example, the PSK and/or administrator password may be uploaded from the USB flash memory device 36 into an AMT software program loaded on the remote console 82.
In addition, once the provisioning information has been uploaded, the remote console 82 may also be configured to verify the provisioning information. In one embodiment, this verification may include contacting the computer system associated with the provisioning information (e.g., the computer system 10) over the network 84, as indicated by block 74. After contacting the computer system associated with the provisioning information, the remote console 82 may be configured to verify the provisioning information is correct, as indicated in block 76. In one embodiment, this verification may include attempting to access the computer system 10 over the network 84 and/or attempting to transmit a command to the computer system 10. If the remote console 82 is able to access and/or command the computer system 10, the remote console 82 may determine that the provisioning information uploaded into the remote console 82 matches the provisioning information stored within the computer system 10, and as such, that the uploaded provisioning information was correct.
While the invention described above may be susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments have been shown by way of example in the drawings and have been described in detail herein. It should be understood, however, that the invention is not intended to be limited to the particular embodiments disclosed.
