JP7166231B2 - Information processing device and information processing system - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to an information processing device and an information processing system.

When some abnormality occurs in the device, it is generally restarted. The device attempts to recover from the abnormality by restarting. Here, there are various causes of abnormality. Therefore, if the device is uniformly restarted, there is a possibility that an abnormality will occur again. Therefore, it is desirable that the apparatus detect the cause of the abnormality and, after restarting, start up the S/W or the like so as to solve the cause of the abnormality.

By the way, along with the miniaturization of semiconductors, the importance of countermeasures against soft errors is increasing. For example, when an abnormality due to latch-up due to a soft error occurs, it is necessary to turn off the power once for recovery. After turning off the power, the power is turned on. In other words, recovery requires a reboot.

As explained above, anomalous causes are detected. Here, there is a possibility that the information indicating the cause of the abnormality will be lost due to the execution of the restart. Therefore, a technique has been proposed for storing information indicating the cause of an abnormality in a nonvolatile storage device (see Patent Document 1). For example, the control unit of Patent Document 1 stores failure information in a non-volatile memory when a failure occurs. It should be noted that the failure information may be considered as information indicating the cause of the abnormality. Here, the information indicating the cause of abnormality is referred to as cause-of-abnormality information.

JP-A-2004-348359

In the above technique, when a failure occurs, the control unit stores failure information in the nonvolatile memory. For example, when a failure occurs in the control unit, failure information is no longer stored in the non-volatile memory.
If the error cause information is not stored as in the above technique, processing using the error cause information cannot be executed after restarting.

An object of the present invention is to store abnormality cause information.

An information processing device according to one aspect of the present invention is provided. An information processing device includes a nonvolatile memory device, a control unit that writes information to the nonvolatile memory device, and a restart unit . The control unit includes a first abnormality detection and identification unit that detects that an abnormality has occurred in the control unit and identifies an abnormality cause that is the cause of the abnormality, and abnormality cause information that is information indicating the cause of the abnormality. a first reset unit for resetting the control unit without deleting the abnormality cause information; and after the control unit is reset, the abnormality cause information is stored in the non-volatile a writer for writing to the storage device. The restart unit restarts the information processing device after the abnormality cause information is written in the nonvolatile storage device.

According to the present invention, abnormality cause information can be stored.

2 is a functional block diagram showing the configuration of the information processing device according to Embodiment 1; FIG. 4 is a flow chart showing an example of processing executed by the information processing apparatus according to the first embodiment; 3 is a functional block diagram showing the configuration of an information processing device according to a second embodiment; FIG. 10 is a flow chart showing an example of processing executed by the information processing apparatus according to the second embodiment; FIG. 12 illustrates an information processing system according to a third embodiment; FIG. FIG. 11 is a sequence diagram showing processing executed in an information processing system according to a third embodiment;

Embodiments will be described below with reference to the drawings. The following embodiments are merely examples, and various modifications are possible within the scope of the present invention.

Embodiment 1.
FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram showing the configuration of an information processing apparatus according to Embodiment 1. FIG. FIG. 1 illustrates power flow, control signal flow, and reset signal flow, which is a signal related to reset.

The information processing device 1 is a device that spontaneously restarts. For example, the information processing device 1 is a PC (Personal Computer) or a communication device. The information processing device 1 has a control unit 100 , a nonvolatile storage device 200 , a supply unit 300 and a restart unit 400 .
The control unit 100 controls the information processing apparatus 1 as a whole. For example, the control unit 100 writes information to the nonvolatile memory device 200 . The control unit 100 may be considered as a processor. For example, the control unit 100 is a CPU (Central Processing Unit).

The nonvolatile memory device 200 is, for example, a HDD (Hard Disk Drive) or an SSD (Solid State Drive).
The supply unit 300 supplies power to the information processing device 1 . For example, the supply unit 300 supplies power to the control unit 100 .

Upon receiving a restart instruction from the control unit 100, the restart unit 400 stops power supply from the supply unit 300 for a certain period of time. Then, the supply unit 300 supplies power to the information processing apparatus 1 after a certain period of time. Here, the process executed by the restart unit 400 may be called power OFF/ON reset.

Next, functional blocks of the control unit 100 will be described.
The control unit 100 has a first storage unit 110 , a main control unit 120 , a first abnormality detection and identification unit 130 , a first reset unit 140 , an IF (Interface) unit 150 and a startup processing unit 160 . Also, the main control unit 120 and the IF unit 150 are also called a writing unit 170 .
The first storage unit 110 may be considered as a cache memory, for example. The first storage unit 110 may be a non-volatile storage device. The main control unit 120 controls the control unit 100 as a whole.

The first abnormality detection and identification unit 130 detects that an abnormality has occurred in the control unit 100 . Also, the first abnormality detection and identification unit 130 may detect that an abnormality has occurred in the writing unit 170 .
The first anomaly detection and identification unit 130 identifies an anomaly cause that is the cause of an anomaly. For example, the first abnormality detection and identification unit 130 identifies the cause of abnormality from the log. When the cause of the abnormality is identified, the first abnormality detection and identification unit 130 stores abnormality cause information, which is information indicating the cause of the abnormality, in the first storage unit 110 . Thereby, the first storage unit 110 stores the abnormality cause information. The abnormality cause information may be expressed as information obtained by the first abnormality detection and identification unit 130 identifying the abnormality cause.

Further, the first anomaly detection and identification unit 130 may detect an anomaly within the information processing device 1 .
The first reset section 140 resets the control section 100 . In other words, the first reset section 140 initializes the control section 100 . The first reset unit 140 may transmit a reset instruction to the control unit 100 when executing the reset. Then, the first reset unit 140 may start the reset process by receiving the reset instruction. Note that the reset instruction may be called a power ON reset.

Here, the first reset unit 140 does not delete the abnormality cause information when resetting the control unit 100 . That is, the first reset unit 140 does not reset the area in which the abnormality cause information is stored. Thus, the first resetting section 140 resets the control section 100 without deleting the abnormality cause information. Further, for example, when resetting the control unit 100 , the first reset unit 140 may be expressed as resetting other than the first storage unit 110 .
IF unit 150 writes information to nonvolatile memory device 200 . The IF unit 150 also reads information from the nonvolatile storage device 200 .

The activation processing unit 160 uses the abnormality cause information to perform activation processing of S/W, FPGA (Field Programmable GATE Array), etc. so as to solve the cause of abnormality.
The write unit 170 has a write control function. Specifically, the write unit 170 is related to write control to the nonvolatile memory device 200 . Writing unit 170 writes the abnormality cause information to nonvolatile storage device 200 after control unit 100 is reset.

Next, processing executed by the information processing apparatus 1 will be described using a flowchart.
2 is a flowchart illustrating an example of processing executed by the information processing apparatus according to the first embodiment; FIG.
(Step S11) The first abnormality detection and identification unit 130 determines whether or not the writing unit 170 has an abnormality. Specifically, the first abnormality detection and identification unit 130 determines whether or not an abnormality has occurred in the main control unit 120 or the IF unit 150 .
If an abnormality has occurred in the main control unit 120 or the IF unit 150, the first abnormality detection/identification unit 130 advances the process to step S12. If an abnormality has occurred other than the main control unit 120 and the IF unit 150, the first abnormality detection/specifying unit 130 advances the process to step S20.

(Step S12) The first abnormality detection and identification unit 130 detects that at least one of the main control unit 120 and the IF unit 150 has an abnormality.
(Step S13) The first abnormality detection and identification unit 130 identifies the cause of abnormality. When an abnormality occurs in both main control section 120 and IF section 150, first abnormality detection and identification section 130 identifies the cause of the abnormality in both. Here, the cause of anomaly includes the location of the cause of the occurrence of the anomaly and the type of the anomaly. For example, the type of error is soft error, program error, or the like.

First abnormality detection and identification unit 130 stores the abnormality cause information in first storage unit 110 .
The first abnormality detection and identification unit 130 transmits a reset signal to the first reset unit 140 in order to restore the write control function of the control unit 100 .

(Step S<b>14 ) The first reset section 140 resets the control section 100 . Specifically, the first reset unit 140 resets the control unit 100 without deleting the abnormality cause information.
Further, when the first resetting section 140 resets the control section 100 , power is supplied to the control section 100 . Therefore, for example, when the first storage unit 110 is a cache memory, the abnormality cause information does not disappear.

(Step S15) The activation processing unit 160 performs activation processing for recovering the write control function. This sentence can be expressed as: The activation processing unit 160 executes activation processing for activating the write control function in the control unit 100 .
In this way, the control unit 100 is restarted by the processing of steps S14 and S15.

(Step S<b>16 ) Main control unit 120 instructs first abnormality detection and identification unit 130 to transmit abnormality cause information to IF unit 150 . First abnormality detection and identification section 130 transmits abnormality cause information stored in first storage section 110 to IF section 150 . Further, the main control unit 120 may directly acquire the abnormality cause information from the first storage unit 110 and transmit the abnormality cause information to the IF unit 150 .
The IF section 150 stores the abnormality cause information in the nonvolatile storage device 200 .

(Step S<b>17 ) The main control section 120 instructs the first reset section 140 to restart the information processing device 1 . First reset unit 140 transmits a restart instruction to restart unit 400 .
(Step S<b>18 ) The restart unit 400 restarts the information processing device 1 . In this way, the restart unit 400 restarts the information processing device 1 after the abnormality cause information is written in the nonvolatile storage device 200 .

(Step S<b>19 ) After restarting, the main control unit 120 transmits an instruction to read the abnormality cause information to the IF unit 150 . The IF unit 150 reads the abnormality cause information from the nonvolatile storage device 200 . The IF unit 150 transmits the abnormality cause information to the activation processing unit 160 .
The startup processing unit 160 executes startup processing using the abnormality cause information. That is, the startup processing unit 160 performs startup processing so as to solve the cause of the abnormality based on the information about the cause of the abnormality.

(Step S<b>20 ) The first abnormality detection and identification unit 130 detects that an abnormality has occurred in a part other than the main control part 120 and the IF part 150 . The first abnormality detection and identification unit 130 identifies the cause of abnormality. In addition, the first abnormality detection and identification unit 130 identifies the cause of abnormality at a plurality of locations when abnormality occurs at a plurality of locations. Here, the cause of anomaly includes the location of the cause of the occurrence of the anomaly and the type of the anomaly. First abnormality detection and identification unit 130 stores the abnormality cause information in first storage unit 110 .
Then, the process proceeds to step S16.

According to Embodiment 1, when an abnormality occurs in control unit 100 , abnormality cause information is stored in first storage unit 110 . After the controller 100 is restarted, the abnormality cause information is stored in the nonvolatile storage device 200 . Therefore, the information processing device 1 can store abnormality cause information.
Further, since the abnormality cause information is stored in the non-volatile storage device 200, the information processing device 1 can use the abnormality cause information to execute the start-up process after the information processing device 1 is restarted.

Embodiment 2.
Next, Embodiment 2 will be described. Mainly the matters different from the first embodiment will be explained. Further, the description of matters common to the first embodiment is omitted. Embodiment 2 refers to FIGS.
In the first embodiment, the case where write unit 170 malfunctions has been described. Here, when an abnormality occurs in the first abnormality detection and identification unit 130, the abnormality is not detected. Also, when an abnormality occurs in the first reset unit 140, the control unit 100 is not reset. Therefore, a method in which the information processing apparatus 1 has a plurality of control units is conceivable. However, having a plurality of control units in the information processing apparatus 1 increases the cost of the information processing apparatus 1 . Therefore, it is difficult to adopt this method.

As described above, a problem arises when an abnormality occurs in the first abnormality detection/identification section 130 or the first reset section 140 . Therefore, in the second embodiment, a technique for coping with such problems is provided.

FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram showing the configuration of the information processing device according to the second embodiment. The information processing device 1 further includes a second storage section 500 , a second abnormality detection and identification section 600 and a second reset section 700 . 3 that are the same as those shown in FIG. 1 are assigned the same reference numerals as those shown in FIG.

The second storage unit 500 may be implemented as a storage area secured in a RAM (Random Access Memory), HDD, or SSD.
A second abnormality detection and identification unit 600 detects that an abnormality has occurred in the control unit 100 . Also, the second abnormality detection and identification unit 600 may detect that an abnormality has occurred in the writing unit 170 .

The second abnormality detection and identification unit 600 identifies the cause of abnormality. The second abnormality detection and identification unit 600 stores abnormality cause information, which is information indicating the cause of abnormality, in the second storage unit 500 . Thereby, the second storage unit 500 stores the abnormality cause information. The abnormality cause information may be expressed as information obtained by the second abnormality detection and identification unit 600 identifying the abnormality cause.
A second reset unit 700 resets the control unit 100 . After control unit 100 is reset by second reset unit 700 , writing unit 170 writes the abnormality cause information stored in second storage unit 500 to nonvolatile storage device 200 .

Next, processing executed by the information processing apparatus 1 according to the second embodiment will be described using a flowchart.
4 is a flowchart illustrating an example of processing executed by the information processing apparatus according to the second embodiment; FIG. The processing in FIG. 4 is processing that is executed when an abnormality occurs in the first abnormality detection/specifying section 130 or the first reset section 140 . If no abnormality has occurred in the first abnormality detection and identification unit 130 and the first reset unit 140, the process of FIG. 2 is executed.

(Step S21) The second abnormality detection and identification unit 600 detects that the writing unit 170 has an abnormality. That is, the second abnormality detection and identification unit 600 detects that at least one of the main control unit 120 and the IF unit 150 has an abnormality.
(Step S22) The second abnormality detection and identification unit 600 identifies the cause of abnormality. When an abnormality occurs in both main control section 120 and IF section 150, second abnormality detection and identification section 600 identifies the cause of the abnormality in both. Here, the cause of anomaly includes the location of the cause of the occurrence of the anomaly and the type of the anomaly. For example, the type of error is soft error, program error, or the like.

The second abnormality detection and identification unit 600 stores the abnormality cause information in the second storage unit 500 .
The second abnormality detection and identification unit 600 transmits a reset signal to the second reset unit 700 to restore the write control function of the control unit 100 .

(Step S<b>23 ) The second reset section 700 resets the control section 100 .
(Step S24) The startup processing unit 160 performs startup processing for recovering the write control function. This sentence can be expressed as: The activation processing unit 160 executes activation processing for activating the write control function in the control unit 100 .
Thus, the control unit 100 is restarted by the processing of steps S23 and S24.

(Step S<b>25 ) The main control section 120 instructs the second abnormality detection/identification section 600 to transmit abnormality cause information to the IF section 150 . Second abnormality detection and identification section 600 transmits abnormality cause information stored in second storage section 500 to IF section 150 . The IF section 150 stores the abnormality cause information in the nonvolatile storage device 200 .
(Step S<b>26 ) The main control section 120 instructs the first reset section 140 to restart the information processing device 1 . First reset unit 140 transmits a restart instruction to restart unit 400 .

(Step S<b>27 ) The restart unit 400 restarts the information processing device 1 .
(Step S<b>28 ) After restarting, the main control unit 120 transmits an instruction to read the abnormality cause information to the IF unit 150 . The IF unit 150 reads the abnormality cause information from the nonvolatile storage device 200 . The IF unit 150 transmits the abnormality cause information to the activation processing unit 160 .
The startup processing unit 160 executes startup processing using the abnormality cause information. That is, the startup processing unit 160 performs startup processing so as to solve the cause of the abnormality based on the information about the cause of the abnormality.

Also, the second storage unit 500 , the second abnormality detection and identification unit 600 , and the second reset unit 700 may exist in an external device connectable to the information processing apparatus 1 . The external device and the information processing device 1 may execute the processing shown in FIG. 4 between the external device and the information processing device 1 .

According to the second embodiment, the information processing apparatus 1 stores the abnormality cause information in the nonvolatile storage device 200 even when an abnormality occurs in the first abnormality detection/specifying unit 130 or the first resetting unit 140. can be done.
Moreover, the information processing apparatus 1 does not have a plurality of control units. If the information processing apparatus 1 has the second storage unit 500, the second abnormality detection/specifying unit 600, and the second reset unit 700, the second embodiment is realized. Therefore, the cost of the information processing device 1 can be kept low.

If no abnormality has occurred in the first abnormality detection/specifying unit 130 or the first resetting unit 140, the processing in FIG. 2 and the processing in FIG. 4 may be executed in parallel. Further, when the first abnormality detection and identification unit 130 detects an abnormality before the second abnormality detection and identification unit 600 detects an abnormality, the process of FIG. 2 may be executed. When the second abnormality detection and identification unit 600 detects an abnormality before the first abnormality detection and identification unit 130, the process of FIG. 4 may be executed.

Embodiment 3.
Next, Embodiment 3 will be described. In Embodiments 1 and 2, the case where processing is executed within one information processing apparatus has been described. In the third embodiment, a case where processing is executed by two information processing apparatuses will be described.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an information processing system according to the third embodiment. The information processing system includes an information processing device 10 and an information processing device 20 . The information processing device 10 is also called a first information processing device. The information processing device 20 is also called a second information processing device. The information processing device 10 and the information processing device 20 have a cooperative relationship. For example, the information processing device 10 is an active device. The information processing device 20 is a standby device.

The information processing device 10 has a control unit 11 , a supply unit 12 and a restart unit 13 . The control unit 11 controls the information processing apparatus 10 as a whole. The control unit 11 may be considered as a processor.
The supply unit 12 supplies power to the information processing device 10 . When receiving the restart instruction, the restarting unit 13 stops power supply from the supply unit 12 for a certain period of time. Then, the supply unit 12 supplies power to the information processing device 10 after a certain period of time.

The control unit 11 includes a main control unit 11a and an activation processing unit 11b. The main control section 11a controls the control section 11 as a whole. The activation processing unit 11b performs activation processing of S/W, FPGA, etc. so as to solve the cause of the abnormality based on the abnormality cause information.
The information processing device 10 may have a storage unit, an abnormality detection unit, an IF unit, a reset unit, and a nonvolatile storage device, like the information processing device 1 of the first embodiment.

The information processing device 20 has a storage unit 21 , an abnormality detection identification unit 22 , and a restart instruction unit 23 . The storage unit 21 may be implemented as a storage area secured in the RAM, HDD, or SSD of the information processing device 20 . The functions of the abnormality detection and identification unit 22 and the restart instruction unit 23 will be described later.

Next, processing executed by the information processing system will be described using a sequence diagram.
FIG. 6 is a sequence diagram showing processes executed by the information processing system according to the third embodiment.
(Step ST101) The abnormality detection and identification unit 22 of the information processing device 20 detects that the control unit 11 has an abnormality.

(Step ST102) The abnormality detection and identification unit 22 of the information processing device 20 identifies the cause of the abnormality. The abnormality detection and identification unit 22 of the information processing device 20 stores abnormality cause information, which is information indicating the cause of abnormality, in the storage unit 21 .
(Step ST<b>103 ) The abnormality detection and identification unit 22 of the information processing device 20 instructs the restart instruction unit 23 to restart the information processing device 10 . The reboot instruction unit 23 of the information processing device 20 transmits a reboot instruction to the information processing device 10 .

(Step ST<b>104 ) The restart unit 13 of the information processing device 10 restarts the information processing device 10 .
(Step ST105) The main control section 11a of the information processing device 10 transmits to the information processing device 20 an instruction to transmit abnormality cause information.

(Step ST<b>106 ) Abnormality detection and identification section 22 of information processing device 20 transmits the abnormality cause information stored in storage section 21 to information processing device 10 .
(Step ST107) The startup processing unit 11b of the information processing device 10 uses the abnormality cause information to execute startup processing.
Further, the abnormality detection and identification unit 22 of the information processing device 20 may detect an abnormality other than the control unit 11 .

According to Embodiment 3, when an abnormality occurs in the control unit 11 , the abnormality cause information is stored in the storage unit 21 . Therefore, the information processing system can store abnormality cause information.
Further, since the abnormality cause information is stored in the storage unit 21, the information processing apparatus 10 can execute the startup process using the abnormality cause information after the information processing apparatus 10 is restarted.
Furthermore, the information processing device 10 does not have to have a non-volatile storage device. Therefore, the cost of the information processing apparatus 10 can be kept low.

The features of the embodiments described above can be combined as appropriate. For example, by combining Embodiments 1 to 3, the first abnormality detection/specification section 130, the second abnormality detection/specification section 600, and the abnormality detection/specification section 22 may detect an abnormality in the control section. When any one of the first abnormality detection and identification unit 130, the second abnormality detection and identification unit 600, and the abnormality detection and identification unit 22 detects an abnormality, the information processing apparatus having the control unit restarts. You may

1 information processing device 10 information processing device 11 control unit 11a main control unit 11b startup processing unit 12 supply unit 13 restart unit 20 information processing device 21 storage unit 22 abnormality detection and identification unit 23 restart Activation instruction unit 100 control unit 110 first storage unit 120 main control unit 130 first abnormality detection identification unit 140 first reset unit 150 IF unit 160 activation processing unit 170 writing unit 200 Non-volatile storage device 300 supply unit 400 restart unit 500 second storage unit 600 second abnormality detection and identification unit 700 second reset unit.

Claims (4)

An information processing device,
a non-volatile storage device;
a control unit that writes information to the nonvolatile memory device;
a restart part;
has
The control unit
a first abnormality detection and identification unit that detects that an abnormality has occurred in the control unit and identifies an abnormality cause that is the cause of the abnormality;
a first storage unit for storing abnormality cause information, which is information indicating the cause of abnormality;
a first reset unit that resets the control unit without deleting the abnormality cause information;
a writing unit that writes the abnormality cause information to the nonvolatile storage device after the control unit is reset;
including
The restart unit restarts the information processing device after the abnormality cause information is written in the nonvolatile storage device.
Information processing equipment. The first abnormality detection and identification unit,
detecting that an abnormality has occurred in the writing unit and identifying the cause of the abnormality;
The information processing device according to claim 1 . a second abnormality detection and identification unit that detects that an abnormality has occurred in the control unit and identifies the cause of the abnormality;
a second storage unit for storing the abnormality cause information obtained by the second abnormality detection and identification unit identifying the abnormality cause;
a second reset unit that resets the control unit;
further having
The information processing device according to claim 1 . The second abnormality detection and identification unit,
detecting that an abnormality has occurred in the writing unit and identifying the cause of the abnormality;
The information processing apparatus according to claim 3.

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