As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (“UEFI”) capsules have been employed in the past by a computer operating system (OS) to stage updates for device firmware, such as device driver firmware in the form of Option ROM stored in non-volatile memory of a network adapter device for use during system OS boot. The device firmware makes a boot time decision whether to apply a given UEFI capsule, such as based on integrity checks or other platform parameters. UEFI Firmware Management Protocol (FMP) pre-boot software has been used to locate and identify existing and new versions of UEFI driver firmware for the device, and then to program an appropriate new device driver firmware image into non-volatile memory of the device via computer system memory, e.g., in a manner consistent with Chapter 32 of UEFI Specification 2.5. UEFI capsules may be used to update device firmware without requiring a full system firmware update.
An EFI System Resource Table (ESRT) has been employed to identify device and system resources having updatable firmware. Each ESRT entry describes a resource that can be targeted by a firmware capsule update, and also lists status of the last attempted update of that resource. Conventional ESRT methodology is used to update firmware for a newly inserted Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) hot-pluggable device in the following manner. After the new hot-pluggable PCIe device is inserted and coupled to the system PCIe bus, the system OS first reboots before proceeding further to allow the UEFI pre-boot firmware to: detect the newly added hot-pluggable device, to identify which ESRT entry to be populated in the UEFI configuration table (ConfigTable), and then to create a mapping in the ESRT table for the new device. Then, a second and additional OS reboot is required. At the second OS reboot following the new device insertion, the OS understands that a newer firmware version is available for the device, and then applies the firmware update after the required second reboot.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds