US 12,585,753 B2Granted

Validated movement of shared IHS hardware components

AssigneeDell Products L.P.

InventorsA Anis Ahmed, Jason Matthew Young, Pallavi Satpathy

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Abstract

Systems and methods are provided validating the movement of hardware components of a chassis that are shared by multiple IHSs (Information Handling Systems), such as rack-mounted servers. During factory provisioning of the IHS, a factory-signed inventory certificate is uploaded to each IHS that identifies factory-installed hardware of the IHS and that also identifies any known hardware components that are shared by the IHS. This inventory certificate is used to validate that the detected hardware of the IHS is genuine factory-installed hardware. During such validations by IHSs installed in a chassis, an inventory of shared chassis hardware components is constructed. When a discrepancy is detected during these validations, the IHS notifies a chassis management controller in order to determine whether the discrepancy is caused by movement of a shared hardware component of the chassis.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A system that comprises:

a first Information Handling System (IHS) installed in a chassis, wherein the first IHS is configured to:
execute, in a pre-boot validation environment of the first IHS, instructions validated within a hardware root of trust of the first IHS, to validate hardware detected by the first IHS as factory-installed based on an inventory specified in a first factory-provisioned inventory certificate, wherein the first factory-provisioned inventory certificate is signed by the first IHS with a private key of a keypair generated by the first IHS;
and
notify a chassis controller when the hardware detected by the first IHS is validated as factory-installed based on the first inventory certificate;
a second IHS installed in the chassis, wherein the second IHS is configured to:
execute, in a pre-boot validation environment of the second IHS, instructions validated within a hardware root of trust of the second IHS to validate hardware detected by the second IHS as factory-installed based on an inventory specified in a second factory-provisioned inventory certificate, wherein the second factory-provisioned inventory certificate is signed by the second IHS with a private key of a keypair generated by the second IHS;
and
notify the chassis controller when the hardware detected by the second IHS is validated as factory-installed based on the second inventory certificate;
and
the chassis comprising a plurality of chassis hardware components and further comprising the chassis controller that is configured to:
based on notifications of validated hardware received from the first IHS and the second IHS, maintain an inventory of chassis hardware components that are shared by the first IHS and the second IHS;
and
in response to a notification of a failure to validate detected hardware as factory-installed by the first IHS or the second IHS, use the inventory to determine when the validation failure is due to movement of a chassis hardware component that is shared.

10 more elements

A method for validating transfer of a hardware component shared by a first Information Handling System (IHS) and a second IHS installed in a chassis, the method comprising:

executing, in a pre-boot validation environment of the first IHS, instructions validated within a hardware root of trust of the first IHS, for validating hardware detected by the first IHS as factory-installed based on an inventory specified in a first factory-provisioned inventory certificate, wherein the first factory-provisioned inventory certificate is signed by the first IHS with a private key of a keypair generated by the first IHS;
notifying a chassis controller when the hardware detected by the first IHS is validated as factory-installed based on the first inventory certificate;
executing, in a pre-boot validation environment of the second IHS, instructions validated within a hardware root of trust of the second IHS, for validating hardware detected by the second IHS as factory-installed based on an inventory specified in a second factory-provisioned inventory certificate, wherein the second factory-provisioned inventory certificate is signed by the second IHS with a private key of a keypair generated by the second IHS;
notifying the chassis controller when the hardware detected by the second IHS is validated as factory-installed based on the second inventory certificate;
based on notifications of validated hardware received from the first IHS and the second IHS, maintaining, by the chassis controller, an inventory of chassis hardware components that are shared by the first IHS and the second IHS;
and
in response to a notification of a failure to validate detected hardware as factory-installed by the first IHS or the second IHS, using, by the chassis controller, the inventory to determine when the validation failure is due to movement of a chassis hardware component that is shared.

4 more elements

A computer-readable storage device having instructions stored thereon for validating transfer of a hardware component shared by a first Information Handling System (IHS) and a second IHS installed in a chassis, wherein execution of the instructions by one or more processors of the chassis causes the chassis to:

receive a notification when hardware detected by the first IHS is validated as factory-installed based on an inventory specified in a first factory-provisioned inventory certificate, based, at least in part, upon instructions validated within a hardware root of trust of the first IHS, wherein the validated instructions are executed in a pre-boot validation environment of the first IHS, and wherein the first factory-provisioned inventory certificate is signed by the first IHS with a private key of a keypair generated by the first IHS;
receive a notification when hardware detected by the second IHS is validated as factory-installed based on an inventory specified in a second factory-provisioned inventory certificate, based, at least in part, upon instructions validated within a hardware root of trust of the second IHS, wherein the validated instructions are executed in a pre-boot validation environment of the second IHS, and wherein the second factory-provisioned inventory certificate is signed by the second IHS with a private key of a keypair generated by the second IHS;
based on notifications of validated hardware received from the first IHS and the second IHS, maintain an inventory of chassis hardware components that are shared by the first IHS and the second IHS;
and
in response to a notification of a failure to validate detected hardware as factory-installed by the first IHS or the second IHS, use the inventory to determine when the validation failure is due to movement of a chassis hardware component that is shared.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.