Managing basic input/output system (BIOS) access
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
InventorChristoph J Graham
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Example embodiments disclosed herein relate to managing basic input/output system (BIOS) access. Example embodiments include communicating with a remote directory server in response to an attempt to access a setting of a BIOS module.
Claims20
A computing device for managing basic input/output system (BIOS) access, the computing device comprising:
- a network interface;
- and
- a BIOS module to:
- request, from a remote directory server with the network interface, identity information associated with a user credential in response to receiving a request to access a setting of the BIOS module;
- receive access information based on a response of the remote directory server to the request for identity information;
- and
- determine, based on the access information whether to provide access to the setting,
- wherein the network interface is to provide the access information based on validation information and permission information from the response of the remote directory server.
A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of a basic input/output system (BIOS) module, encoded with instructions executable by a processor of a computing device to manage access to the BIOS module, the storage medium comprising:
- instructions to receive a request to alter a setting of the BIOS module;
- instructions to transmit a user credential from the BIOS module to a remote directory server with a network interface of the computing device, in response to receiving the request;
- instructions to receive access information, from the network interface, based on a response of the remote directory server to the transmission of the user credential, the response to include validation information and permission information;
- and
- instructions to alter the setting in accordance with the request, if the access information indicates that a target user identity associated with the user credential has permission to alter the setting.
A method for managing access to a basic input/output system (BIOS) module of a computing device, the method comprising:
- receiving, with the BIOS module, an instruction to alter a first setting of the BIOS module;
- providing, from the BIOS module to a remote directory server, a request to validate a user credential in response to receiving the alteration instruction;
- providing, from the BIOS module to the remote directory server, a first permission request for permission to alter the first setting of the BIOS module, if a response to the validation request, received from the remote directory server, indicates that the user credential is valid;
- receiving, with the computing device, a response to the first permission request including an entity list associated with the user credential;
- and
- causing the first setting to be altered based on a comparison of the entity list to a setting permissions list, the setting permissions list to indicate entities that have permission to alter the first setting.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.