Network equipment operation method and related device

Abstract

The invention provides a network equipment operation method and a related device. The network equipment comprises a main controller, a low-power-consumption control unit and a network switching module, the low-power-consumption control unit stores a media access control address of the network equipment in advance, and the network equipment operation method comprises the following steps: in response to cold start of the network equipment, the low-power-consumption control unit controls the network switching module to be powered on; and the low-power-consumption control unit is configured in the network switching module through a configuration bus, and performs network wake-up detection based on the media access control address. The power consumption of the network equipment can be reduced.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This application relates to the technical field of network device operation, and particularly to a network device operation method and related devices. Background Art

[0002] Currently, most network devices can generally be remotely controlled via the network, such as being remotely awakened via the network. However, in order to maintain the network wake-up function, network devices that can be remotely awakened via the network also need to keep alive network-related modules (such as the main control module and the network switching module) during standby, resulting in relatively high power consumption of the network devices. Summary of the Invention

[0003] This application provides a network device operation method and related devices to reduce the power consumption of network devices.

[0004] To achieve the above object, this application provides a network device operation method. The network device includes a main controller, a low-power control unit, and a network switching module. The low-power control unit pre-stores the media access control address of the network device. The method includes:

[0005] In response to a cold start of the network device, the low-power control unit controls the network switching module to power on.

[0006] The low-power control unit configures in the network switching module via a configuration bus and performs network wake-up detection based on the media access control address.

[0007] To achieve the above object, this application provides a network device, which includes:

[0008] A main controller;

[0009] A low-power control unit, communicatively connected to the main controller, and pre-storing the media access control address of the network device;

[0010] A network switching module, communicatively connected to the main controller and the low-power control unit;

[0011] Wherein, the low-power control unit is configured to control the network switching module to power on in response to a cold start of the network device, and then configure in the network switching module via a configuration bus and perform network wake-up detection based on the media access control address, so that the network device enters a low-power wake-up detection mode.

[0012] To solve the above problems, this application provides an electronic network device, which includes a processor; the processor is configured to execute instructions to implement the steps of the above method.

[0013] To solve the above problems, the present application provides a computer storage medium, on which instruction / program data is stored, and when the instruction / program data is executed, the steps of the above method are implemented.

[0014] The method of the present application is as follows: Before the cold start of the network device, the MAC (Media Access Control Address) address to be configured has been written into the storage of the low-power control unit. In this way, when the network device is cold-started, the MAC address can be directly configured by the low-power control unit. Thus, when cold-starting, the low-power control unit can directly control the power-on of the network switching module, and the low-power control unit can directly perform network wake-up detection through the configuration bus and the network switching module. That is, when cold-starting, there is no need to start the main controller first. It is completely possible to start the main controller only when receiving the network wake-up instruction of the network device to convert the network device from the low-power wake-up detection mode to the normal working mode. Thus, when the network device is cold-started, it can quickly enter the low-power wake-up detection mode, that is, the network wake-up can be quickly configured, and the power consumption of the network device can be reduced. Description of the Drawings

[0015] In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present application, the following will briefly introduce the drawings that can be used in the description of the embodiments. Obviously, the drawings in the following description are only some embodiments of the present application. For those of ordinary skill in the art, without creative efforts, other drawings can be obtained based on these drawings.

[0016] Figure 1 It is a schematic structural diagram of an implementation method of the network device of the present application;

[0017] Figure 2 It is a schematic flowchart of an implementation method of the operation method of the network device of the present application;

[0018] Figure 3 It is a schematic structural diagram of the electronic network device of the present application;

[0019] Figure 4 It is a schematic structural diagram of an implementation manner of the computer storage medium of the present application. Detailed Embodiments

[0020] To enable those skilled in the art to better understand the technical solutions of the present application, the following further describes in detail the network device operation method and related devices provided by the present application in combination with the drawings and specific embodiments.

[0021] The terms "first", "second", and "third" in this application are only used for descriptive purposes and should not be construed as indicating or implying relative importance or implicitly specifying the quantity of the indicated technical features. Thus, features defined with "first", "second", and "third" may explicitly or implicitly include at least one of such features. In the description of this application, the meaning of "a plurality" is at least two, such as two, three, etc., unless otherwise specifically defined.

[0022] Reference to "embodiment" herein means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment can be included in at least one embodiment of this application. The phrase occurring in various places in the specification is not necessarily referring to the same embodiment, nor is it an independent or alternative embodiment mutually exclusive with other embodiments. Those skilled in the art will explicitly and implicitly understand that, without conflict, the embodiments described herein can be combined with other embodiments.

[0023] Currently, most network devices can generally be remotely controlled via the network, such as remotely waking up via the network. However, in order to maintain the network wake-up function, network devices that can be remotely woken up via the network also need to keep alive network-related modules (such as the main control module and the network switching module) during standby, resulting in relatively high power consumption of the network device.

[0024] In a related technology, power switching control is performed to keep alive the power supply of the network card module. The solution still requires the main control module to know the MAC address of the network device, specify the MAC address to send a wake-up packet, and the network device can complete subsequent wake-up actions only after receiving the wake-up packet and parsing the MAC match. Potential scenarios require keeping alive the OPS network module and each time the entire machine needs to be started first to obtain and save the MAC before this function can be realized, with a long configuration time.

[0025] Based on this, this application proposes a method for operating a network device. This method can enter the network wake-up mode without starting the main control module when the network device is cold-started, that is, the main control module does not need to be kept alive, which can effectively reduce the power consumption of the network device.

[0026] Among them, the network devices of this application can include all devices with network connection capabilities (such as terminal devices, switches, routers, etc.). In one example, the network device is a multi-network switching integrated machine.

[0027] Among them, as Figure 1 shown, the network device of this application includes a main controller (i.e., the above-mentioned main control module), a low-power control unit, and a network switching module.

[0028] Among them, the main controller is the brain of the network device and is responsible for the implementation of high-performance tasks and core functions. The low-power controller, on the other hand, plays an auxiliary role and focuses on energy conservation and basic task management. The main controller can be the motherboard CPU or one of the network data exchange modules. The low-power control unit can be used to manage and control the startup of the main controller, interact with the main controller for data information, and can also manage and control the network exchange module. The network exchange module is the core component in the network device for achieving efficient data communication. It ensures the fast and accurate transmission of information inside the network device or between network devices by managing, forwarding, and optimizing the transmission of network data packets. In addition, the network exchange module can cooperate with the low-power controller or the main controller to perform network wake-up detection.

[0029] The network device may also include some ports, which can be network data exchange channels so that the network device can communicate and connect with external network devices through these ports.

[0030] Such as Figure 2 shown, Figure 2 FIG. is a schematic flowchart of an embodiment of the operation method of the network device of the present application. The operation method of the network device of the present application may include the following steps.

[0031] S11: In response to a cold start of the network device, the low-power control unit controls the network exchange module to power on.

[0032] Optionally, when the network device is cold-started, the low-power control unit can directly control the network exchange module to power on so that the low-power control unit can subsequently perform network wake-up detection through configuration with the network exchange module via the configuration bus.

[0033] When the network device is cold-started, the low-power control unit can be powered on first, and then the low-power control unit controls the network exchange module to power on.

[0034] Among them, the low-power control unit can trigger the power supply of the network exchange module through specific signals or instructions. For example, the low-power control unit can send a power-on signal to the power management chip of the network exchange module through GPIO (General Purpose Input Output) pins or other dedicated interfaces (such as PWM, I2C, etc.). The power management chip controls the switching power supply (such as a DC-DC converter or an LDO voltage regulator, etc.) to supply power to the network exchange module according to the received signal.

[0035] S12: The low-power control unit configures and performs network wake-up detection in the network exchange module through the configuration bus.

[0036] After the low-power control unit controls the network exchange module to power on, it can configure and perform network wake-up detection in the network exchange module through the configuration bus.

[0037] Among them, the low power control unit can enable the network wake-up function and enter the low power wake-up detection mode by configuring the bus, thereby completing the network wake-up work accurately, so that the low power control unit and the network switching module cooperate to perform network wake-up detection.

[0038] Among them, the low power control unit can configure the port of the network switching module to allow the reception of broadcast traffic, because the network wake-up function usually uses broadcast frames (such as UDP broadcast to port 7 or 9). In addition, the security policy of the network switching module may prevent flooding, which will affect the WoL wake-up data packet to reach the target network device, so the low power control unit can configure the network switching module to allow flooding broadcast traffic.

[0039] In the case where the network switching module is allowed to flood frames of unknown destination MAC to all ports by default, the low-power control unit can set a specified MAC address that is allowed to wake up, so that when the data packet flooded by the network switching module is obtained, it is confirmed whether the data packet flooded by the network switching module is a wake-up packet of the specified MAC address that is allowed to wake up, and then relevant operations are performed based on the confirmation result. For example, if it is confirmed that the data packet flooded by the network switching module is a wake-up packet of the specified MAC address that is allowed to wake up, the network device corresponding to the MAC address is woken up. For example, the MAC address of the network device to which the network switching module belongs can be used as the MAC address that is allowed to wake up. In this case, the network device to which the network switching module belongs can be woken up, so that the low-power control unit can control the main controller to start, so that the main controller gradually powers the memory and other components of the network device, and releases the low-power wake-up detection mode of the network device, and can also release the configuration bus, so that the low-power control unit hands over the configuration bus to the main controller, so that the main controller can configure the network switching module as needed. If the low-power control unit confirms that the data packet flooded by the network switching module is not a wake-up packet of the specified MAC address that is allowed to wake up, the request is ignored.

[0040] In an application scenario, if the network device is a multi-network switch integrated machine, there may be multiple VLANs or ports, and it may be necessary to ensure that the wake-up packets can be correctly flooded to the VLAN or subnet where the target port is located. In this case, the low-power control unit can configure the port security policy of the network switch module to allow specific MAC addresses or traffic types. At this time, the low-power control unit can send the MAC address of the network device to the network switch module so that the network switch module allows wake-up packets of specific MAC addresses. In this application scenario, when the network switch module receives a data packet through any external port, it can determine whether the receiving address of the data packet is the MAC address of a specific network device allowed by the network switch module. When it is confirmed that it is, that is, when a wake-up packet specifying the MAC address of this network device is received from any external port, the network switch module will feedback a signal (such as forwarding the wake-up packet) to the low-power control unit so that the low-power control unit can confirm whether to perform network device wake-up based on the feedback signal.

[0041] Based on the description of the above application scenario, it can be seen that MAC address matching is involved in network wake-up detection. In the related technology, when the network device is cold-started, the main controller needs to first configure the MAC address to the relevant module (such as the network card module), and then the configured MAC address can be used for network wake-up detection. Therefore, the main controller must be started first when the network device is cold-started. Different from the related technology, in this application, before the network device is cold-started, the MAC address to be configured has been written into the storage of the low-power control unit. In this way, when the network device is cold-started, the low-power control unit can directly configure the MAC address, so there is no need to start the main controller first during cold start. It is completely possible to start the main controller only when a network wake-up instruction of the network device is received to convert the network device from the low-power wake-up detection mode to the normal working mode.

[0042] That is, in a preferred implementation, after the network device is cold-started, the main controller module will not be powered on. First, the low-power control unit controls the network switch module to be powered on, enables the network wake-up function through the configuration bus and enters the low-power mode of the switch IC to complete the network wake-up preparation work.

[0043] More preferably, it can be written into the low-power control unit during the whole-machine production stage of the network device. Among them, when writing the MAC address of the main controller during the whole-machine production stage, the main controller sends this MAC address to the low-power control unit for storage through the communication bus.

[0044] In this implementation, before the cold start of the network device, the MAC addresses to be configured have been written into the storage of the low-power control unit. In this way, when the network device is cold-started, the low-power control unit can directly configure the MAC addresses, so that the low-power control unit can directly control the power-on of the network switching module during cold start, and the low-power control unit can directly perform network wake-up detection through the configuration bus and the network switching module. That is, when cold-starting, there is no need to start the main controller first. It is completely possible to start the main controller only when the network wake-up instruction of the network device is received, so that the network device can be switched from the low-power wake-up detection mode to the normal working mode. Therefore, when the network device is cold-started, it can quickly enter the low-power wake-up detection mode, that is, the network wake-up can be quickly configured, and the power consumption of the network device can be reduced.

[0045] In addition, if the network device enters the shutdown mode from the powered-on state, the network wake-up function of the network device can also be enabled.

[0046] Among them, when the network device receives the shutdown instruction and keeps the network wake-up active, the main controller can inform this request to the low-power control unit and release the configuration bus. The main controller enters the shutdown process, and the low-power control unit takes over the configuration bus and changes the configuration of the network switching module to make the network device enter the low-power wake-up detection mode. After the network wake-up configuration is completed, if it is detected that the main controller has been shut down, the power supply of the main controller can be turned off. At this time, the low-power control unit and the network switching module will enter the low-power state. In the low-power state, when a wake-up packet specifying the MAC address of this network device is sent from any external port, the network switching module will send a feedback signal to the low-power control unit. After receiving the feedback signal and determining it as a network wake-up request, the low-power control unit executes the start control of the main control module and releases the configuration bus for the main controller to configure the network switching module as needed.

[0047] In this way, whether the network device is cold-started or shut down, the network can be independently configured by the low-power control unit to enable network wake-up. That is, in the network wake-up state, there is no need to keep the main controller alive, and the power supply required for the entire main controller can be turned off, thus achieving low power consumption, and there is no need for power switching during network wake-up.

[0048] Please refer to Figure 3 , Figure 3 which is a schematic structural diagram of an embodiment of the electronic network device of this application. The electronic network device 10 includes a processor 12, and the processor 12 is used to execute instructions to implement the above-mentioned network device operation method. For the specific implementation process, please refer to the description of the above embodiment and will not be repeated here.

[0049] The processor 12 may also be referred to as a CPU (Central Processing Unit). The processor 12 may be an integrated circuit chip with signal processing capabilities. The processor 12 may also be a general-purpose processor, a digital signal processor (DSP), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), or other programmable logic devices, discrete gate or transistor logic devices, discrete hardware components. The general-purpose processor may be a microprocessor or the processor 12 may also be any conventional processor, etc.

[0050] The electronic network device 10 may further include a memory 11 for storing instructions and data required for the operation of the processor 12.

[0051] The processor 12 is configured to execute instructions to implement the methods provided by any embodiment and any non-conflicting combination of the network device operation methods of the present application described above.

[0052] Please refer to Figure 4 , Figure 4 which is a schematic structural diagram of the computer-readable storage medium in the embodiment of the present application. The computer-readable storage medium 20 of the embodiment of the present application stores instruction / program data 21, and when the instruction / program data 21 is executed, it implements the methods provided by any embodiment and any non-conflicting combination of the network device operation methods of the present application. Among them, the instruction / program data 21 may form a program file and be stored in the above storage medium 20 in the form of a software product, so that a computer network device (which may be a personal computer, a server, or a network device, etc.) or a processor can execute all or part of the steps of the methods of various embodiments of the present application. And the aforementioned storage medium 20 includes: various media that can store program codes such as USB flash drives, mobile hard disks, read-only memories (ROMs), random access memories (RAMs), magnetic disks, or optical discs, or terminal network devices such as computers, servers, mobile phones, and tablets.

[0053] In several embodiments provided by the present application, it should be understood that the disclosed systems, devices, and methods can be implemented in other ways. For example, the device embodiments described above are merely illustrative. For example, the division of units is only a logical function division, and there may be other division methods in actual implementation. For example, multiple units or components may be combined or integrated into another system, or some features may be ignored or not executed. Another point is that the displayed or discussed couplings or direct couplings or communication connections to each other may be through some interfaces, and the indirect couplings or communication connections of devices or units may be in electrical, mechanical, or other forms.

[0054] In addition, each functional unit in various embodiments of the present application may be integrated into one processing unit, may exist separately as individual physical units, or two or more units may be integrated into one unit. The above-mentioned integrated units may be implemented in the form of hardware or in the form of software functional units.

[0055] The above are only the implementation manners of the present application, and do not limit the patent scope of the present application. Any equivalent structural or equivalent process transformation made by using the content of the specification and drawings of the present application, or directly or indirectly applied in other related technical fields, shall be equally included in the patent protection scope of the present application.

Claims

1. A method for operating a network device, characterized in that, The network device includes a main controller, a low-power control unit, and a network switching module. The low-power control unit pre-stores the media access control address of the network device. The method includes: In response to a cold start of the network device, the low-power control unit controls the network switching module to power on; The low-power control unit configures in the network switching module through a configuration bus and performs network wake-up detection based on the media access control address.

2. The method for operating a network device according to claim 1, wherein Before the step of "In response to a cold start of the network device, the low-power control unit controls the network switching module to power on", it includes: After writing the media access control address to the main controller during the overall machine production stage of the network device, the main controller sends the media access control address to the low-power control unit for storage.

3. The method for operating a network device according to claim 1, wherein After the step of "The low-power control unit configures in the network switching module through a configuration bus and performs network wake-up detection based on the media access control address", it includes: In response to receiving a request for shutting down and keeping the network alive for wake-up, the main controller notifies the low-power control unit of the request, releases the configuration bus and hands it over to the low-power control unit, so that the low-power control unit configures in the network switching module through the configuration bus and performs network wake-up detection based on the media access control address, and the main controller synchronously performs a shutdown operation.

4. The method for operating a network device according to claim 3, wherein After the step of "The low-power control unit configures in the network switching module through the configuration bus and performs network wake-up detection based on the media access control address", it includes: Detecting that the main controller has shut down, turning off the power of the main controller, and the low-power control unit and the network switching module enter a low-power state.

5. The method for operating a network device according to claim 1, wherein The step of "The low-power control unit configures in the network switching module through the configuration bus and performs network wake-up detection based on the media access control address" includes: In response to receiving a wake-up packet with the media access control address, the network switching module sends a feedback signal to the low-power control unit; When the low-power control unit determines that the wake-up packet is a network wake-up request based on the feedback signal, it executes the start control of the main controller, releases the configuration bus and hands it over to the main controller.

6. A network device, characterized in that, The network device includes: A main controller; A low-power control unit, communicatively connected to the main controller, and pre-stores the media access control address of the network device; A network switching module, communicatively connected to the main controller and the low-power control unit; Wherein, the low-power control unit is used to control the network switching module to power on in response to a cold start of the network device, and then configure in the network switching module through a configuration bus and perform network wake-up detection based on the media access control address, so that the network device enters a low-power wake-up detection mode.

7. The network device according to claim 6, wherein When the low-power control unit determines that the wake-up packet is a network wake-up request of the network device based on the feedback signal of the network switching module, it executes the start control of the main controller, releases the configuration bus and hands it over to the main controller. The feedback signal is sent by the network switching module in response to receiving the wake-up packet of the media access control address when the network device is in the low-power wake-up detection mode.

8. The network device according to claim 6, wherein The main controller is used to respond to the received request for shutdown and network wake-up while maintaining the network connection, inform the low-power control unit of the request, release the configuration bus and hand it over to the low-power control unit, so that the low-power control unit can configure through the configuration bus in the network switching module and perform network wake-up detection based on the media access control address, and the main controller synchronously performs the shutdown operation.

9. An electronic network device, characterized in that, The electronic network device includes a processor; the processor is used to execute instructions to implement the steps of the method according to any one of claims 1-5.

10. A computer-readable storage medium having a program stored thereon, characterized in that, When the program is executed by the processor, it implements the steps of the method according to any one of claims 1-5.

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