Alert Standard Format (ASF) Specification

Alert Standard Format (ASF) Specification v2.0 DMTF Document DSP0136
DSP0136 23 April 2003 Page 6 of 94
1. the system firmware methods used to communicate system capabilities to an alert-capable
add-in card’s OS-present configuration software
2. the format of the messages sent between the add-in card, the local system host, and local
system sensors
The following graphic gives a pictorial portrayal of these components.
When the system owner adds an alert-sending device (e.g. an Ethernet add-in card) to an ASF-
capable managed client, the alert-sending device must be configured with the client’s specific
hardware configuration before it can properly issue alerts and respond to remote maintenance
requests. To accomplish this, the client system requires one good boot
to an OS-present
environment to allow the device’s configuration software to run and store system-specific
information into the device’s non-volatile storage.
In an ACPI-aware OS-present environment, the alert-sending device’s configuration software
interrogates the client’s configuration data to retrieve information required for any alert messages
to be sent and stores that information into the device’s non-volatile storage for use in the OS-
absent environment:
1. The client’s ACPI implementation contains its ASF Capabilities, including the IANA
Manufacturer ID and System ID
2. The client’s SMBIOS structure-table contains the system GUID (or UUID)
3. The operating system has assigned a TCP/IP address to the alert-sending device
4. How much time the alert-sending device waits before issuing a system boot-failure alert.
The configuration software also provides an interface to allow the system owner to identify the
TCP/IP address of the management console to which any alert messages are to be sent by this
managed client.
During this OS-present configuration process, the managed client’s optional ASF configuration is
also determined and stored in the alert-sending device’s non-volatile storage:
Alerting System Components
R
Sensor Chipset
System
Firmware/
BIOS
Sensor
Driver
Local Add-In
Card
Alerting Driver
SMBus
Driver
NIC Driver
Remote Console
Message Formats
←
T
x
R
x
→
Local
System
Physical
Media
Control/ Config
Schema
SMBus
Message
Formats
Local System Details
Sensor Characteristics
Local System
Details