Patent Publication Number: US-11042384-B2

Title: Managing the customizing of appliances

Description:
This application is based on and claims the benefit of priority from Taiwan Patent Application 103140202, filed on Nov. 20, 2014. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     Field of the Invention 
     The invention generally relates to a method of customizing an appliance, and more particularly, to allow entities other than appliance manufacturers to customize an appliance. The invention also relates to a method for management and restriction of the customization of an appliance. 
     Description of the Prior Art 
     The manufacture of information products such as computers and appliances has largely adopted OEM/ODM business models. Under OEM/ODM business models, the manufacturer and the vendor (brand owner) are different entities. When the OEM/ODM manufacturer finishes manufacturing the product, the product generally has to be customized for the vendor, such as adding brand identifications of the vendor on the exterior of the product or the user interface. In addition, customization further includes modifying, adding, or even removing specific functions or devices of the product according to requirements of the vendor. 
     It is evident that such customization processes are not only time-consuming but also costly. For many small-entity vendors, the amount of products ordered from the OEM/ODM manufacturer is small, and such small-entity vendors have to pay higher costs for customization due to the lack of economic scale. Therefore, although the OEM/ODM business models are very common, they still cannot be adopted by small-entity vendors. 
     For the details of such technical issues and the solutions in prior art, US Pub. 2011/0265078, US Pub. US 2013/0007428, and US Pub. 2014/0156812 may be referred to. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     In one aspect, the present invention provides a method of customizing an appliance, and more particularly, to allow entities (such as vendors) other than appliance manufacturers to customize an appliance. The invention also relates to a method for management and restriction of the customization of an appliance. 
     It is firstly recognized by the present invention that, under OEM/ODM business models in prior art, customization processes of appliances are basically completed at the manufacturer end. As described above, this spends extra time and cost of the manufacturer, which are passed on to the vendors and subsequent end-consumers. Therefore, by the method provided in the present invention, customization may be completed by vendors instead of being limited to manufacturers, which may be particularly beneficial to, for instance, small-entity vendors, but the invention is not limited thereto. 
     In another aspect, it is also recognized that, in prior art, since customization processes rely on the manufacturer for completion, all the customization information is thus required to be provided to the manufacturer beforehand; in other words, it is possible for the manufacturer to be aware of all the details of the customization. However, under certain circumstances, customization may involve trade secrets of the vendor which the vendor does not wish to be known by the manufacturer. In such an aspect, the method of completing customization by the vendor provided in the present invention is particularly beneficial. 
     In addition, as the customization process no longer relies on the manufacturer, the present invention also provides a simple and convenient method of customization, so that customization may be done by oneself without engineering resources of the manufacturer. For example, by the present invention, an engineer of the vendor may use a portable storage device (such as a portable and low-cost USB flash drive) that stores the customization information file. The engineer only has to connect the appliance with the portable storage device, and after the appliance is booted, it may automatically access the customization file in the portable storage device for customization, and involvement of the engineer is not required. Therefore, the present invention is particularly advantageous for appliances without user interface devices such as displays, keyboards, mice, etc., but the invention is not limited thereto. 
     In addition to the method of completing customization by the vendor, the present invention also provides for management and restriction of the customization by the manufacturer that still has to prevent, for instance, but not limited to, arbitrary modifications to the product by unauthorized third parties. In one embodiment, the manufacturer pre-stores a public key in the appliance before customization, and the authorized vendor is required to prepare the customization file by a predetermined method and produce a digital signature for the customization file with a corresponding private key, so that the appliance is authenticated with the pre-stored public key and the contents are accessed, and thus possibilities of modification of the product by unauthorized third parties are eliminated. In addition, in another embodiment, a customization lock file is also provided as a mechanism to prevent the customized appliance from being customized again (such as by other vendors). 
     In one embodiment, a method of customizing an appliance is disclosed, which includes:
         pre-storing a public key in the appliance;   connecting the appliance to an external storage device; and   booting up the appliance to automatically proceed with the following customization process:
           obtaining a customization file from the external storage device;   authenticating the customization file with the public key; and   executing customization with the customization file.   
               

     In another embodiment, the present invention also provides an appliance implementing the method described above. 
     Reference throughout this specification to features, advantages, or similar language does not imply that all of the features and advantages that may be realized with the present invention should be or are in any single embodiment of the invention. Rather, language referring to the features and advantages is understood to mean that a specific feature, advantage, or characteristic described in connection with an embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present invention. Thus, discussion of the features and advantages, and similar language, throughout this specification may, but do not necessarily, refer to the same embodiment. Furthermore, the described features, advantages, and characteristics of the invention may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments. One skilled in the relevant art will recognize that the invention may be practiced without one or more of the specific features or advantages of a particular embodiment. In other instances, additional features and advantages may be recognized in certain embodiments that may not be present in all embodiments of the invention. 
     The following description, the appended claims, and the embodiments of the present invention further illustrate the features and advantages of the present invention. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       In order that the advantages of the invention will be readily understood, a more particular description of the invention briefly described above will be rendered by reference to specific embodiments that are illustrated in the appended drawings. Understanding that these drawings depict only typical embodiments of the invention and are not therefore to be considered to be limiting of its scope, the invention will be described and explained with additional specificity and detail through the use of the accompanying drawings. 
         FIG. 1  is an appliance of an embodiment of the invention. 
         FIG. 2  is a flowchart of methods of embodiments of the invention. 
         FIG. 3  is an appliance of an embodiment of the invention. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS 
     Reference throughout this specification to “one embodiment”, “an embodiment”, or similar language means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present invention. Thus, appearances of the phrases “in one embodiment”, “in an embodiment”, and similar language throughout this specification may, but do not necessarily, all refer to the same embodiment. 
     As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, the present invention may be embodied as a computer system/device, a method or a computer program product. Accordingly, the present invention may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment (including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects that may all generally be referred to herein as a “circuit”, “module” or “system”. Furthermore, the present invention may take the form of a computer program product embodied in any tangible medium of expression having computer-usable program code embodied in the medium. 
     Any combination of one or more computer usable or computer readable medium(s) may be utilized. The computer-usable or computer-readable medium may be, for example but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, device, or propagation medium. More specific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer-readable medium would include the following: an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a transmission media such as those supporting the Internet or an intranet, or a magnetic storage device. Note that the computer-usable or computer-readable medium could even be paper or another suitable medium upon which the program is printed, as the program can be electronically captured, via, for instance, optical scanning of the paper or other medium, then compiled, interpreted, or otherwise processed in a suitable manner, if necessary, and then stored in a computer memory. In the context of this document, a computer-usable or computer-readable medium may be any medium that can contain, store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program for use by or in connection with the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. The computer-usable medium may include a propagated data signal with the computer-usable program code embodied therewith, either in baseband or as part of a carrier wave. The computer usable program code may be transmitted using any appropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless, wireline, optical fiber cable, RF, etc. 
     Computer program code for carrying out operations of the present invention may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages, including an object oriented programming language such as Java, Smalltalk, C++ or the like and conventional procedural programming languages, such as the “C” programming language or similar programming languages. The program code may execute entirely on the user&#39;s computer, partly on the user&#39;s computer, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the user&#39;s computer and partly on a remote computer or entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latter scenario, the remote computer or server may be connected to the user&#39;s computer through any type of network, including a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider). 
     The present invention is described below with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems) and computer program products according to embodiments of the invention. It will be understood that each block of the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks. 
     These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable medium that can direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readable medium produce an article of manufacture including instruction means which implement the function/act specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks. 
     The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmable apparatus to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide processes for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks. 
     Referring now to  FIG. 1  through  FIG. 3 , computer systems/devices, methods, and computer program products are illustrated as structural or functional block diagrams or process flowcharts according to various embodiments of the present invention. The flowchart and block diagrams in the Figures illustrate the architecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementations of systems, methods and computer program products according to various embodiments of the present invention. In this regard, each block in the flowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portion of code, which comprises one or more executable instructions for implementing the specified logical function(s). It should also be noted that, in some alternative implementations, the functions noted in the block may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, two blocks shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionality involved. It will also be noted that each block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-based systems that perform the specified functions or acts, or combinations of special purpose hardware and computer instructions. 
     &lt;System Architecture&gt; 
       FIG. 1  shows an appliance  10  of an embodiment. In this embodiment, the appliance  10  is an intrusion prevention system (IPS), but the invention is not limited thereto. For example, the appliance  10  may also be implemented as a firewall, load-balance device, or other network appliance. In other embodiments, the appliance  10  may also be implemented as a personal appliance or server. 
     The appliance  10  implemented as an IPS includes ananalysis engine (not shown) such as SNORT or PAM analysis engine, which may determine intrusion, attack, or other events related to network security according to received packets. For details of the appliance  10  not directly related to the present invention, the product Network Security IPS of IBM Company may serve as reference, particularly the technical document “Network Intrusion Prevention System Installation Guide”. 
     The appliance  10  includes a processor  12 , a non-volatile memory  14  (such as EEPROM), and an internal storage device  16  (such as a flash storage device or hard disk). 
     After the manufacturer has completed manufacturing the appliance  10  but before delivering to the vendor (i.e., before customizing), the non-volatile memory  14  stores an original firmware F for the processor  12  to access to boot the appliance  10  and load an operating system (such as Linux) from the storage device  16 . Preferably, the original firmware F is sufficient to boot the appliance  10  and execute basic functions. Simply from a technical point of view, even if the appliance  10  has not been customized yet, the appliance  10  at this stage is already capable of operating properly and serving functions. 
     The original firmware F is pre-installed in the appliance  10  by the manufacturer according to the Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) specification, i.e., pre-stored in the non-volatile memory  14 , but the invention is not limited thereto; it may also be installed in the appliance  10  by the manufacturer according to other methods. 
     More particularly, the original firmware F includes a public key K for authenticating a customization file C signed with a digital signature by an authorized vendor. In one embodiment, the public key K may be a public key of an asymmetric encryption key pair for authenticating a document or a file signed with a corresponding private key by the authorized vendor; however, for such a practice, public keys K corresponding to private keys of different vendors are required to be pre-stored, which may slightly increase the time and cost spent by the manufacturer. 
     To further reduce the time and cost spent by the manufacturer, in another embodiment, the threshold cryptosystem may be adopted, where n of the threshold value is set as 1; therefore, only a single public key K is required to correspond to private keys of different vendors. In addition, in still another embodiment, the public key K may also be independent of the original firmware F; besides storing the public key K in the non-volatile memory  14 , it may also be stored at a pre-assigned address (such as in a specific folder) of the internal storage device  16 , and authorization management methods may be utilized to prevent the public key K from being improperly modified or deleted (such as setting the folder storing the public key K as read-only). 
     &lt;Method Flow&gt; 
     The embodiments of the present invention shall be described with reference to the flow in  FIG. 2  in accordance with the devices shown in  FIG. 1 , where Steps  200  and  202  are preliminary steps, i.e., the appliance  10  at such steps may not have been delivered from the manufacturer to the vendor yet. Steps  204 - 222  are implemented by the vendor. Preferably but not necessarily, the appliance  10  has a small display device or indicator device (not shown) for the vendor engineer to be aware of the present step and status of the appliance  10 . 
     Step  200 : before the manufacturer delivers the appliance  10 , the original firmware F including the public key K is installed in the appliance  10 . It is understood that, in other embodiments, the public key K may be independent of the original firmware F. The manufacturer subsequently delivers the appliance  10  to the vendor, and the vendor performs customization. In the meantime, the vendor produces the customization file C beforehand according to a format provided by the manufacturer, which may include logo of the vendor, icons, graphical user interface themes, and profiles (including setting values of network environment settings and other settings). In addition, if the manufacturer permits, the customization file C may even include plug-ins produced by the vendor. Alternatively, if the manufacturer discovers defects in the original firmware F that require corrections or updates after the appliance  10  is delivered, the manufacturer may provide an updated version of the original firmware F to the vendor. Even though the update of the original firmware F is mainly for the purpose of solving common defects and not for customizing for certain vendors, the vendor may add the updated version of the original firmware F to the customization file C and update the original firmware F by the following customization steps. 
     Step  202 : the vendor stores the customization file C in an external storage device  20  (such as, but not limited to, a portable USB flash drive). To confirm that the vendor is authorized by the manufacturer, the customization file C is signed with a private key (not shown) corresponding to the public key K, and thus the external storage device  20  has to be stored with an encrypted digital signature file S produced after signing the customization file C with the private key. 
     Step  204 : connect the external storage device  20  with the appliance  10 , and boot up the appliance  10  with the original firmware F. The appliance  10  is coupled with the external storage device  20  via corresponding interfaces (such as a USB connector; not shown). 
     Step  206 : during the booting process, the processor  12  detects whether the appliance  10  is coupled with the external storage device  20  according to the design of the original firmware F. If yes, the flow proceeds to Step  208 ; if not, the flow ends. 
     Step  208 : preferably, the processor  12  determines whether a predetermined customization lock file LK exists in the non-volatile memory  14  or the storage device  16  according to the design of the original firmware F. If yes, the appliance  10  cannot be further customized, i.e., it is locked, and the flow ends; if not, the flow proceeds to Step  210 . The implementation of the customization lock file LK is not limited, as long as the processor  12  may access it during the booting process and determine whether to execute the customization process in the following Steps  210 - 222 . The practices of general databases regulating program execution or data access by lock files may also be referred to. An exemplary Linux program code of this step is in below. 
     
       
         
           
               
               
             
               
                   
                   
               
             
            
               
                   
                 result = false 
               
               
                   
                 if file exist /etc/customization_done.lck then 
               
               
                   
                  log “customization is done” 
               
               
                   
                  exit 
               
               
                   
                 else 
               
               
                   
                  result = do_ customization_tasks( ) 
               
               
                   
                 fi 
               
               
                   
                   
               
            
           
         
       
     
     Step  210 : the processor  12  automatically obtains the customization file C from the external storage device  20  according to the design of the original firmware F. 
     Step  212 : to confirm that the customization file C is from an authorized vendor, the processor  12  authenticates the customization file C by decrypting the digital signature file S with the public key K. If the authentication succeeds, the customization file C is indeed from an authorized vendor and the flow proceeds to Step  214 . If the authentication fails, the customization file C is from a suspicious source and the flow ends. 
     Step  214 : in this embodiment, the original firmware F includes a verification reference information AF, and the processor  12  verifies the validity of a content of the customization file C according to the verification reference information AF, such as verifying whether the format, version, and content of the customization file C are correct. For instance, if the customization file C includes the logo of the vendor, the verification reference information AF regulates the format and file size of the image file. If the customization file is successfully verified, the flow proceeds to Step  216 ; if not, the flow ends. 
     Step  216 : the processor  12  accesses the customization file C, and copies related customization information of the customization file C to a suitable folder in the original firmware F or to other predetermined locations in the appliance  10  to the perform the customization process. As described above, the customization information may include logo of the vendor, icons, and graphical user interface themes which do not exist in the original firmware F, and thus by the customization process in this step, the appliance  10  may display logo of the vendor, icons, and graphical user interface themes according to the customization information. In addition, the processor  12  may adjust the settings (such as network settings) of the original firmware F according to the profiles in the customization file C. In another embodiment, a customized firmware image produced by the customization file C may be used to replace the original firmware F provided by the manufacturer, so that when an end user of the appliance  10  executes “default setting recovery” during operation, the firmware customized by the vendor instead of the original firmware F provided by the manufacturer is recovered. 
     Step  217 : in this embodiment, after completing customization, the vendor is allowed to decide whether to generate the customization lock file LK according to a parameter in the customization file C to prevent the appliance  10  from being customized again. Such a feature allows the vendor to test multiple customizations to determine the optimal customization version and then place the customization lock file LK. In this step, if the parameter in the customization file C requires the processor  12  to generate the customization lock file LK, the flow proceeds to Step  218 ; if not, the flow proceeds to Step  220 . As for the parameter in the customization file C, an exemplary Linux program code described below may be referred to. It should be mentioned that, in other embodiments, the manufacturer policies may restrict the vendor to execute customization only once, and such parameters are not provided for the use of the vendor; under such circumstances, Step  217  is omitted and the flow directly proceeds to Step  218 . 
     
       
         
           
               
               
             
               
                   
                   
               
             
            
               
                   
                 if result == true and stop_future_customization( ) == true then 
               
               
                   
                  create /etc/customization_done.lck 
               
               
                   
                 fi 
               
               
                   
                   
               
            
           
         
       
     
     Step  218 : in this step, the processor  12  generates the customization lock file LK in the non-volatile memory  14  or the storage device  16 , so that the appliance  10  may not be subsequently customized again by the method shown in  FIG. 2  (refer to Step  208  described above). 
     Step  220 : optionally, the processor  12  may store a log file of the present customization in the external storage device  20 . 
     Step  222 : in an optional embodiment, the customization file C includes a script. In this step, the processor  12  performs designated operations according to the script after completing customization, such as shutting down or rebooting automatically after 10 minutes, or enabling or disabling a specific function (such as allowing the appliance  10  to only operate under specific modes or only use specific network protocols). However, it should be understood that the Step  222  is optional and is not necessary in the invention. 
     The customization processes (Steps  204 - 222 ) of the embodiments of  FIG. 2  are performed by the vendor, and involvement of the manufacturer is not required, and thus the cost of the manufacturer is not increased and the manufacturer is prevented from being aware of the customization details. However, in other situations, especially when the amount of appliances  10  to be customized is large, manually coupling the external storage device  20  with the form of a portable USB storage device to the appliance  10  (refer to Step  204  of  FIG. 2 ) obviously takes a lot of time. For such a situation, after acquiring permission by the vendor and the customization file C, the manufacturer may also extensively customize appliances  10  simultaneously according to the PXE specification; that is, a PXE server (not shown) of the manufacturer may serve as the external storage device  20  of  FIG. 1 , and provide the customization file C to the appliances  10  by conventional communication practices of PXE servers with appliances  10 . 
       FIG. 3  further shows a hardware environment block diagram of a computer device  500 , which may serve as the appliance  10  in  FIG. 1 . 
     In one embodiment, the computer device  500  has a processor to execute dedicated application programs; a storage device to save various information and program codes; a communication and input/output device to act as an interface for users to communicate with; and peripheral devices or other specific usage devices. In other embodiments, the present invention may also be implemented with other forms and have more or less apparatuses or devices. 
     As shown in  FIG. 3 , the computer device  500  may have a processor  510 , a memory  520 , and an input/output (I/O) unit  540 . The I/O bus may be a high-speed serial bus such as a PCI-e bus, yet other bus architectures may also be used. Other connections to the I/O bus may be connected directly to the devices or through expansion cards. The I/O unit  540  may also be coupled to a hard disk  550  or a local area network (LAN) adaptor  560 . By the LAN adaptor  560 , the computer device  500  may communicate with other computer devices through a network  530 . The network  530  may be implemented with any type of connection including static LAN connections or wide area network (WAN) connections or dialup networking by Internet service providers; the connection scheme is also not limited and may include wired or wireless connections such as communications with user computers by wireless networks of GSM or Wi-Fi. However, it should be understood that other hardware and software components (such as additional computer systems, routers, firewalls, etc.) may be included in the network despite not being shown in the figures. The memory  520  may be a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), or an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory). The memory  520  is used to save an operating system, program codes of a dedicated main program AP, and all kinds of information. The operating system is executed on the processor  510  and coordinates and provides control of various devices in the computer device  500 ; the processor  510  may access the memory  520  to execute the main program AP. 
     Those skilled in the art may understand that the hardware of the computer device  500  in  FIG. 3  may have various modifications according to different embodiments. Other internal hardware or peripheral devices such as Flash ROM, equivalent non-volatile memory, optical drive, etc. may be added to or replace the hardware shown in  FIG. 3 . 
     The present invention can be embodied in any other specific manners without departing from the spirit or essential features of the present invention. Every aspect of the aforesaid embodiments of the present invention must be deemed illustrative rather than restrictive of the present invention. Hence, the scope of the present invention is defined by the appended claims instead of the above description. All equivalent meanings and scope which fall within the appended claims must be deemed falling within the scope of the appended claims.