This is a text-only version of the following page on https://raymii.org: --- Title : Dell PowerEdge firmware upgrades via iDrac Author : Remy van Elst Date : 26-01-2018 URL : https://raymii.org/s/articles/Dell_PowerEdge_firmware_upgrades_via_iDrac.html Format : Markdown/HTML --- The recent spectre and meltdown vulnerabilities require BIOS and firmware updates. Dell provides binaries for Windows and Linux, but just for Red Hat and SUSE. Some firmware updates can be run on Ubuntu or Debian, but some fail with the error that RPM could not be found. Which is correct since it's not Red Hat. In this small article I'll show you how to upgrade the firmware via the iDrac, which I recently discovered.

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### Upgrade via the shell Usually I do upgrades automated with Ansible, via the shell. Manually this can be done as well, in this example a firmware for the power supply unit of a Dell R620: # Download the firmware wget https://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER01988261M/1/Power_Firmware_JX7PR_LN_09.2B.80_A00.BIN # Run it bash Power_Firmware_JX7PR_LN_09.2B.80_A00.BIN On Ubuntu the output in this case is: Cannot find utilities on the system to execute package. Make sure the following utilities are in the path: rpm stat stty cut fmt tty tar gzip tail rm mkdir mktemp chmod ls basename dirname wc sleep You could use the iDrac console (if you have an enterprise license) or a KVM switch to boot up a CentOS live DVD, but in this case there was no KVM or license available. ### Upgrade via the iDrac I was unaware of this feature, but using the iDrac web interface you can upgrade the firmware as well. I found [this][2] article on the Dell site which explains it. Quoting the important parts: Use the Windows 32-bit or 64-bit version of the Dell Update Package (DUP), which the iDRAC is able to extract and apply by itself. For iDrac 9: Go to Maintenance > System Update. The Firmware Update page is displayed. For iDrac 7/8: Go to Overview > iDRAC Settings > Update and Rollback. The Firmware Update page is displayed. ![][3] Using the job queue, reboot the machine to apply the update. This interface has a few advantages over the shell binaries: * Multiple updates can be uploaded and queued, applied directly after the reboot * No OS is required on the machine (redhat etc) * Progress can be monitored even when the machine is rebooting It is also possible to SSH into the iDrac and use `racadm` to upgrade the firmware. This process involves a remote NFS or SMB share where the upgrade file is hosted, which we may cover in another article. [1]: https://www.digitalocean.com/?refcode=7435ae6b8212 [2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20180126122320/https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/sln292363/poweredge-server-updating-firmware-through-the-idrac?lang=en [3]: https://raymii.org/s/inc/img/idrac-1.png --- License: All the text on this website is free as in freedom unless stated otherwise. This means you can use it in any way you want, you can copy it, change it the way you like and republish it, as long as you release the (modified) content under the same license to give others the same freedoms you've got and place my name and a link to this site with the article as source. This site uses Google Analytics for statistics and Google Adwords for advertisements. You are tracked and Google knows everything about you. Use an adblocker like ublock-origin if you don't want it. All the code on this website is licensed under the GNU GPL v3 license unless already licensed under a license which does not allows this form of licensing or if another license is stated on that page / in that software: This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see . Just to be clear, the information on this website is for meant for educational purposes and you use it at your own risk. I do not take responsibility if you screw something up. Use common sense, do not 'rm -rf /' as root for example. If you have any questions then do not hesitate to contact me. See https://raymii.org/s/static/About.html for details.