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Download the latest firmware. The "Hard-Drive" version is a self-extracting zip archive, which can be easily be unzipped under Linux.
Unzip the image and make it accessible via TFTP. Then log into the DRAC via ssh and issue the command racadm fwupdate -g -u -a 192.168.0.104 -d /, where 192.168.0.104 is the IP address of the TFTP server and / is the directory containing the firmware image.
$ cd /var/lib/tftpboot/ $ unzip /tmp/f_drac5v132_A00.exe Length Date Time Name -------- ---- ---- ---- 19484024 12-22-07 02:09 firmimg.d5 -------- ------- 19484024 1 file $ ssh [email protected] [email protected]'s password: Dell Remote Access Controller 5 (DRAC 5) Firmware Version 1.0 (Build 06.05.12) $ racadm fwupdate -g -u -a 192.168.0.104 -d / Preparing for firmware update. Please wait... Firmware update in progress [8 percent complete] Firmware update completed successfully. The RAC is in the process of resetting. Please wait up to a minute for this to complete.Dell Remote Access Controller - DRAC, v.1.51, A00
Release Date: 12/31/2009
Criticality: Recommended
Release Date: 2/18/2009
Criticality: Recommended
Release Date: 10/13/2008
Criticality: Recommended
Release Date: 4/16/2008
Criticality: Recommended
Release Date: 1/2/2008
Criticality: Recommended
Dell Remote Access Controller - DRAC, v.1.0, A00
Release Date: 7/14/2006
It seems Dell finally realized that Linux users don't want to use custom proprietary integrated server management solutions. Dell now works on a framework for integrating firmware upgrades with the package manager of popular distributions. This effort is described at http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Repository/firmware. They even invite others to add support for non-Dell systems.
Currently, only BIOS upgrades are supported through this framework, and even that did not work fully for me. I had to complement the procedure with information found at http://www.ducea.com/2007/08/27/dell-bios-firmware-updates-on-debian/ (see also http://linux.dell.com/libsmbios/main/dellBiosUpdate.html).
wget -q -O - http://linux.dell.com/repo/firmware/bootstrap.cgi | bash aptitude install firmware-tools firmware-addon-dell aptitude install $(bootstrap_firmware -a) modprobe dell_rbu cd /usr/share/firmware/bios/system_bios_ven_0x1028_dev_0x01b3_version_2.2.6 dellBiosUpdate --force_mono -u -f bios.hdr reboot
I follow the recommended procedure up until the last step where the BIOS is flashed. firmware-tools uses the packet based update method by default, however this seems to fail (BIOS reports that the upgrade failed). To force the use of the monolithic method, I call dellBiosUpdate directly. I hypothesize that this will not be a problem after the first update, since the fault probably lies with the old BIOS. Either way it is important that a soft reset is performed.
To update the firmware on the PERC5 RAID controller, a FreeDOS image has to be prepared with the flash utility and firmware image. The image is then mounted as a virtual floppy via the DRAC card. After booting FreeDOS, the controller can be flashed.
The firmware can be found on Dell support. Download the "Hard-drive" version, which is a self-extracting zip archive, that can be unpacked with unzip. Notice that the internal and external versions of the controller have different firmware packages. Running the update with either package will succeed for one controller and fail for the other.
I found a FreeDOS 2.88 MB floppy image at http://www.fdos.org/bootdisks/. It can be mounted under Linux via the loop-back device, which makes it possible to add the firmware files. Remember to unmount the image before mounting it on the DRAC card!
cd /tmp wget http://www.fdos.org/bootdisks/autogen/FDSTD.288.gz gzip -d FDSTD.288.gz mount -o loop /tmp/FDSTD.288 /mnt/ unzip /tmp/R168186.EXE -d /mnt -- This is the firmware package umount /mnt racvmcli -r 192.168.0.205 -u root -p mypassword -f /tmp/FDSTD.288
At this point you can log on to the DRAC card and boot the machine from the virtual floppy. Remember that DOS cannot handle a serial console, so you need to temporarily enable redirection after boot in the BIOS.
The firmware is made available from Dell's support site as an ISO file. Mount the ISO via the DRAC and boot from it to update the firmware. Notice that serial console redirection doesn't work with this ISO, so you should use the embedded viewer in the DRAC web interface.
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Excellent design and a fine performance for the price.
When Dell announced dual-core Xeon support earlier this year the 1950 was one of a huge raft of new servers introduced to its PowerEdge family. It's the smallest that supports the 5100 series processors and the review system came equipped with a pair of 2.66GHz 5150 modules with the faster 1333MHz FSB.
There's a lot going on at the front as you get Dell's distinctive LCD display panel and a DVD drive squeezed in underneath. Storage potential isn't as good as 2950 but you still get room for a four drive cage that supports 2.5in. SAS or SATA drives. The cage has been positioned carefully to allow grills to be placed on either side for an unobstructed air flow through the chassis. If you're more interested in capacity then you can swap this for a different cage which supports a couple of 3.5in drives.
Storage redundancy is good as the price includes Dell's PERC 5/i RAID card which comes with 256MB of PC2-3200 cache memory and a battery backup pack.
There's not much to see under the bonnet mainly due to the air shrouds covering all key components. With these out of the way you'll see the processors are topped off with large heatsinks and even bigger side vanes that those on the NEC server.
Cooling is handled admirably by a bank of dual-rotor hot-swap fans and we found operational noise levels to be amongst the lowest here. A couple of separate riser cards at the back of the chassis each offer a PCI-e 8X expansion slot and if you want the PCI-X versions these are easy enough to remove and swap out. It's worth noting that the dual Broadcom Gigabit adapters also have the hardware key installed which enables the embedded TOE (TCP offload engine).
You get Dell's OpenManage software suite bundled as standard which offers a good range of remote management facilities. The Server Administrator provides web based access to individual servers allowing you to gather data from the motherboard sensors and set up thresholds for alerting. The motherboard has an embedded IPMI 2.0 baseboard controller chip but we've never been impressed with Dell's rudimentary command line shell which only offers basic controls over power. Fortunately, the server comes with the optional DRAC 5 upgrade card which provides far superior remote web access to the server.
If a high storage capacity isn't a high priority then Dell's diminutive 1950 offers particularly good value with a strong focus on design and redundancy.
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PowerEdge 2950 v.2.3.1, 26.06.2008 v.2.10, A11, 23.06.2008 SAS 5/E win2k3 drv. v.1.24.04.40, A06 18.03.2008 MD1000 Controller Card FW v.A.04, A04 4.9.2007
PowerEdge 1950 v.2.3.1, 26.06.2008 v.2.10, A12, 23.06.2008 Dell SAS 5/E, SAS 5/i Integrated win2k3 driver v.1.24.04.40, A06 18.03.2008
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