I recently purchased a Dell R710 as part of a buildout for my homelab, and as part of that process, wanted to update all the software. This consists of;
- BIOS – running 6.0.4, current is 6.4 so not too bad
- iDRAC – running 1.10, current is 2.85, so a good leap
- PERC6 – no idea
- Lifecycle Controller – no idea
Given that the only OS installed is ESXi I had a bit of googling to figure this one out.
In theory the Lifecycle Controller has an Platform Update option that will just do all this for you… unfortunately this seemed to be missing on mine.
To get everything up and running, the following process worked for me;
- Download, and extract the firmimg.d6 file from the iDRAC updater. This will allow your iDRAC to updated to something modern enough not to give certificate/security/browser errors. Use the iDRAC firmware update option to get this installed
- Use the iDRAC firmware update page to load the USC/LC repair package (.usc extension)
- Reload and the Lifecycle Controller will now have a Platform Update option – use that to update everything else via FTP from dells website
NOTE: The Lifecycle controller uses the inbuilt NIC rather then the iDRAC ethernet interface
