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Shtééf
Asked: 2010-05-12 01:08:18 +0800 CST

Updating Dell PowerEdge firmware on Ubuntu?

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The company I work for recently got hands on a batch of second hand PowerEdge SC1425 machines. We'd like to put these to good use. Our operating system of choice is Ubuntu Server 10.04 64-bit, which installs just peachy on this type of machine.

Now I'd like to install the firmware updates from Dell, which are apparently marked as recommended. This includes the updates for the BIOS, the BMC, and possibly some other hardware.

I find it incredibly difficult to locate the files on the Dell website, and install any of them on an Ubuntu system:

  • I downloaded the file OM_6.2.0_SUU_A01.iso.
    • I believe I've read that the SUU DVD should be able to update any recent PowerEdge. Is this correct?
    • Is this the latest version? Besides the version number, does A01 have any meaning?
    • Is this image bootable? (At the moment, I just nosed around with a loop device mount.)

  • Running /bin/bash ./suu from the DVD, I get:

    # /bin/bash ./suu
./suu: line 262: ./java/linux/i386/bin/java: No such file or directory

    The file exists and is executable, though. But I cannot execute it directly from the shell either.

ubuntu dell dell-poweredge ubuntu-10.04

5 Answers

  1. The file exists and is executable, though. But I cannot execute it directly from the shell either.

    You are likely missing the 32-bit compatibility libraries, preventing the 32-bit Java from executing. In the documentation, it explicitly states that SUU is a 32-bit application and what the dependencies are for running in a 64-bit environment.

    These are the dependencies as documented for Red Hat. I suppose that they ought to be available for Ubuntu under the same or similar names; procmail, glibc, compat-libstdc++-296, compat-libstdc++-33, libstdc++, zlib, and libxml2.

    I know this question has long since been answered, but it took me a while to figure it out so I am answering for the benefit of others that may be searching this question.

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  2. Best Answer

    I'm not sure it's what you're looking for, but I tend to upgrade PowerEdge systems using the OMSA live CD from the OpenManage Dell site. I just boot it up (it's centOS-based), downloaded the needed upgrade files for Red Hat, run them, and then reboot back to the original system.

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  3. The Fine Manual worked for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS on a Dell PowerEdge 2850. I didn't even have to use the kernel boot option reboot=bios. No fussing with floppy disk images, dosemu, or other wackiness.

    http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Tech/libsmbios_dellBiosUpdate

    The instructions lists where to get the raw BIOS on the linux.dell.com website.

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  4. you will need to mound the image with -o exec to enable execution of the application from that dvd (or iso image)

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  5. I always burn the SUU to disk and boot to it. From there you can navigate the Dell menus, scan for needed firmware updates, and install them. Reboot and you are good to go.

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