Firmware updates from the Lifecycle Controller

WARNING (23 January 2018)

The Lifecycle Controller's firmware update facility is offering an unsafe BIOS update. Do not update a server's BIOS using the Lifecycle Controller.

Introduction

The Lifecycle Controller can be used to update a Dell server's firmware. This has worked in MPU tests, so it seems a viable alternative to using dsu.

In particular, DRAC or iDRAC firmware should be updated from the Lifecycle Controller (instead of with dsu). You should also use a direct console, and ensure that nobody is connected to the serial console. This ensures that the DRAC is not in use serving serial consoles during the update - thus avoiding the risk of hanging the DRAC.

Here's what to do

The machine in these pictures is a Dell PowerEdge R230. Other models' Lifecycle Controllers may behave differently. Get in touch if you can't figure it out for your machine, and we'll try to document that one too.

Enter the Lifecycle Controller

Start with a Dell server which has a Lifecycle Controller and a functioning network connection. Power on the machine and press F10 to select the Lifecycle Controller:

Initial configuration

The first time you enter the Lifecycle Controller, an Initial Setup Wizard will start. You will use this to configure the Lifecycle Controller's networking. This only needs to be done once.

Click through the obvious defaults:

Set the networking to IPv4 and DHCP, and apply your settings:

Update the firmware

From the main screen of the Lifecycle Controller, select Firmware Update, then Launch Firmware Update:

Choose FTP Server as the download method for the firmware updates:

Accept ftp.dell.com as the FTP server:

Wait while the FTP server is checked, and the catalogue of updates is downloaded:

After a short while you will see the list of possible updates. Select those you'd like to install. The ones which are more recent than what's on your machine will normally be automatically selected from the list. Be careful to scroll down to check the entire list.

When you're happy with your selection, click Apply, then stand well back:

The updates should then download from the FTP server one at a time:

After all updates have been downloaded, they should start to install one by one:

Once the last update has finished installing, the server should reboot.

If something goes wrong

In one of our tests the process failed while trying to download the updates. Perhaps there was a network glitch, or the download timed out, or there was a problem with the FTP server. We don't know. All we know is that this screen appeared, and when we tried again to use the Lifecycle Controller, we found that it was frozen:

We could have tried following the advice on the screen, but instead we disconnected the machine from the power and tried again the next day. On that attempt the firmware update ran to completion.