Manually Updating the Firmwares on a Dell PowerEdge R610 

I'm normally an HP guy, but landed some R610 servers on the cheap, so I set about setting the dang things up. Thank you so much for this video! I too spend a billion hours trying to figure this out! You saved me even more hours of work trying to figure how to update with a BIN file. HP makes it much simpler, regardless - well done!

This was a lifesaver for my T610. Dell didn't even have the CENTOS iso available for this server so I didn't know about it's existence. To make matters worse my idrac was out of date to the point where the web interface was inaccessible due to the ssh protocols being so out of date. The bios upgrade was a dramatic 2.1.9 to 6.6.0. You saved my server good sir.

Someone shared this with me on reddit... Spent a week fretting and researching.. this video really helped and I will try it this weekend for my t410

You are now officially my main source of info for my Dell R610 server :)

Great video Rob! Succesfully upgraded the BIOS, H700 and diagnostics of my R510 with your instructions. Wasted a lot of time on other sites.

Rob. Im trying to update a R710 for hours now - you just save my weekend man. Awesome howto! Well done with the website too. Cheers man!

Even if the tutorial is 4 years old but it's still valuable. Thanks a lot mate

Dude, you were one of the reasons I Made my homelab, and then, went into threat hunting. I continue to upgrade, just landed some 730's for cheap, but you go me into the 710, and 610's back in the day.

Thank you! After trying a gazillion different ways to update my R210 II, this is what worked :)

Amazing, this works well in 2020 for an R720 running off CentOS 7. I just had to copy the files to the /home/sliuser/ path, chmod +x those files (as other users mentioned), & viola!

i have no idea how this useful channel doesnt have deserved appreciation

Thanks Rob really enjoying your videos.keepn us posted..

Hey Rob I know it's been a while since you have posted but I just wanted to say I've learned a LOT from your videos. Thanks for taking the time and effort to make them for us and I hope to see more from you! ( looking to get two R610 or R710 soon ).

No, thank you buddy. You've been so helpful to all of us, really well done for all your work. Nicely done and you come across perfectly. Really appreciated. T.x

Thanks for the video! Commenting on your first minute...Keep on publishing the videos! You help enthusiasts who want to be working in infrastructure realted jobs to be more confident on purchasing a used server and have a hand on lab experience to be prepared for there interview.

Reference the "command not found" error, I was having an issue with the files having permission to execute from the USB drive itself. I copied and pasted the BIN files in question into the Home folder, accessed properties and selected allowed to executing as a program. then accessed the folder via command line again with the "sudo ./" command and it worked. just adding what worked for me here.

I just purchased my 1st server. A Dell T620 with dual 8 core Xeon CPU's and 48 gig of ram. I also have an HP Z620 with 2 E5 2695 v2 Xeon cpu's and 96 gig of ram on that one. I have not done any updates yet. I just installed a 1TB SSD in the Z620, working great so far. Love geeking out on the weekends.

Awesome! Needed to update in order to allow compatibility with a new cpu I got. Well made video

Thanks man, great strait forward video there

You are a life saver, honestly.

thank you for this!!! Finally got around to updating mine.

again another flawless video on how to upgrade this dino. You need a beer with this. The amount of "......................................................................................" you get while installing is insane.

Is there any better weekend than drinking some beers and playing with some servers?

Oh if you get the flash rom that plugs into the back you can use the drac 6 to have multiple bootable ISOs on the flash. I have macrium reflect boot ISO on it for making images.

Dell Recently decommissioned the Lifecycle controller updates for the R610 (11th gen) so you can't update the firmware. For kicks I mounted a ISO on the vflash sbuu_2.4_1294_A01.iso. Which is the Dell Systems Build and Update Utility. It takes awhile but it loads and then I have to somehow let it know where the SUU-WIN32_17.12.200.229.ISO is mounted. (DELL EMC Server Update Utility) which is a 9Gb file with the firmware. I tried the virtual media option on the console and I could mount the ISO but could not link it to the update utility. Obviously I messed up somewhere. Its a super slow process just booting to it.

Great video! Keep them coming. Suggestion for a future video is to show how to setup a PC to support the iDRAC6 virtual console. I saw you had Java 7 running etc and think that would be a good video subject, at least for me! :)

_power goes out_ no I'm 1:00 into it I'm sure you have them on a UPS or something and yeah, when I saw this in my sub box I was excited to see a new video from you, even though I run an Intel server platform, I'm sure this'll still be interesting

If you're not running a CentOS compatible system, you can also get the Non-Packaged executables for flashing from a DOS image. Then just make a freedos usb and bot to that to flash. since I'm running a fairly obscure distro this is what I had to do and it's faster than doing a full OS install on a spare drive.

This wasn't working for me and I got it to work in case this helps someone else... I got an error: hexdump: /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/SecureBoot-*: Invalid argument I had to restart my server and on boot up hit F2 button to enter startup settings. Then go to boot options and change from UEFI to Legacy boot. After I did that, I rebooted, pressed F11, booted from CentOS7 USB stick, copied the .BIN file to home folder, chmod +x the file, then ran the file and everything worked! Thanks for the tutorial, Rob!

You can use the bootable DVD all in one iso ..just saves time

Forgot to mention I am doing it all remotely so can't plug a USB stick or pop a DVD in. Trying to do it all via ISO booting from the vflash and mounting the 9gb (too big for my vflash) with the virtual media drop down in the drac console.

hello Rob I ran the command and i got error command not found?

Thank you! Really made it simple. Now to figure out how to get this H200 into IT mode... 😒

Thanks for this video really helped

having terrible time with PERC update (downgrades really due to issues with vdev + secureboot issues with later FWs). Same issue with the linux .bins, likely have to buy a windows server install just to pull this off.

Thanks Rob !! Please make a manual how to create GRE tunnel to a vps with ddos protection .

This is Awesome!!

I had to do a chmod +x to the .bin files before they would run.

So I just bought an R610 and I've got the image running, but when I try to install the firmware updates using the sudo command, I just get a "command not found." error. I've tried using chmod to make the .bin file executable, it'll say "permission denied." I even tried doing this after typing "sudo bash" and I still get the same errors. Any suggestions?

I have the same server, the r610 are the best bang for the buck. New enterprise SSDs for Dell will work with the h700 not sure about the 6i. You did not mention if you had issue on the console java on the drac6. The console does not work with newer Javas but 7.x java works.

good Info thank you

Thank You !!!

You are great. Sir I would ask what the advantage of having home server instead of cloud server?

You forgot to add that you may need to chmod u+x the file in order to run the BIN

Rob how to see idrac6 enterprise display console? im keep getting error :(

Can you do a video on how to update a R910 bios and Idrac?

Hello, Great video. and thank you very much for the great infos. But whenever I want to send the command to choose the file, it says all the time..Command not found.

After I saw this video I got on and looked through the EMC and was still able to build a SUU for my r710. Do they have it to where we can build SUU packages but not be able to use them through the lifecycle controller, I can't remember off the top of my head the application that uses the suu. I haven't done the way you did in this video. The other method I used was using a non package version and performing the updates via the bios.

just subscribed.

Please help! I just bought these and dell has stopped support on these and can't find the correct iso files for my bios. I have a 1.3.6 bios version and running 5504 chips, upgrading to 5675 chips and need a later bios update.

F.Y.I. sudo commands are not working within Dell Support Live 3.0 for me... any ideas anyone?

I tried the Dell repository upgrade method on my R610 server and could not get the updates to occur. The server never picks up the updates at all.

Would Hirens Boot CD and running the BIOS .exe work?

sudo ./ command not found error

"Command not found" ?

Rob are you there?

Why not use the Dell Auto update cd ? pm me for link if need.

Hi, great video, i can’t activate idrac because i have a DELL server oem from Check Point, this can help me to install o force install bios update?

What do you do if you want to update the raid drivers while an os is already installed? I am running proxmox on the r610 but an thinking of buying an h700 controller for disk speeds. Once I do that, how do I update the firmware without losing my os (installing windows) and keeping everything in tact?

does this mean you can only put linux on it? im trying to use it for proxmox which is debian based but just want to get the right updates

Hi, Rob I'm into web hosting and design how can I go about setting up web server

I got the updates to work with the exception of the SAS RAID Perc 6i controller. I got inventory collection failed. I also tried to update the Network drivers, however Dell provided a drivers.tar file and I executed it but don't know if the update was successfully applied.

I have 2012 core installed and I think I just ran the updates from the command prompt for bios, etc. I don't think I had to create a boot disk.

Kinda like a old old Dunkin donuts commercial....except. Time to take care of the servers. Thanks !!

Hi rob, i just picked up a R610 Server, 2x Intel Xeon E5530 2.40GHz Quad-Core 6gb ram, and a R610 Server, Xeon X5660 2.80Ghz 6 core, 6GB RAM. I am assuming this process is good for the systems i just picked up? also is the H700 sas-sata card the best one to get for putting sata ssd drives in them? thanks

Teach how to build it please

My server runs on ubuntu how can I do this

Seems like your method is very labor intensive. It's been a while, but what I used to do was use the Dell Repository manager, just download the updates you want, create the image, create bootable usb with rufus, then you can just boot the server using the newly created usb drive and walk away. Rinse and repeat for 20 servers with that single usb drive is much easier than manually getting connected to each server. Another tip is that when you are choosing the firmware update packages, if each server has slightly different components, just grab all the updates and the servers that don't have that specific component are rightfully skipped over by the update utility. www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/sln283183/dell-emc-repository-manager-drm-guide-and-download?lang=en

I'm running ESXi 6.7 on a T710. when selecting the driver packages, what operating system would i need to select from the drop down menu? I want to make sure that i get the correct packages

Where did you get your rack from?

how are you getting your r610 console to work??? it will not work for anything for me? i have the enterprise idrac but it just refuses to connect

hey I’m new is this serve still good to buy

I have an r610!

because your cool and we love your content bro i would do them but im a lazy twat did i send you a picture of my beast "dyson"

Any news about the live cd update url?

I actually never updated my r610 and t610

min..1143 command not found... why????

Can it run Esxi 6.7?

if u could add me on skype or somthing and we could talk because u have a lot of cool stuff and id like u to help me plz