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I have a Dell PowerEdge R510 with iDRAC Enterprise:

  • System Model: PowerEdge R510
  • System Revision: II
  • Service Tag: 70BMGS1
  • Express Service Code: 15257000305
  • BIOS Version: 1.8.2
  • Firmware Version: 1.80 (Build 17)
  • Lifecycle Controller Firmware: 1.5.1.57

I want to upgrade the BIOS and the iDRAC firmware. I fed it each of these files from Dell's R510 downloads page (iDRAC Settings -> Firmware Update on the web UI), but each time, it came back with "File is not valid for iDRAC Firmware update":

  • ESM_Firmware_MXKG2_LN32_2.91_A00.BIN
  • ESM_Firmware_NVJ9K_LN32_1.90_A00.BIN
  • iDRAC6_1.85_A00_FW_IMG.exe
  • R510_BIOS_PYCXX_WN64_1.14.0.EXE
  • R510_ESM_Firmware_F8T9F_WN32_1.92_A00.EXE

Based on Dell forums, I should do a staged update, but 1.85 is the oldest version of what I think is the iDRAC firmware available on Dell's site.

For newer servers like R620 and R630, I was able to just feed the iDRAC any firmware file from Dell's website (BIOS or iDRAC or otherwise) and it figured out what to do with it. Any idea how I should perform the upgrade?

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  • The reason I haven't tried the OMSA live DVD yet is because the reason I'm updating the iDRAC in the first place is because the virtual console is unreliable; arrow keys don't work, the mouse is nearly impossible to use, and the virtual media disconnects randomly.
    – Easter Sunshine
    Dec 1, 2018 at 9:31

2 Answers 2

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As shown in the training video in section 4 of the support article Dell PowerEdge: How to a Remote Firmware Update with the iDRAC?, you must manually unzip iDRAC6_1.85_A00_FW_IMG.exe and upload the actual image file firmimg.d6 to the iDRAC. The more recent iDRAC models can accept the executable file directly and unzip it themselves, but apparently the iDRAC 6 can't.

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Thanks for sharing @Harry Johnston I have poweredge T420 idrac 7 and it wouldn't take the .bin file. Had to extract and get the .d7 files inside payload/ folder.

Alternatively, I discovered the ESM tools from dell Dell EMC System Update

Specifically: Installation method using Linux repository Setup the repository

curl -s https://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware/dsu/bootstrap.cgi | bash

Installing DSU RedHat Enterprise Linux Servers yum install dell-system-update

SUSE Enterprise Linux Servers zypper install dell-system-update

Note: If signature keys are not available, please run below command to update the signature keys

curl -s https://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware/dsu/bootstrap.cgi | bash

The install instructions can be found here

Once installed you can run dsu -u and it will check all your hardware including BIOS and prompt for all the necessary updates you can choose from.

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