Dell PowerEdge 2650 BIOS & FW update issues, and BIOS serial console support issues

[Greg A. Woods]

I've got this new-to-me Dell PowerEdge 2650 server here that I'm trying
to get going as a build machine for netbsd-3 and/or netbsd-4.

I've got it hooked up to a serial console, but unfortunately that
doesn't work very reliably (not counting the horrid mess the BIOS makes
generally of working with a serial terminal even when it does "work").

The problem is that usually (always after a warm reboot, and sometimes
even after a cold boot), the output to the serial port is just plain
garbage. It would seem that the COM0 UART settings are trashed, and/or
not correctly reset, when NetBSD initiates a reboot.

Now it looks like the BIOS might be due for an update (it's a bit hard
to tell because the version numbers on the support site don't exactly
seem to match up with what I see on the screen, but there is a recent
update available...)

Has anyone observed any similar BIOS serial console problems and does
anyone know if a BIOS update stands a chance of fixing them?

The embedded systems management controller (BMC) firmware could use
updating too since it seems the IPMI interface it provides is 1.0 and
thus is not supported by NetBSD's ipmi(4) driver (at least not in
netbsd-4):

ipmi0 at mainbus0ipmi0: getSdrPartial: recvcmd fails
ipmi0: get header fails
: version 1.0 interface SMIC iobase 0xecf4/3 spacing 1

I'm hoping the latest firmware will provide at least an IPMI-1.5
compatible interface so that I can finally see something useful with
envstat.

However the only way to update the BIOS or any other on-board firmware
seems to be to run a program under some GNU/Linux that uses the
GNU/Linux OpenIMPI driver, or alternately to install some windoze system
and use that. They don't seem to provide any bootable media images that
can do the update, which is really frustrating and stupid, but that's PC
server vendors for you.

I don't suppose there's any hope of NetBSD's linux emulation providing
enough compatability with the most recent linux OpenIPMI driver to be
able to run the update program on NetBSD, is there?

Does anyone know how difficult it would be to take a free
(non-Enterprise) GNU/Linux and get the OpenIPMI driver working so I
could do the install from there? I.e. without begging for copies of the
REHL-4 install media?

This thing does have the remote access controller in it, and I have been
able to use the Java junk to access it through Firefox on an OS X 10.3.9
laptop (the only thing I have handy that can even run Java well enough
do do anything with it). Can the firware updates be done via that path?
If so then what downloads would I need and how would I proceed?

Does anyone know if there's any other more sane way to talk to the RAC
without a stupid web browser and a pile of Java in the way? Why does my
server's embedded controller have to run a web server with SSL itself?

BTW, if anyone has any "in" with anyone at Phoenix or any other BIOS
maker, I'd sure like to pass on a message to them about how horrid their
serial console support is, and how easy it would be to make it work
simply and cleanly, if only they would take a clue from DEC's SRM and
Sun's OpenFirmware. The fact that it needs to know what kind of
terminal is connected means they've already gone too far and got
everything in their user interface wrong right from the ground up. It
should work perfectly and be 100% usable even if the terminal is a
DECwriter-III or similar.

[Gary Parker]

Post by Greg A. Woods
However the only way to update the BIOS or any other on-board firmware
seems to be to run a program under some GNU/Linux that uses the
GNU/Linux OpenIMPI driver, or alternately to install some windoze system
and use that. They don't seem to provide any bootable media images that
can do the update, which is really frustrating and stupid, but
that's PC
server vendors for you.

Hi Greg, I recently updated all the firmwares on a 2650 (to install
Ubuntu onto, but we won't go into that...) and Dell provide bootable
diskette images for almost all of the updates. The files that aren't
bootable can be copied onto a diskette that's been formatted in a
'doze machine as bootable. Admittedly this requires a 'doze machine
to create the boot diskette and the bootable images are all self-
extracting 'doze binaries but at least you don't have to install
'doze on the 2650 itself.

http://support.euro.dell.com/support/downloads/devices.aspx?
c=uk&l=en&s=gen&SystemID=PWE_FOS_XEO_2650&os=BIOSA&osl=EN

Follow that link up there and get the latest files for each of the
following:
Embedded Server Management
DRAC
System Server BIOS
and any RAID card (PERC?) you may have in the machine.