Installed proxmox on a few servers, going to kick the tires on that and see if we can move away from ESX. We don't require any of its feature set really, beyond migration, snapshots and a few other things which seem to be standards on any non-vmware solution these days... The technology is mature enough at this point, I'm ok giving it a go...
Started noticing some network issues, needed to update the firmware.
Updated the firmware on one of them via the "life cycle" thing, It claims it can download firmware over the webs. cool. It actually doesn't work that well.
We have 4 of these machines, all verbatim, from the same batch, rolled off the line on the same day. 2 of them can update over the internet, the other 2 refuse to. Not a license, entitlement or any other issue. All plugged into the same switch, etc...
to the point... sorry...
Support says 'download and use the disk image instead'. So I do. Find the disk which EXACTLY describes my machine model and generation vintage. All I want to do is update the 10Gbit NIC firmware..
Its been 5 hours and it is still going! :) No one said to me at dell support, nor did it mention it anywhere else, that the process is VERY long.. Very long..
so here is my problem with Dell's methods...
They built the machine, they developed this software called "lifecycle controller" which is suppose to inventory your machine, know what hardware is installed and what versions of firmware/software/middleware is associated.
With all this "value" add, one would think Dell's very own installer/updater would have a CLUE. no sir. :) no clues
Apparently the updater see a hard drive, instead of querying the hard drive and asking it for a vendor string or similar, they try EVERY FIRMWARE IN EXISTENCE till one installs.
SAS Controller, same thing, instead of asking the controller what it is, they try and install a plethora of versions till they hit one it'll accept. Maybe I have it wrong but that is what is sure appears to be doing, check out the picture included...
So to update my NIC and SAS controller, I have been waiting here for 5 hours. lord knows how long it'll take, i'm heading out now. its on 103 of 121 attempts at finding a compatible firmware.
Brute force for the win....
I'm glad these servers were not yet in production yet, any reasonable guess at how long it would take to upgrade the firmware would of been blown out of the water. The take away here is if you have dell servers and can't update them online, using the disk image is going to take a VERY long time, book a weekend maintenance window, no lunch hour updates. :)
greg
