Unraid on an R710 Part 3a: Firmware

So you have your R710, you've picked out and purchased all your hardware, you've gotten everything installed - but before you can put an OS on it, you should make sure your bios and all firmware is up to date. Forewarning, it has been a long time since I've done this, so I'm mainly relying on research and other sources for information rather than first-hand experience. I'm mainly collecting various sources here in one place. I believe you can also update most things through the Lifecycle Controller (link is a video about that and what to do if it doesn't work) or more complicated methods. I'm just going to go over a few of the big ones that were harder for me to figure out.

RAID Controller

First off, something the Lifecycle Controller won't do for you.

If you read my previous post, you know I suggested upgrading to a PERC H200 in my Hardware post for Unraid because the more common PERC 6/i RAID controller can not handle drives in a way that is compatible with that operating system. You will need to install (flash) new firmware onto your system so that your H200 can operate in what is called IT mode. IT mode will allow your H200/H700 to handle the drives in what is called JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Drives) mode. That way your RAID controller can pass your drives off to the operating system as... just a bunch of drives. Then, Unraid can take over the management of the storage array instead of relying on your RAID controller to do so.

Alternatively, you can buy H200s all over the place that come pre-flashed and set up for IT mode. If you want to flash your own RAID controller, here are some links that might help.

iDRAC 6 Part 1 - Setup

In my hardware post, I also suggested upgrading to an iDRAC6 Enterprise module over the more common Express module. The Enterprise (and higher) modules come with their own RJ-45 ethernet port so you can connect to them directly from your local network, and they allow you to use a virtual console to manage your server.

This article includes pictures and goes over the initial setup of your iDRAC6 module. If you want, you can confirm that your module has been assigned the correct IP by logging into your router's admin panel and looking for a list of attached network devices. Mine looks like this on my Verizon FIOS G3100:

Once that is set up, you can open up a web browser on your computer or laptop and navigate to that IP address to access the iDRAC6 login page. The default login is username root / password calvin. This site is a neat little management tool for your server. It provides system status and statistics, some limited access logs, power usage and a few other useful things. But the first thing you will want to do is set up a new account to log in with.

To set up a new account:

1. On the left side of the page go to iDRAC Settings, then go to the Network/Security tab, and then the Users sub-tab.
2. Select a user, select Configure User, then hit Next
3. Enter a username, password, and configure the user for your needs.
4. Click Apply. Click Logout in the top right corner and then log back in with your new account.
5. Now you can go back and select the other users and configure them to uncheck the "Enable user" box.

IDRAC6 Part 2 - Virtual Console

The most useful tool in the iDRAC6 Enterprise box is the Virtual Console. This tool allows you to connect to your server over your local network and see what you would see if you had a monitor plugged into the server itself. Since the iDRAC6 module is separate from your server's main motherboard, you can even watch the server reboot from here. But... to get it working on Windows in 2021 you need to do some special configuring. There are a few guides and options out there, but the steps in that guide are the only way I managed to get mine to work in 2021. Here is exactly what I did, for reference

Part 1: Update the firmware on your iDRAC6 module

1. Go to the Dell support site and plug in your server type (Poweredge R710). This will take you to the downloads page.
2. Enter the keywords "Embedded server management" and download the Dell iDRAC Monolithic Release file. This will download (at the time of writing this post) ESM_Firmware_KPCCC_WN32_2.92_A00.EXE.
3. Using a compression tool like 7Zip or WinRAR, open the .EXE file. Dell uses the .EXE extension for archived files. Weird.
4. Open the /payload/ folder and copy the .d6 file to somewhere on your computer.
5. In the iDRAC6 interface, log in and go to iDRAC Settings -> Update.
6. Click Choose File, select the .d6 file you pulled out of the .EXE, and hit Upload. The flashing process takes a few minutes and will spin the fans on your server up to max speed for a minute or so. Just be warned, don't let it spook you like it did to me.

Part 2: Prepare Windows

1. (Optional, convenience thing) Install the Fix IDRAC .jnlp file Extension in your Chrome/Edge browser. There isn't one for Firefox as far as I know.
2. Install a current version of Java - mine is working with Java 8 update 281 which I downloaded straight from Oracle's Java.com.
3. Open your Control Panel, go to Java (32-Bit), and then go to Security.
4. Add your iDRAC IP address to the exception site list in the format https://[IP]:443
5. Open the file Java\Install\Directory\jre1.8.0_xxx\lib\security\java.security in a text editor.
6. Find "jdk.tls.disabledAlgorithms" and delete the SSLv3 and RC4 options (and the commas separating them) and save your changes.

Keep in mind this is making your Java install less secure. If you have a problem with that, consider doing this in a VM, old machine you never use, or in docker somewhere.

Part 3: Configure iDRAC

1. Log into iDRAC interface again and go to System -> Console/Media and then the Configuration sub-tab
2. Uncheck "Video Encryption Enabled"
3. Set "Plug-in Type" to Java
4. Click Apple

Now you should be able to go to System -> Console/Media -> Virtual Console and Virtual Media and click the "Launch Virtual Console" button, or go to System -> Properties -> System Summary and click "Launch" under the Virtual Console Preview on the right side. Clicking either of these buttons will download a file with a long name that ends in .jnlp - normally that file is named something like:

`viewer.jnlp(...).jnlp`

The "Fix IDRAC jnlp file" extension will rename this file for you. Or you can manually rename it to:

`viewer(...).jnlp`

Double clicking the renamed file should open it in Java and eventually show you the console.

BIOS

The Dell downloads page that provides the latest BIOS update has a short but effective set of instructions on how to install the BIOS update. I used the non-UEFI method which I will copy here for reference:

1. Copy the file to a USB device
2. Plug in the USB device and press F11 during POST to enter BIOS Boot Manager
3. Navigate to the System Utilities menu and select BIOS Update File Explorer
4. Select the USB device and navigate through the directory contents to find the executable (.efi)
5. Launch the executable and follow the instructions provided by the flash utility.

Once you have your BIOS updated, you are ready to configure it in preparation for Unraid. I'll cover BIOS Configuration in my last post in this series, but first you will want to prepare your Unraid USB.

What's next?

You're almost there! Your next steps are just:

1. Set up your Unraid USB
2. Configure your BIOS
3. Get Unraid running

Thanks for reading! Contact me or comment below if you have any questions or comments.