How to upgrade firmware on Dell DRAC?

DRAC stands for Dell Remote Access Controller. The DRAC on current models is a separate chipset and board that is connected to the server main board with its own network interface as well as a direct configuration accessible during system initialization.

DRAC has a default TCP/IP address and can be change during system initialization

I found dmidecode currently does not return any information about DRAC card on the system. If you have system tag with you can check online if systems include DRAC card.
* Put you system tag here,
http://support.euro.dell.com/support/topics/topic.aspx/emea/shared/support/my_systems_info/en/details?c=uk&l=en&s=gen
* Click on "Original System configuration"
* Search for "DRAC"

Here is firmware upgrade process.

* Download the firmware for your system, In my case it was Power Edge 2950 system. I found firware versions here.

* Download windows zipped exe file and extract it.There should be only one file named "firmimg.d5".

* Copy the same to your tftp server at /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/ location. (Can share it and mount on tftpserver or use WinSCP to copy files to remote unix system)

* Login to drac server using the IP assigned to DRAC.
Before upgradation firmware version

[root@npatil ~]# ssh drac-ip
root@drac-ip's password:

Dell Remote Access Controller 5 (DRAC 5)
Firmware Version 1.0 (Build 06.05.12)

$ racadm fwupdate -g -u -a tftpserver-ip-address -d firmimg.d5
Firmware update completed successfully. The RAC is in the process of
resetting. Please wait up to a minute for this to complete.

Please do not make any changes in DRAC configuration while doing firmware upgradation.

It may disturb upgrade process.

After upgradation Firmware Version

[root@npatil ~]# ssh drac-ip
root@drac-ip's password:

Dell Remote Access Controller 5 (DRAC 5)
Firmware Version 1.20 (Build 07.03.02)

SAN terminologies

Here I am trying to put every definition related to SAN on single page. Its a collective information from different sites.

AoE: ATA over Ethernet: its a network protocol designed to access SATA storage devices over the Ethernet networks. AoE does not rely on network layers above Ethernet, such as IP and TCP.
The advantage of AoE is that you don't have the overhead of translating ATA to SCSI and then back to ATA (if you are using ATA drives). So there is a performance pickup.

NBD: The Linux Network Block Device (NBD) is a device driver extension to the Linux kernel. With the NBD device driver you can create a TCP/IP network connection between your local Linux system and a server program on a remote (not necessarily Linux) computer. But NBD has some limitations in terms of read/write operation and using NBD as a root file system.
Server processing load for iSCSI is much higher than AoE for equivalent throughput. AoE can spare processing cycles. iSCSI requires TCP/IP and its requisite complexity.

ENBD- Enhanced Network Block Device
GNBD- Global Network Block Device


WWPN: World Wide Port Name. A globally unique identifier for a port which allows certain applications to access the port. The FC switches discover the WWPN of a device or host and assign a port address to the device.

Multipathing: When transferring data between the host server and storage, the SAN uses a multipathing technique. Multipathing allows you to have more than one physical path from the Server host to a LUN on a storage array.
If a default path or any component along the path—HBA, cable, switch port, or storage processor—fails, the server selects another of the available paths. The process of detecting a failed path and switching to another is called path failover.


An active/active disk array, which allows access to the LUNs simultaneously through all the storage processors that are available without significant performance degradation. All the paths are active at all times (unless a path fails).

An active/passive disk array, in which one SP is actively servicing a given LUN. The other SP acts as backup for the LUN and may be actively servicing other LUN I/O. I/O can be sent only to an active processor. If the primary storage processor fails, one of the secondary storage processors becomes active, either automatically or through administrator intervention.