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michaelr985
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3 Posts
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174695
December 12th, 2016 15:00
Lifecycle Controller unable to connect to ftp.dell.com
I has been a while since I last tried to update my R720xd servers. But to today I have been battling them them trying to get the firmware update function to work.
When testing the network connection it tells me it is unable to resolve host name for ftp.dell.com. If i just press the next button it tells me invalid ip address or share name.
I am not sure what I am doing wrong. Any help would be appreciated.
ftp://ftp.dell.com is decommissioned
http://downloads.dell.com/published/pages/oth-r720xd.html
its now
http://downloads.dell.com/published/Pages/index.html
michaelr985
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3 Posts
144384
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Posted December 13th, 2016 12:00
When I replace ftp.dell.com with downloads.dell.com I get a network connection failure. Then when I try and include the http:// in the field I get unable to resolve hostname errors. Maybe you can explain exactly what I should be typing in what field because I am not able to figure it out.
efredriksen
3 Posts
144385
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Posted February 1st, 2017 06:00
Also, ftp.dell.com does not appear to be *fully* decommissioned as I can still browse the firmware directories (and others):
efredriksen
3 Posts
144384
0
Posted February 1st, 2017 06:00
Can you please go into a bit more detail here?
What specifically are we supposed to use in place of ftp.dell.com for a Lifecycle Controller firmware update via FTP? I've tried googling for an hour now but haven't found any other blogs, announcements, forum posts or anything else about this.
Technigogo
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6 Posts
89805
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Posted April 9th, 2018 08:00
After about 2 hours of trying to get the necessary updates on this new 14G server out of the box, I finally pieced all the incorrect information together and found the working solution. Here is what you need to know:
1. When you set the network settings for the Lifecycle Controller, I could not get the IPV6 to work with Static or DHCP. It will error. Here is what I figured out - just set the IPV4 and leave the IPV6 however you want. Once you hit NEXT, it will check the configuration and give you an error for IPV6 -BUT- it also has already saved the IPV4 settings so now just hit CANCEL. You now have a working IPV4 connection.
2. When you proceed to the Firmware Updates, the Lifecycle Controller will pre-fill the address with downloads.dell.com which you will think would be right, it's not and it won't work. Fill in the old familiar "ftp.dell.com" and forget about all the other fields. That's all you need.
David Dame
1 Message
71531
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Posted October 3rd, 2018 16:00
Crazy... how does this go on so long and Dell never corrects this issue?
antspants77
3 Posts
71754
1
Posted February 7th, 2019 15:00
So here we are in February 2019.
I work for an MSP that quotes work hours. One of the things we always include is updating firmware etc.
To save time, we use the Dell Lifecycle controller, rather than identifying, downloading and manually installing.
On a brand new Dell R740 server, I configured the Lifecycle Controller network (after ignoring the repeated IPV6) errors and then finding this article.
https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/sln308584/dell-poweredge-unable-to-save-ipv4-and-ipv6-dhcp-network-settings-swc0001-on-14g-servers?lang=en
Which says to ignore it, even though there is not ignore button. What it means was go back to the previous menu and continue, which it did.
Then presented with and option to update BIOS from
downloads.dell.com
so continued, but failed more than once.Tested using a FTP client and found I could not open this site.
Then searched and found this article.
And used
ftp1.us.dell.com
And was able to identify and update the server.
So, instead of thousands of users having to waste an hour EVERY time they update their server, fix the above 2 problems. Either in the firmware of the server or by enabling the site you are pointing everyone to by default.
Or are you too busy?
michaelr985
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3 Posts
144547
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Posted February 1st, 2017 08:00
efredriksen, you are correct. The Dell FTP site is still ftp.dell.com and it not going away any time soon. I have seen some Dell teams are posting files to Box but for drivers & catolog files, ftp.dell.com is the main location. I am not sure what SpeedStep is referring to the ftp address being decommissioned. If that is indeed true then Dell needs to come out and make it very clear and update all their documentation.
I think some of the confusion is to blame on the other DNS names the FTP can be reached at, such as.
downloads.dell.com
ftp1.us.dell.com
ftp2.us.dell.com
ftp.us.dell.com
The reason I opened this post was resolved under case 940656672. It was a networking issue on my end. My r720xd is plugged into a HP switch stack. I was using LACP Trunk ports with Windows NIC Teaming. But inside the preboot Lifecycle Controller interface, it wasn't playing nice with my trunk ports the NICs were plugged into. Turning off the trunk port fixed the issue but is not ideal way of dealing with it.
<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>
Using the link above will take you to the Knowledge Base page for Updating Dell PowerEdge servers via bootable media. I found this to be a good alternative option to using the Lifecycle Controller.
(edited)