<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div>On Dec 12, 2013, at 2:24, "Paul B. Henson" <<a href="mailto:henson@acm.org">henson@acm.org</a>> wrote:</div><div> </div><blockquote type="cite"><div><blockquote type="cite">From: Keith Wesolowski [<a href="mailto:keith.wesolowski@joyent.com">mailto:keith.wesolowski@joyent.com</a>] </blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2013 9:01 AM </blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> </blockquote><blockquote type="cite">My perspective on this is that being able to upgrade firmware over the </blockquote><blockquote type="cite">LAN interface is an essential manageability feature. </blockquote> I don't know if I want to call them "higher end", or "brand name", but for the most part all of my servers from Sun or IBM have had this functionality, other than occasionally needing to boot an ISO image to update RAID controller firmware. </div></blockquote><div> </div><div>The SOL included in iDRAC7 (with or without the Enterprise license) lets you configure BIOS settings with an XML file on an NFS share:</div><div><a href="http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/b/techcenter/archive/2013/01/04/idrac7-now-support-configuring-server-idrac-bios-perc-and-nic-using-xml-file-and-racadm.aspx">http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/b/techcenter/archive/2013/01/04/idrac7-now-support-configuring-server-idrac-bios-perc-and-nic-using-xml-file-and-racadm.aspx</a></div> <blockquote type="cite"><div> <blockquote type="cite">What's even more obnoxious is that it's usually impossible to preserve </blockquote><blockquote type="cite">settings across a firmware upgrade, and that there's generally no way to </blockquote><blockquote type="cite">export or import settings or set them noninteractively. </blockquote> Yah, BIOS sucks :(. <blockquote type="cite">Very much appreciate everyone out there fighting the good fight on this </blockquote><blockquote type="cite">stuff. When you win, we all win! </blockquote> I think you guys have more clout with at least supermicro than most if not everybody else on this list ;), maybe you could give your sales rep a good smack about the ridiculousness of trying to nickel and dime customers for this IPMI feature :). </div></blockquote></body></html>