A few months ago, I was exposed to Juniper as an alternative to Cisco, which has been my primary networking life to date. I took and passed the composite CCNA before the certpocalypse of 2020 using the Cisco OCG and Neil Anderson’s excellent Udemy course. If you’ve touched Juniper, then you know just how different that first exposure can be inside the Junos CLI.

Juniper has really been pushing discounts and training with their certs. As I dug into the Juniper cert framework, I reviewed the free CCNA-to-JNCIA content on Juniper’s Learning Portal to get a 75% off discount and passed the JNCIA-Junos within a couple of weeks. If you’re at or above CCNA-level, this should be a pretty easy test for most people.

JNCIS-SP Study Materials

On to the JNCIS-SP, I found a lot of new content within the exam topics – like MPLS, IS-IS, and Q-in-Q. However, it was all stuff that I wanted to learn more about, so this should be a fun ride.

Thankfully, Knox Hutchinson over at CBT Nuggets has dedicated a solid chunk of 2021 to building out their Juniper training library. While the Juniper Learning Portal has a nearly complete course available for free that covers the JNCIS-SP exam topics, the quality comes up far short compared to what CBT Nuggets offers. So, the CBT Nuggets JNCIS-SP course was a big component to preparing for this exam.

On the written side of things, Juniper doesn’t seem to have a modern learning infrastructure that matches the exam objectives like we find in the Cisco Press Official Certification Guides (aka ‘OCG’). That said, much of the older material from the past couple of decades is still very relevant in tackling the Juniper exam objectives.

While I’ve heard that the old Juniper JNCIS-SP Study Guide, which is divided into three parts, used to be available for free on Juniper’s website, that appears to no longer be the case. That said, the JNCIS-SP Study Guide is easily found from an online search in PDF format and is a comprehensive guide to the modern JNCIS-SP exam objectives. In fact, it also covers several topics that no longer appear on the JNCIS-SP exam and are now found on the JNCIP-SP exam.

I found many portions of the JNCIS-SP Study Guide to be directly taken from Juniper documentation. However, there is some dated material in there that is no longer accurate. It’s not much, but it is worth pointing out. For example, the old Study Guide teaches the use of site-local unicast addresses in IPv6, which have since been deprecated and replaced with unique local addresses. For the most part, having the modern content from the likes of CBT Nuggets is enough to alert you to these problems.

Additionally, I recently picked up the old O’Reilly Junos Enterprise Switching book to help prepare for the layer 2 content on the JNCIS-ENT exam. Again, it’s quite dated with a 2009 copyright date; however, most of the material is still very relevant as I’m about a quarter of the way into it at this point. Likely, much of this content can carry over to the JNCIP level as well. It’s still solid book that can be had used for quite cheap on Amazon. Likewise, there’s a Junos Enterprise Routing book that I don’t yet have but looks to have a solid set of reviews (and it made it to a second edition published in 2011).

JNCIS-SP Study Strategy

I’ve passed a lot of exams over the years and have an ideal strategy that works for me when both lecture and written content is available.

In my intro to the topic, I’ll watch lecture content (in this case the CBT Nuggets material) and take few, if any, notes. This is just to familiarize myself with the domain content. Then, I’ll begin to read and build a fairly comprehensive outline. I don’t know why I like to do this, but I like to fill in all the boxes for the exam material.

(I’ve read some books that touch on learning and cognitive psychology and I still don’t fully understand all of the *why* this works for me. I feel like the act of building an outline on the content gives me some reassurance that I’ve covered the topic. I honestly don’t use the outline for a whole lot of studying – really just a bit of cram review in the last few days. But I believe building it for myself is more important than reviewing it.)

When building an outline, the skeleton of it is taken from the exam objectives. I’ll literally copy/paste the Exam Objectives from Juniper’s website into a Google Doc and build my outline from there.

As I go through the mirrored material in the study guide (or in Cisco’s case, the OCG), I’ll fill in holes by looking up documentation for anything that’s missing in the material (e.g., the site-local / unique local addresses referenced earlier).

In this case, after I finished each major section of the exam objectives, I returned to CBT Nuggets and watched the content again with more context from studying. In some cases where commands or concepts were complex, I’d lab it up in EVE or on a physical device (I’ve got an old EX2200 and an SRX210 in the rack in my garage).

After I finished the reading and outline, I did the two free practice tests on Juniper’s Learning Portal. After doing those, I went back and brushed up on the topics I missed and tried to continue to strengthen core topics in each of the exam objective categories.

I’ll also point out that the practice exams on Juniper’s website appear to be very old and do not fully align with the current exam objectives. Additionally, the Juniper website informs you that you’ll be able to review the entire practice exam and see the correct answer, along with an explanation as to why that is the correct answer. Unfortunately, that’s not the case – there is no explanation, just an indication of whether you got it right or wrong and it highlighted the correct answer.

Juniper could really stand to beef up its certification study material. I’m thankful there’s an old study guide floating around in the ether and that CBT Nuggets committed to producing such great content this year. Otherwise, I don’t know how I would have successfully prepared for this exam.

The JNCIS-SP Exam

The exam I took is the current JN0-362 exam based on Junos OS 19.4. It is 90 minutes in length with 65 multiple-choice questions. While the NDA doesn’t really permit me to talk about the exam content, I will say that it is a fair exam based on what is on the exam topics. My comprehensive approach paid off and I comfortably passed the exam. If anything, I probably over-studied for this exam over a 2-month period with probably 80+ hours. I’m looking forward to going further down the Juniper rabbit hole.

If you spend any significant amount of time managing cabling in the IT, audio, video, or lighting worlds, then you may have already met the Dymo Rhino 5200. If not, allow me to introduce you.

The Rhino 5200 lives in my tool bag and is rarely far from my reach. While it’s not cheap at $113-ish, it’s one of those tools that is worth its weight in gold. It’s also available in kit form for $140-$160 with an included case, charger, and labels.

Of course, you can print basic labels with the Rhino 5200; however, the magic for wrangling and documenting cables are found in label presets for “Cable” and “Panels.”

The Cable preset allows you to print a label specifically designed to be wrapped around … you guessed it … a cable. Instead of printing the label end to end like an ordinary label maker, the Cable preset rotates the text 90-degrees and repeats the phrase the length of the label.

*It is important that you use 19mm (or 3/4-inch) labels instead of the smaller sizes common on cheaper labeling machines.

Vinyl or flexible nylon labels are necessary for the label tape to adhere properly to various cable jackets. If you use traditional labels that are made for printing on smooth flat surfaces, you will quickly experience them peeling back and, ultimately, falling off of your cables. I have had great luck with these Dymo Industrial Dymo Flexible Nylon labels.

In addition to the convenience of labeling cables, the Dymo also delivers on the Panels preset. This gives you the ability to label patch panels (horizontally) or electric panels (vertically). You select the number of patches and the length of each patch, then it prints the strip. Of course, you can also use it for everything else from soundboard scribble strips to audio snakes and anything else that has a row or column of I/O options.

Dymo’s Rhino 4200 is a Cheaper Option with the Best Features of the 5200

If the price tag of the Dymo Rhino 5200 puts you off, let me also suggest the Rhino 4200 as a more affordable option with a whole lot of the features in the 5200 for almost half the price – it lives in the $60-$80 price range.

My wife asked me for a label maker a couple of years ago and I ordered her the Rhino 4200. While she hates the orange color of the Rhino series, she loves the functionality. I figured if I was going to have another label maker in the house full-time, the flexibility of the Rhino 4200 would serve us both well.

Like the Rhino 5200, the 4200 is also durable with rubberized edges and corners to endure ordinary wear and tear a bit better than the average label maker.

I also give the Rhino 4200’s keyboard a leg up on the Rhino 5200. The 4200 has a standard QWERTY keyboard, while the 5200 is alphabetical.

The big advantages for the 5200 are the form factor (it fits more easily into my toolbag and easy to grip one-handed), a larger display, and the rechargeable lithium-ion battery (which rarely needs a charge). The ribbon cutter is also a bit better on the 5200.

However, the Rhino 4200 can make the same label types as the 5200, which is a huge win if you’re on a budget.

Both models allow you to use an array of label types and sizes, including 1/4″, 3/8″, 1/2″, and 3/4″ sizes. Our 4200 stays loaded with standard 12mm labels most of the time, while my 5200 is loaded with 19mm nylon labels almost exclusively due to regular use with cabling and panels.

If you work frequently with IT, audio, video, or lighting systems, you can’t go wrong with either the Dymo Rhino 5200 or Rhino 4200.

Consumer credit reporting agencies are selling our consumer credit info to marketers, which leads to daily piles of prescreened credit card and loan offers arriving in our mailboxes.

Any business that requests a consumer report from a consumer reporting agency (CRA), like Equifax or Experian, must have a permissible purpose to do so. When a credit card company wants to pull a massive list of consumers to send prescreened notices, it just asks CRAs for our financial info and they provide it for a price. Federal law allows this practice as a “permissible purpose” under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

Why? Why? Why?

Because big banks and insurance companies lobby the representatives that we elect.

The “oh, we do something for the people” part comes in as a rarely-used exception that requires CRAs to allow consumers to opt-out of prescreened offers, which takes us out of the lists that banks and insurance companies purchase from CRAs.

To exercise your opt-out, you can call a toll-free number or fill out an online form for a 5-year opt-out term.

However, you have to mail in a form for a permanent opt-out.

The 5-year opt-out process is straightforward and can be done at OptOutPrescreen.com.

You can also call toll-free 1-888-5-OPT-OUT (1-888-567-8688) to handle the same process.

Complete details and confirmation that this is legit can be found here at the FTC’s website.

Below, I’m pasting the relevant section verbatim from the FTC on how to opt-out for either 5 years or permanently.

Can I reduce the number of unsolicited credit and insurance offers I get?

If you decide that you don’t want to receive prescreened offers of credit and insurance, you have two choices: You can opt out of receiving them for five years or opt out of receiving them permanently. 

To opt out for five years: Call toll-free 1-888-5-OPT-OUT (1-888-567-8688) or visit www.optoutprescreen.com. The phone number and website are operated by the major consumer reporting companies.

To opt out permanently: You may begin the permanent Opt-Out process online at www.optoutprescreen.com. To complete your request, you must return the signed Permanent Opt-Out Election form, which will be provided after you initiate your online request. 

When you call or visit the website, you’ll be asked to provide certain personal information, including your home telephone number, name, Social Security number, and date of birth. The information you provide is confidential and will be used only to process your request to opt out.

The UniFi Protect G3 Instant Camera has been hard to catch in-stock on Ubiquiti’s website lately; however, they seem to be getting a little easier to grab. I managed to get one the other day after checking the Ubiquiti subreddit and finding a 5-hour-old post about their availability. Unfortunately, the stock is still limited at the time of this review to a single camera per customer.

For $29, it’s hard to pass up this camera for any use in a UniFi Protect system.

UniFi Protect G3 Instant Camera Key Features

• Full HD 1080p, 30 FPS video
• Day or night with infrared LEDs
• Dual-band Wi-Fi connectivity
• 133˚ Wide-angle lens
• Built-in microphone and speaker for two-way audio 
• Quick setup via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth from UniFi Protect mobile app 
• Powered by AC adapter (included) or Instant 802.3af PoE to USB adapter (not included) 
• Small, wall-mountable form factor

The other key spec of this camera is that it is designed for indoor use and is not meant to face the elements. There is no weatherproofing for the G3 Instant and your power cable is effectively exposed to the elements – unlike the $80 G3 Flex.

The key differentiator of the G3 Instant is the WiFi connectivity. This is not a POE (power-over-ethernet) camera. There is no way to make a hard-wired data connection to the G3 Instant – only Wi-Fi.

It is powered via a single USB-C port on the bottom of the camera and includes a right-angle adapter that fits snugly into a cable channel so that the G3 Instant can sit on a table-top with no interference from the cable path.

Additionally, it includes a wall-mount plate to attach via screws/anchors or double-sided sticky pads – with both configurations included in the box.

I opted for a simple table-top mount on the piano in our playroom, which includes a view of our front door. (On the outside of my front door, I have a G3 Flex facing the street, which is connected by Cat5e cabling).

The 133-degree viewing angle of the lens is incredibly wide-angled and captures nearly the entire room. While there is some barrel distortion in the resulting image, that’s to be expected from a $29 camera.

Additionally, the audio quality struggles with varying sound levels but it certainly serves its purpose as a security camera. The talkback works surprisingly well from the UniFi Protect App on the iPhone. Note that when you activate talkback, it will block your live monitoring of audio from the camera’s feed. This makes sense to prevent feedback; however, it’s worth pointing out in case you were expecting a seamless intercom system — it’s not that. Think more like walkie-talkie radio communication. (Actually, audio works with two-way, simultaneous communication. I’m not sure what happened in my initial test of this feature but further use proves that you can both talk and listen at the same time. Nice work, Ubiquiti!)

It’s also worth noting that UniFi Protect is required to use the G3 Instant. This camera is designed to work exclusively with UniFi’s closed-ecosystem Protect surveillance system. While Ubiquiti recommends using the G3 Instant with the Dream Machine Pro or UniFi Protect NVR, I have zero issues using it with a Cloud Key Gen 2 Plus.

The $29 price point of the G3 Instant seems too good to be true. Frankly, I think they’d continue to sell droves of them at $49 each.

If you’ve got an indoor use for another camera on your UniFi Protect system, the G3 Instant is hard to beat – particularly for locations that are hard to reach with ethernet cabling. You just need power access with the included AC adapter.

For now, it looks like the G3 Instant is only officially available from Ubiquiti’s website. Shipping and tax ran a little over $7 for a total of $37-ish delivered for me. Once production and availability pick up, I expect the G3 Instant to also show up at B&H Photo and other resellers.

Lawyers handing out legal advice on social media should take note of this bizarre Facebook exchange that landed a lawyer in hot water with the Tennessee Supreme Court.

A Facebook “friend” involved in a tumultuous relationship posted a public inquiry about carrying a gun in her car. In response to her post, the attorney posted comments on the escalating use of force. He then posted that, if the Facebook friend wanted “to kill” her ex-boyfriend, she should “lure” him into her home, “claim” he broke in with intent to do her harm, and “claim” she feared for her life. The attorney emphasized in his post that his advice was given “as a lawyer,” and if she was “remotely serious,” she should “keep mum” and delete the entire comment thread because premeditation could be used against her “at trial.” In the ensuing disciplinary proceedings, a Board of Professional Responsibility hearing panel found that the attorney’s conduct was prejudicial to the administration of justice in violation of Rules of Professional Conduct 8.4(a) and (d). It recommended suspension of his law license for sixty days.

In Re: Winston Bradshaw Sitton, BPR#018440

As customary for disciplinary proceedings against lawyers, the Tennessee Supreme Court reviewed the sixty-day suspension recommendation — and rejected the recommendation. Ultimately, the lawyer in question was handed a much lengthier penalty of a four-year suspension.

The court noted that the fact this happened on Facebook made it all the more dangerous.

The attorney’s advice, in and of itself, was clearly prejudicial to the administration of justice and violated the Rules of Professional Conduct. In addition, his choice to post the remarks on a public platform amplified their deleterious effect. The social media posts fostered a public perception that a lawyer’s role is to manufacture false defenses. They projected a public image of corruption of the judicial process. Under these circumstances, the act of posting the comments on social media should be deemed an aggravating factor that justifies an increase in discipline.

Giving your clients advice on how to get away with murder is a bad idea. Posting that advice to a non-client in a Facebook comment thread is a worse idea.

On a budget, I believe there is no better bang-for-buck Plex server than loading up an old HP Z-series workstation with a solid Xeon CPU and six internal hard drives.

My journey with Plex started on a humble iMac with an external USB 3.0 hard drive back around 2014 or so. That turned into a couple of large external drives that was really too much for the aging iMac to handle as we moved into a 4K library.

After I attempted to convert an old gaming PC into a 24/7 use and the hardware was just failing, I did a proper upgrade. I had previously set up an HP Z420 for a friend and decided to bite the bullet for myself as well.

For Plex, I think one of the best value configurations you can get out of the Z420 is to go with the Xeon 1650 v2 processor and 8GB RAM. You should be able to find such a machine for well under $200 shipped. If you plan on it being a multipurpose machine, then go ahead and add more RAM or consider an 8-core processor. For Plex though, you don’t need more than 8GB RAM and the Xeon 1650 v2 offers a decent Passmark score of 8382. You can find HP Z420 configured with a Xeon 1650 v2 processor here on eBay.

HP Z-series machines are robust, workstation PCs. They are built for heavy loads and are plentiful on eBay at reduced prices coming off corporate leases. With a clean install of Windows 10 or your Linux flavor of choice, you’ll have a Plex server for years to come.

For drive configuration, you’ll need to use the available three drive bays (make sure you have enough drive caddies) and you’ll need to convert a couple of the 5.25″ bays into at least two additional 3.5″ drive bays. (I had something like this laying around on my parts bench.) For the sixth drive, I just used a 2.5″ SanDisk SSD for my OS install. Sure, you could run the OS off of a thumb drive via USB if you wanted to use all six drives as media drives.

*Note, the SATA power availability on the power supply only has a total of six SATA power plugs, so you can’t run the six drives AND an optical drive with the native SATA plugs.

You may need to update the drivers to use all six SATA ports on the HP Z420, depending on your installation.

Here is the driver you need…

This package contains the Intel Rapid Storage Technology Enterprise (RSTe) Drivers and Graphical User Interface (GUI) for serial ATA (SATA) RAID controllers in supported workstation models that are running a supported Microsoft Windows Operating System.

http://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp72001-72500/sp72212.exe

You may have to manually install the driver if the auto install method doesn’t work.

For my build, I ended up with a SanDisk 120GB SSD boot drive and five 4TB WD Red drives (20TB in total) that I already had on hand. My current Plex server is chugging along just fine on Windows 10 and the media drives are configured as basic JBOD. It’s not the most efficient configuration; however, I’d imagine that it’s more than enough for most people dipping their toes into the Plex world and just want a media server that works all the time. For me, it’s a great solution for a 24/7 box that sits in my garage and serves its role as my household’s reliable entertainment server.

The HP Z420 won’t have built-in graphics capability, so you need to factor in an additional graphics card. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just something that will process the graphics for local management of your machine. I just threw in a GTX 1050ti that I wasn’t using for mine but something much older and crappier will get you up and running.

On the distant horizon, I’d like to move to a dedicated storage server for all of my media. I’m eyeing a 12-bay Supermicro server to run FreeNAS. But that’s all in due time.

For now, an old HP Z420 is cranking away, delivering HD and 4K content every day to a variety of playback devices in virtually every room of my home.

In the new age of remote work by default, it’s amazing how much work can actually get done from home when work has to get done from home. With a laptop and an Internet connection, we’ve found a way to collaborate with our staff and connect with our communities. And, finally, I’ve seen staff using email reply-alls less to team communication (to be clear, it’s still there though) and a greater push to focused communication with Microsoft Teams.

It’s a platform that every Office 365 user has previously had the ability to use; however, so few have taken the time to get to know it and the collaboration power that it offers. There are shortcomings for sure but if you already pay for it, there’s so much value that it offers – particularly in today’s world of figuring out how to work from home.

One of the features we’ve had to explore and educate users on – is using Microsoft Teams with some people who are not part of our organization’s Active Directory and Office 365 user group. Fortunately, it’s a pretty simple process since Teams allows guest users as a built-in feature.

To ensure guest access is enabled, go to the Teams Admin Center using the link at the bottom-left of the menu tree in the main Office 365 Admin Center.

Inside the Teams Admin Center, go to Org-wide Settings > Guest access. There, you’ll see a radio button for “Allow guest access in Teams” to toggle. Chances are that this is already enabled by default. If not, toggle it on.

To test access, add a personal Gmail (or any other non-company) account as a “guest” to one of your teams.

The system will email you a link to join. If you don’t have a Microsoft account associated with the email you used for testing, it will prompt you to create an account. Then, accept the Review Permissions prompt and you can login to Teams using the web app.

Team Owners have additional controls within the Team under the “Manage teams” option that allows guests to have permission to create, update, and delete channels.

Additional sources for troubleshooting guest access are here:

• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-US/microsoftteams/guest-access-checklist?WT.mc_id=TeamsAdminCenterCSH
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-US/microsoftteams/guest-access

CIPP/US was the first certification that I obtained from the IAPP. The exam was harder than I thought it would be but I still managed to pass on the first attempt. Below are my thoughts and tips on studying for the exam and how to approach the exam.

The primary textbook from IAPP is essential – U.S. Private-Sector Privacy, second edition. 

The granularity of info you need to know from the various US sectoral privacy laws was shocking to me.

I was 30-ish questions into the exam when I thought “there goes $550 down the drain.” I made it with plenty of room to spare but it was worrisome there for a bit.

So, understand the laws from a high-level perspective and where things like Red Flags Rule come from, which federal laws preempt state laws, time periods for breach notice under various laws, exceptions to consent, safe harbors for particular laws and a variety of specific state laws.

Additionally, the amount of info surrounding more principled privacy actions was surprising. Understand the textbook versions of privacy program development and which things fit into which steps of the process. I was really uncomfortable with the amount of detail asked about FIPs, the APEC Privacy Framework and the 2012 privacy reports from the Obama White House and the FTC. I knew high-level stuff but I was really guessing at the particularity of the info they were seeking. There were even a couple of CCPA questions, which I was surprised to see already.

My worst area of performance was in workplace privacy, which I certainly felt during the exam. Depending on how much employment law you’ve done, that should give you an upper hand if you have some practical experience in this area.

The one good thing about the exam for fellow attorneys is that there are a bunch of softball questions about the branches of government and basic civil procedure topics that any lawyer will consider gimmes.

There’s a great textbook outline from a law student (available here), which is more helpful for a high-level understanding of the various laws but it’s far from a comprehensive outline of the book. I scribbled additional notes on mine to help me out for concepts where I was struggling to recall particulars.

I read the textbook twice in the month before the exam and used it for reference as I took practice tests. Again, it’s essential.

I also used some Quizlet flashcards that people had made available to flip through on my phone when I had a few minutes. I found this set pretty useful but not 100% the way I would’ve made them. (Of course, they were already made, so I can’t complain too much.)

I also dug up summaries of various state laws that were listed in the body of knowledge for the exam. And, that’s another thing. The textbook is not comprehensive. There were some specific COPPA notice requirements questions on the exam that I don’t recall seeing in the book.

I also bought the IAPP sample questions. There are only 30 of them. They give you a decent overview of the “form” of the questions but I felt like they were significantly tougher in the actual exam.

I also bought a full 90-question practice exam from an unofficial source as an Amazon ebook. It’s pretty good and gives you a flavor for what the exam feels like but I felt it was quite a bit easier than the exam. I’d suggest not attempting the practice questions until you feel like you have a solid handle on the material because there are really not many sources to get a feel for the exam.

In the end, a pass is a pass. And obviously, there’s enough info in these materials to pass the exam. I’d just spend more time in the details if I were doing it again. If you have hands-on experience in privacy and tech law, it will be beneficial in your studies.

Feel free to ask questions or offer additional advice in the comments below.

In Crossley et al v. State of California et al (Case no. 3:20-cv-00284), filed on February 14, plaintiffs are a group of ‘data processors’ challenging California AB 5 based on violations of federal and state equal protection clauses.

Echoing the Uber/Postmates complaint, the Crossley complaint argues:

No sophisticated economic analysis is required to see the pretextual nature of California’s proffered explanations for AB 5’s differential treatment. There is no rational distinction between Data Processors and many of the companies granted exemptions under AB 5, nor between other groups (e.g., optometrists) versus non-exempted (e.g., ophthalmologists) groups. The California Legislature’s focus on some businesses, but not others, and its willingness to grant a laundry list of pell-mell company exemptions in order to spare those types of companies the costs and burdens of complying with AB 5, demonstrates irrational animus against non-exempted companies in violation of the latter’s equal protection rights. This type of singling out, in connection with a rationale so weak that it undercuts the principle of non-contradiction, fails to meet even the relatively easy standard of rational basis review.

(Complaint p.21)

AB 5 has already seen a fair share of litigation as companies scramble for answers within their business models and underneath the courts’ interpretation of the new law. So far, companies are losing on the ABC test as courts apply contract labor fact patterns to further scrutiny. Instacart got slapped this week by a San Diego County judge interpreting AB 5.

With the merit-based analysis going so poorly, companies that rely on contract labor can only hope to win on constitutional bases and strike down the law in its current state.

Recently, I purchased an auction lot of a dozen or so Dell PowerEdge R610 and R710 servers from an auction. Part of my initial evaluation of the servers was to update the firmware. I started with the R610 servers.

To do so, I created a bootable thumb drive with the Support Live Image 3.0 using CentOS 7.4 from Dell’s R610 driver page. The filename is SLI_3.0.0_A00.iso.

To create the bootable drive, I used balenaEtcher on my MacBook, but you can also use Rufus if you’re on Windows. You just need to create a bootable drive.

Next, I put the bin file for the BIOS on a thumb drive to load from CentOS. The most recent BIOS for the R610 as of the date of this post is version 6.6.0. The filename is BIOS_0YV9D_LN_6.6.0.BIN.

Once in the CentOS with the boot drive, I opened a terminal window and loaded the BIOS thumb drive with the following command:

$ cd /run/media/sliuser/R610/

My bin file was in the root of the drive, so now I just needed to run it to update the BIOS. I tried to use:

$ sudo ./BIOS_0YV9D_LN_6.6.0.BIN

However, it failed.

I tried a number of commands and finally was able to push the update through by using the following commands:

# sudo bash
# bash ./BIOS_0YV9D_LN_6.6.0.BIN

I would write more but I just dug this post out of my drafts that have been sitting for months. Hopefully, this process so far helps someone get unstuck. If there is traction on the topic or more questions, I’ll dig back in and flesh it our further…