Implement bootloader in NCS SDK

Question

Hello, 
 Until now I was working on an application based on the nRF5 SDK: it is this application that is used by my customers. Now I would like to use the NCS SDK to continue to have the latest features and bug fixes. 
 Here I almost finished redeveloping my new application (based on NCS SDK) to work like my old one (based on nRF5 SDK) but I have a problem with the bootloader... 
 My board (contains an nrf 52840) has no buttons and no external memory (so I will have to overwrite existing code when I do an update) but does have a UART. I need to be able to update the application but also the bootloader. 
 Here are my questions: 
 
 I think I have to go into recovery mode to be able to update in this situation? But how can I do it if I don't have a button? 
 The update files will be sent by another microcontroller on the board via the uart: can you tell me more about what I need so that the other microcontroller can communicate with the nrf 52840 to send the files to the bootloader? (files ? protocol ?) 
 Is it possible to update a device that would work with the nRF5 SDK (secure_bootloader_uart_mbr_pca10056) to keep the old bootloader but updating the softdevice+app with the new application (NCS SDK)? 
 
 THANKS

AHaug · Accepted Answer

Hi, 
 Apologies for the long wait. It has been a period with unusual long period with unexpected amount of sickleave and extra load due to that. 
 I spent yesterday afternoon creating a sample for you that showcases serial recovery + nsib in the same app. I hope the detailed steps and provided sample (at the bottom/attachments) is enough to get you to your goal 
 Requirements: 
 
 nRF Connect SDK v2.5.0 
 nRF52840DK 
 
 The application features 
 
 Serial recovery over UART 
 NSIB & updatable bootloader 
 A static_pm.yml where mcuboot primary and secondary has been defined with different non-equal sizes. The sizes has been chosen arbitrarily w.r.t ratios, and is only meant as a sample to showcase that this works with different sized partitions. You can customize them as you see fit given that you do it according to the static partitioning documentation. 
 
 What you can do with this app 
 
 Enter serial recovery mode to directly upload the new application firmware to mcuboot primary application slot and overwrite the existing firmware. 
 
 This means that you can modify the pm_static.yml to create an primary application slot that uses almost all of the available internal flash as long as there still is a secondary mcuboot partition that can fit the new Mcuboot update image for s0/s1

Update the bootloader by uploading the new firmware image to the smaller mcuboot secondary partition, confirm and reset 
 
 You can update the bootloader, the application or both in any order you need as long as the pm_static.yml has not been changed in between the revisions you're going to update. 
 If you wish to make modifications instead of using the prebuilt firmware in build_v1 and build_v2 do the following: 
 
 Build and flash the project 
 Increment the firmware version in child_image/mcuboot.conf 
 Make changes to the application if your new firmware needs application changes 
 And/or make change to $NRF_CONNECT_SDK/bootloader/mcuboot/boot/zephyr/main.c, for instance add a log 
 Build, do not flash 
 Follow the steps below to perform the updates 
 
 Below I will give you the steps to recreate this using the prebuilt firmware. 
 Updating the application: 
 I've predefined my conn as acm0 following the steps in docs.zephyrproject.org/.../mcumgr.html 
 
 Erase everything using
 
 nrfjprog -e

Flash the firmware through cmd from the project folder
 
 west flash -d build_v1 --skip-rebuild --recover

Connect to a serial terminal and observe that you boot from slot 0 and that the print output is what you've added to your application 
 Disconnect from the serial terminal 
 Hold DK BTN 1 and press the reset button to enter serial recovery mode 
 Observe that LED1 is lighting 
 In cmd list your images so you see what's present before the upload
 
 mcumgr -c acm0 image list

Upload the new firmware
 
 mcumgr -c acm0 image upload build_v2/zephyr/app_update.bin -e -n0

List once more and observe that the new image is in image=0 slot =0 with flags "active confirmed", i.e it has overwritten the previous firmware which in my case ends with ...a55722 and instead uses _v2 which ends with ...a6238 
 
 mcumgr -c acm0 image list

Connect to a serial terminal 
 Reset the board
 
 nrfjprog --reset

Observe that the DK boots with the "updated version" print 
 
 Output after updating the application 
 *** Booting nRF Connect SDK v2.5.0 ***
Attempting to boot slot 0.

Attempting to boot from address 0x9200.

Verifying signature against key 0.

Hash: 0x8f...3b

Firmware signature verified.

Firmware version 1

Booting (0x9200).
*** Booting nRF Connect SDK v2.5.0 ***
APP This is the first version with serial recovery & different mcuboot partitions app print
*** Booting nRF Connect SDK v2.5.0 ***
Attempting to boot slot 0.

Attempting to boot from address 0x9200.

Verifying signature against key 0.

Hash: 0x8f...3b

Firmware signature verified.

Firmware version 1

Booting (0x9200).

*** Booting nRF Connect SDK v2.5.0 ***
Attempting to boot slot 0.

Attempting to boot from address 0x9200.

Verifying signature against key 0.

Hash: 0x8f...3b

Firmware signature verified.

Firmware version 1

Booting (0x9200).

*** Booting nRF Connect SDK v2.5.0 ***
APP This is the updated version with serial recovery & different mcuboot partitions app print 
 MCUmgr input 
 
C:\Nordic\SDKs
cs\my_projects\samples_for_NCS\DFU\serial_recover_nsib>mcumgr -c acm0 image list
Images:
 image=0 slot=0
 version: 1.2.34
 bootable: true
 flags: active confirmed
 hash: d36b9f8cbe980ff4deb866f705c7739b4c18ce3de1d32f02aef6660522a55722
 image=1 slot=0
 version: 1.2.34
 bootable: true
 flags: active confirmed
 hash: d8148464f8c8a4c9951abd6fe518f5dffb26dc685c1e88c5d342352fe1b9dc8f
Split status: N/A (0)

C:\Nordic\SDKs
cs\my_projects\samples_for_NCS\DFU\serial_recover_nsib>mcumgr -c acm0 image upload build_v2/zephyr/app_update.bin -e -n0
 43.06 KiB / 43.06 KiB [=================================================================================================================================================================] 100.00% 2.43 KiB/s 17s
Done

C:\Nordic\SDKs
cs\my_projects\samples_for_NCS\DFU\serial_recover_nsib>mcumgr -c acm0 image list
Images:
 image=0 slot=0
 version: 1.2.34
 bootable: true
 flags: active confirmed
 hash: bc74e3d37c4889deb9370cf471102fb374fd89b9b014a722692ab1773fea6238
 image=1 slot=0
 version: 1.2.34
 bootable: true
 flags: active confirmed
 hash: d8148464f8c8a4c9951abd6fe518f5dffb26dc685c1e88c5d342352fe1b9dc8f
Split status: N/A (0)

C:\Nordic\SDKs
cs\my_projects\samples_for_NCS\DFU\serial_recover_nsib>nrfjprog --reset
Applying system reset.
Run.

C:\Nordic\SDKs
cs\my_projects\samples_for_NCS\DFU\serial_recover_nsib>
 
 Updating the bootloader 
 If you're starting here, then you need to do the first step of adding the conn to acm0. The output here are after I've updated the application in the previous steps 
 
 Disconnect from the serial output 
 Check the images
 
 mcumgr -c acm0 image list

Upload the new bootloader image from build_v2. Since we're in _v1 are using s0 for our bootloader, we need to upload the s1-image.
 
 mcumgr -c acm0 image upload build_v2/zephyr/signed_by_mcuboot_and_b0_s1_image_update.bin -e -n2

List the images. Observe that the new bootloader image is in the slot corresponding to mcuboot_secondary application
 
 mcumgr -c acm0 image list

Confirm the new bootloader and observe that the bin in image 0 slot 1 is now flagged "pending permanent" and is ready for update
 
 mcumgr -c acm0 image confirm

Connect to a serial terminal 
 Restart the device and wait a while until the update has gone through
 
 nrfjprog --reset

Reset the device once more and observe that it now boots from s1 
 
 Output after updating the bootloader: 
 *** Booting nRF Connect SDK v2.5.0 ***
Attempting to boot slot 0.

Attempting to boot from address 0x9200.

Verifying signature against key 0.

Hash: 0x8f...3b

Firmware signature verified.

Firmware version 1

Booting (0x9200).

*** Booting nRF Connect SDK v2.5.0 ***
APP This is the updated version with serial recovery & different mcuboot partitions app print
*** Booting nRF Connect SDK v2.5.0 ***
Attempting to boot slot 1.

Attempting to boot from address 0x16200.

Verifying signature against key 0.

Hash: 0x8f...3b

Firmware signature verified.

Firmware version 2

Setting monotonic counter (version: 2, slot: 1)

Booting (0x16200).

*** Booting nRF Connect SDK v2.5.0 ***
APP This is the updated version with serial recovery & different mcuboot partitions app print

 
 Input in cmd: 
 C:\Nordic\SDKs
cs\my_projects\samples_for_NCS\DFU\serial_recover_nsib>mcumgr -c acm0 image list
Images:
 image=0 slot=0
 version: 1.2.3.4
 bootable: true
 flags: active confirmed
 hash: bc74e3d37c4889deb9370cf471102fb374fd89b9b014a722692ab1773fea6238
Split status: N/A (0)

C:\Nordic\SDKs
cs\my_projects\samples_for_NCS\DFU\serial_recover_nsib>mcumgr -c acm0 image upload build_v2/zephyr/signed_by_mcuboot_and_b0_s1_image_update.bin -e -n2
 41.44 KiB / 41.44 KiB [================================================================================================================================================================] 100.00% 2.56 KiB/s 16s
Done

C:\Nordic\SDKs
cs\my_projects\samples_for_NCS\DFU\serial_recover_nsib>mcumgr -c acm0 image list
Images:
 image=0 slot=0
 version: 1.2.3.4
 bootable: true
 flags: active confirmed
 hash: bc74e3d37c4889deb9370cf471102fb374fd89b9b014a722692ab1773fea6238
 image=0 slot=1
 version: 1.2.3.4
 bootable: true
 flags:
 hash: 6f79a50c6399a65cca5d86b6eb1b5009340bbd252b6f770b449ef63b22e3a241
Split status: N/A (0)

C:\Nordic\SDKs
cs\my_projects\samples_for_NCS\DFU\serial_recover_nsib>mcumgr -c acm0 image confirm 6f79a50c6399a65cca5d86b6eb1b5009340bbd252b6f770b449ef63b22e3a241
Images:
 image=0 slot=0
 version: 1.2.3.4
 bootable: true
 flags: active confirmed
 hash: bc74e3d37c4889deb9370cf471102fb374fd89b9b014a722692ab1773fea6238
 image=0 slot=1
 version: 1.2.3.4
 bootable: true
 flags: pending permanent
 hash: 6f79a50c6399a65cca5d86b6eb1b5009340bbd252b6f770b449ef63b22e3a241
Split status: N/A (0)

C:\Nordic\SDKs
cs\my_projects\samples_for_NCS\DFU\serial_recover_nsib>nrfjprog --reset
Applying system reset.
Run. 
 0652.serial_recover_uart_nsib.zip 
 
 Kind regards, Andreas

Implement bootloader in NCS SDK

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