How to use the nRFconnect Programmer for the secure DFU process with signed zip packages?

[ShiShiun]

Hi,

We are developing the USB DFU process on the nRF52840 SoC with the Secure DFU Bootloader.

For the ease of upgrading operation at the customer side,
we choose the nRFconnect Programmer as a GUI with a cross-platform framework for the upgrading process.

However, the nRFconnect Programmer does not support the signed zip packages generated from the nRFutil tool.

And the pure HEX file is also not supported for the lack of a signed init packet.

We have implemented the DFU Trigger and the Secure Bootloader on the firmware,
and have verified that the DFU Trigger function is supported on the nRFconnect Programmer.

Are there plans for the integration of the nRFconnect Programmer and the signed zip packages?
Or do you have recommendations for the upgrading process with a cross-platform capability?

Many thanks!

[Simonr]

Hi

The nRFConnect Programmer app is not able to handle .zip files, only .hex files I'm afraid. I don't have any details on whether there are plans to add support for .zip packages in the nRFConnect Programmer app. For any details on our roadmap and future features for the app, please contact our sales department by filling out our Sales related questions form here.

Best regards,

Simon

[ShiShiun]

Thanks for the quick response!

So if we want an upgrade tool for the Secure DFU Bootloader with a cross-platform capability,
the command-line tool nRFutil is a better solution.
Is my understanding correct?

Besides, we have tested the nRFutil and find that a problem similar to the following reported issue also occurs.
Now we build the nRFutil from the Github source code and it works fine.
Maybe there is some problem with the pip released version.

https://github.com/NordicSemiconductor/pc-nrfutil/issues/351

[Simonr]

Yes, that's correct. nRFutil should be better for doing DFU from a computer. I have pinged our development team to take a look at this appcrash issue. Unfortunately I don't have any details as of yet, but I'll update you when I know. 

Glad you got nRFutil working from the source code. How did you build nRFutil when running into this issue if the Github source code solved it for you?

Best regards,

Simon

[ShiShiun]

I followed the guide in the official document :
https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/topic/ug_nrfutil/UG/nrfutil/nrfutil_install_from_source.html

The building environment is Windows 21H1 with Python 3.8.5

It seems that the building script in the nRFutil repository would use the .dll files under the libusb folder, so the problem related to the libusb version will not happen.

[Simonr]

Thank you, our devs have been notified and will look into it for the next release of nrfutil.

Best regards,

Simon