nRF53: BT and MCUboot SINGLE_APPLICATION_SLOT cannot be combined

RE: nRF53: BT and MCUboot SINGLE_APPLICATION_SLOT cannot be combined

Hung Bui — Thu, 16 Mar 2023 10:07:40 GMT

[quote user="who9vy"]So, to use the DFU of the netcore, it would be advisable to have a second partition which is at least the size required for the netcore?[/quote]

Yes correct. If you have further question, please create a new ticket.

RE: nRF53: BT and MCUboot SINGLE_APPLICATION_SLOT cannot be combined

who9vy — Thu, 16 Mar 2023 08:20:15 GMT

Oh yes, that may be a problem.

It should be somehow possible to change that behaviour dependent on a available secondary partition.

In our case, we do not want to update the netcore, just have the hci_rpmsg example flashed and use it.

So, to use the DFU of the netcore, it would be advisable to have a second partition which is at least the size required for the netcore?

RE: nRF53: BT and MCUboot SINGLE_APPLICATION_SLOT cannot be combined

Hung Bui — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 10:12:19 GMT

Hi Jan,

Thanks for your information.

[quote user="who9vy"]The net core image was larger than the secondary partition, but what has the net core to do with the flash of the app core?[/quote]

As far as I know the way we do DFU update for the netcore is that unless you have external flash, we will receive the image of the netcore to the secondary partition of the app core. After that we will copy the image to RAM chunk by chunk then copy the chunk from RAM to the netcore.

RE: nRF53: BT and MCUboot SINGLE_APPLICATION_SLOT cannot be combined

who9vy — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 18:59:36 GMT

Hi,

First of all, we found a solution! (Edit: At least to our problem, netcore is not required to be updatable!)

We faced the exact same problem. And I think that it is a bug in the partition manager in the partition_manager.cmake file.

We had the same problem as we reduced the size of the secondary mcuboot partition (2nd slot). We tried to reduce it to a minimum of 0x4000 and then then we got a size problem. The net core image was larger than the secondary partition, but what has the net core to do with the flash of the app core? Nothing!

The problem is, that the slot-size of the net core is determined by PM_MCUBOOT_SECONDARY_..._SIZE. For the hci_rpmsg there is a pm_CPUNET.config file in the build folder. There, the partition was defined as PM_APP_SIZE.

Here is a patch to fix this.

diff --git a/cmake/partition_manager.cmake b/cmake/partition_manager.cmake
index cb64b739c..01684d3d5 100644
--- a/cmake/partition_manager.cmake
+++ b/cmake/partition_manager.cmake
@@ -555,7 +555,7 @@ to the external flash")
       set_property(
         TARGET partition_manager
         PROPERTY net_app_slot_size
-        ${PM_MCUBOOT_SECONDARY${sec_slot_idx}_SIZE}
+        ${PM_APP_SIZE} 
         )
     endif()

This is the fix for version 1.8.0. Our project is currently on this state but I think a similar patch can be applied to newer versions of NCS.

Best regards

Jan

RE: nRF53: BT and MCUboot SINGLE_APPLICATION_SLOT cannot be combined

Victor Lee — Fri, 16 Dec 2022 03:36:00 GMT

Hi wangrj,

do you know how to use mcuboot and single slot upgrade appcore?

recently, I need solve this problem, could you give me some notice?

RE: nRF53: BT and MCUboot SINGLE_APPLICATION_SLOT cannot be combined

wangrj — Mon, 18 Jul 2022 02:52:43 GMT

hi maximevince

did you solved this problem by use CONFIG_SINGLE_APPLICATION_SLOT=y rather than modify pm_static

i understand your mean, you want to use mcuboot and single slot upgrade appcore and also want to use netcore to run some bluetooth code , right?

what you ncs SDK version ?

RE: nRF53: BT and MCUboot SINGLE_APPLICATION_SLOT cannot be combined

maximevince — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 15:16:22 GMT

Thanks, I'll try the pm_static way.

My board doesn't have external flash, so that's not an option.

RE: nRF53: BT and MCUboot SINGLE_APPLICATION_SLOT cannot be combined

Hung Bui — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 14:55:32 GMT

It's possible to change the partitions layout. You can simply edit the auto generated partitions.yml to make mcuboot_primary bigger and mcuboot_secondary smaller. After that you save the file as pm_static.yml and place it in the root folder where the prj.conf is.

But in your case I would suggest to use external flash as secondary slot. This way you can still do BLE DFU. I have made an example for that here.

RE: nRF53: BT and MCUboot SINGLE_APPLICATION_SLOT cannot be combined

maximevince — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 14:45:29 GMT

So, is there a way to achieve this, without specifying CONFIG_SINGLE_APPLICATION_SLOT ?

AFAIK, once I enable CONFIG_BOOTLOADER_MCUBOOT, the Nordic Partition Manager will configure dual slots, right?

RE: nRF53: BT and MCUboot SINGLE_APPLICATION_SLOT cannot be combined

maximevince — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 14:44:00 GMT

Okay,

I actually want to have CONFIG_SINGLE_APPLICATION_SLOT, so that I have the bigger single partition, for maximum application size, because my application is really big. (I'd like to use the roughly twice bigger slot size, versus what a dual-slot setup would give me)

* I understand and accept that I cannot do BLE FOTA anymore. But I still want to be able to use normal BLE operations in my application (thus the CONFIG_BT=y).

* I want to do DFU only through MCUboot, using USB-DFU/serial recovery (never through the application!)

RE: nRF53: BT and MCUboot SINGLE_APPLICATION_SLOT cannot be combined

Hung Bui — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 14:39:52 GMT

Hi Maxime,

I still don't really get you, why you need to add CONFIG_SINGLE_APPLICATION_SLOT ?

Even though it's available in MCUBoot it's not supported in our current nRF Connect SDK.

You don't need to add CONFIG_SINGLE_APPLICATION_SLOT, if you are planning to do recovery mode (which is single bank DFU).

RE: nRF53: BT and MCUboot SINGLE_APPLICATION_SLOT cannot be combined

maximevince — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 14:36:29 GMT

Hi Hung Bui,

Thanks for the reply. Yes I tested this, can you please re-read my original post?

Have you tried? Here is exactly how to reproduce the issue:

* Configure any main application (e.g. hello_world) and set CONFIG_BOOTLOADER_MCUBOOT=y and CONFIG_BT=y

* Configure the mcuboot bootloader (through child_image/mcuboot.conf) with: CONFIG_SINGLE_APPLICATION_SLOT=y (+ any other options you want, like CONFIG_BOOT_SERIAL_UART=y or CONFIG_BOOT_SERIAL_DETECT_PIN etc...)

Compile using:

west build --board=nrf5340dk_nrf5340_cpuappns -p always

Can I ask you please to run these commands on the the latest nRF SDK, and you will run into the issue I first reported. (i.e. hci_rpmsg build fails)

I do not *expect* an issue, but there still is one...

RE: nRF53: BT and MCUboot SINGLE_APPLICATION_SLOT cannot be combined

Hung Bui — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 13:49:21 GMT

Hi Maxime,
Could you please explain why "this is not supported on nRF53" ?

I don't see any reason this wouldn't work on nRF53.

Have you added:

CONFIG_MCUBOOT_SERIAL=y
CONFIG_BOOT_SERIAL_UART=y
CONFIG_UART_CONSOLE=n

Into MCUBoot configuration ? (and the configuration inside child_image\mcuboot.conf )

Single slot is used automatically when doing recovery mode, you don't need to add SINGLE_APPLICATION_SLOT into the application.

RE: nRF53: BT and MCUboot SINGLE_APPLICATION_SLOT cannot be combined

maximevince — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 13:28:11 GMT

Thanks, I know how MCUboot works.

I *want* to use the serial recovery mode (actually USB DFU, completely embedded inside of MCUboot),
NOT the firmware upgrade using the application.

In my example there is NO firmware upgrade related code in the application! (No mcumgr, no dual slots needed)

> This feature will do DFU update with single bank mode

This is exactly what I want, and the issue I am trying to raise here, is that this is not supported on nRF53, whenever your main application is using BLE.

Just try to compile your own example for nRF53.

Please re-read my original post, and try to understand what I am reporting here.

RE: nRF53: BT and MCUboot SINGLE_APPLICATION_SLOT cannot be combined

Hung Bui — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 10:21:11 GMT

Hi Maxime,

It's regardless if you are planning to do FOTA or Serial DFU, as long as it's the application handle the DFU process, then it has to be dual bank update.

The bootloader in NCS SDK is a little bit different from the bootloader in nRF5 SDK. That the receiving of new image is done via the application, not via the bootloader (MCUBoot). The MCUBoot main job is only to verify, test and swap images.

However, there is a "recovery" mode in MCUBoot that you can add the code of receiving new image into MCUBoot. This feature will do DFU update with single bank mode. This mean the original application will be replaced directly with the new image received by the MCUBoot. Please have a look at the serial_recovery.conf in \bootloader\mcuboot\boot\zephyr.

To enter recovery mode a button need to be pressed when booting up, you need to define CONFIG_BOOT_SERIAL_DETECT_PIN . I would suggest to have a look at nrf52840dongle_nrf52840.conf file . We have recovery mode supported with the dongle.

RE: nRF53: BT and MCUboot SINGLE_APPLICATION_SLOT cannot be combined

maximevince — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 09:04:10 GMT

Hi Hung Bui,

Thanks for the reply, however that ticket is not really relevant.
I am not looking for Bluetooth FOTA using MCUboot, I get that it's not possible to do FOTA from the application, without a second slot to store the new application.

My use case is a SINGLE_SLOT, with MCUboot allowing to upgrade the application in that single slot, e.g. using USB-DFU or serial recovery.

The application itself should still be able to use Bluetooth, right? It has nothing to do with the bootloader being used...

As a counter-example, please consider the following:

* Configure any main application (e.g. hello_world) and set CONFIG_BOOTLOADER_MCUBOOT=y (but CONFIG_BT=n)

* Configure the mcuboot bootloader (through child_image/mcuboot.conf) with: CONFIG_SINGLE_APPLICATION_SLOT=y and CONFIG_BOOT_USB_DFU_WAIT=y and CONFIG_PM_PARTITION_SIZE_MCUBOOT=0x10000)

This will compile and work fine! You can now upgrade the single slot application over USB-DFU.

This is exactly what I want, but it fails to compile as soon as I add `CONFIG_BT=y` to the main application; which should be unrelated!

RE: nRF53: BT and MCUboot SINGLE_APPLICATION_SLOT cannot be combined

Hung Bui — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 13:32:49 GMT

Hi Maxime,

It's not supported. Please have a look at this case: https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/74661/is-there-any-feasibility-for-use-bluetooth-dfu-with-single_application_slot