nRF52832 Buttonless Secure DFU with bonds

[GCL-SOENCO]

Hey Everyone, 

    Looking for some direction, I'm trying to create a secured DFU bond between my nRF52832 and the nRF Connect Mobile app following the instructions from the links below,

https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/index.jsp?topic=%2Fsdk_nrf5_v17.0.2%2Fservice_dfu.html

https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/index.jsp?topic=%2Fsdk_nrf5_v17.0.2%2Fble_sdk_app_buttonless_dfu.html

https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/index.jsp?topic=%2Fsdk_nrf5_v17.0.2%2Fble_sdk_app_dfu_bootloader.html

I've programmed "sd_s132_bootloader_buttonless_with_setting_page_dfu_secure_ble_debug_with_bonds" HEX file to the device and am working towards creating the bond with the phone per below.

Bond to the device using nRF Connect (it is advertising as 'Nordic_Buttonless'). Click the settings button, select "Security Settings", check "Perform bonding", and click "Apply".

but am having issues finding the "security setting" or "perform bonding" button in this version of the nRF Connect app. Any help with navigating the app is MUCH appreciated, once I learn how to make the connection, I can try and troubleshoot from there. 

 

    

Please let me know if I'm leaving anything out, I've done a lot of steps up to this point.

Thank you, Gerald

[GCL-SOENCO]

Last question I promise.

I downloaded the Android app and have been successfully about to make a bond with the example project programming " sd_s132_bootloader_buttonless_with_setting_page_dfu_secure_ble_debug_with_bonds" to the board and downloading the zip file. 

I trying to figure out how to create my own DFU_buttonless bootloader by changing the config.h files and compiling both the debug bootloader and the ble_app_buttonless_dfu armgcc folder. I tried creating the bootloader settings.hex file by input my "project file in the command like so, but wondering if I needed to put the bootloader .hex file name into the command rather than my own.

taking the softdevice file, the bootloader file and the newly created settings file and dragging them into the programmer to write but I'm unable to get any type of DFU buttonless targ to display on the Connect app

nrfutil settings generate --family NRF52 --application BoardTimer.hex --application-version 1 --bootloader-version 1 --bl-settings-version 2 BLsettings.hex"

[Einar Thorsrud]

Hi,

GCL-SOENCO said:

I trying to figure out how to create my own DFU_buttonless bootloader by changing the config.h files and compiling both the debug bootloader and the ble_app_buttonless_dfu armgcc folder.

I am not able to understand exactly what you have done and how things are not working. Perhaps you can elaborate in more detail on what you have done and in what way it does not work? Note that the example bootloader projects are normally suitable to be used as is, though often with minor configuration changes.

When it comes to buttonless support in the application (which is the functionality of entering DFU mode via the application) adding that can be a bit more work, but you should refer to the buttonless DFU template application example. You can test the other bootloader functionality without this though (by simply programming only the Bootloader and SoftDevice). Then you should be able to upload an application via DFU, showing that you got most of the bootloader functionality working.

GCL-SOENCO said:

I tried creating the bootloader settings.hex file by input my "project file in the command like so, but wondering if I needed to put the bootloader .hex file name into the command rather than my own.

No, you do not need the bootloader hex file to generate the bootloader settings. What you need to provide, is the exact application hex that is running, as a checksum will be generated. You can also test the bootloader as explained earlier  in this post without bootloader settings just as without the application. The point with generating and flashing bootloader settings is that this metadata contains things like a flag indicating that a valid application is present, a hash or checksum of the application and application version (and some other data not relevant here). In order to get the bootloader to start the application the bootlaoder settings needs to be correct, and that can happen either by installing the application via DFU (as then the metadata is proivded to the bootloader as part of the upgrade procedure), or by flashing the bootloader settings page directly. So when doing production programming, or just flashing something you built for testing, you need to also generate and program a valid bootloader settings page that match the current application.

GCL-SOENCO said:

taking the softdevice file, the bootloader file and the newly created settings file and dragging them into the programmer to write but I'm unable to get any type of DFU buttonless targ to display on the Connect app

The nrfutil command you use to generate the bootloader settings looks correct to me, so if BoardTimer.hex is the exact application hex that you are using (and does not include the SoftDevice or anything else), then this should be good. As you are testing with the debug bootloader you should look at the RTT log to see why it does not start the application. You can upload the log here if you need help to interpret it.