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Stackoverflow community. I am trying to design an OTA update system and would like to use swupdate for raspberry pi to update. I have found very limited to none information regarding on how to implement that. It would be great if anybody can let me know how it is done. Thank you

Prudhvi Reddy Vemireddy
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1 Answers1

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Here's a good example of OTA using SWUpdate on raspberry pi. https://mkrak.org/2018/01/26/updating-embedded-linux-devices-part2/

I had to make a few changes to use the latest zeus release. Below is step by step commands on ubuntu 18.04. (This alway worked with master branch as of Mar-22-2020)

Install all required dependencies. (installation script below from https://medium.com/@shantanoodesai/run-docker-on-a-raspberry-pi-4-with-yocto-project-551d6b615c0b)

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install \
     gawk wget git-core diffstat unzip texinfo gcc-multilib \
     build-essential chrpath socat cpio \
     python python3 python3-pip python3-pexpect \
     xz-utils debianutils iputils-ping \
     python3-git python3-jinja2 libegl1-mesa libsdl1.2-dev

Clone all meta-layers

mkdir yocto && cd yocto
mkdir layers && cd layers
git clone git://git.yoctoproject.org/poky -b zeus
git clone git://github.com/openembedded/meta-openembedded.git -b zeus
git clone https://github.com/agherzan/meta-raspberrypi.git -b zeus
git clone https://github.com/sbabic/meta-swupdate -b zeus

git clone https://github.com/sbabic/meta-swupdate-boards.git -b master

cd ..
. layers/poky/oe-init-build-env build

Add layers. If this fails modify build/conf/bblayers.conf manually to include all the layers specified below

bitbake-layers add-layer ../layers/meta-openembedded/meta-oe
bitbake-layers add-layer ../layers/meta-openembedded/meta-python
bitbake-layers add-layer ../layers/meta-openembedded/meta-networking
bitbake-layers add-layer ../layers/meta-openembedded/meta-multimedia
bitbake-layers add-layer ../layers/meta-raspberrypi
bitbake-layers add-layer ../layers/meta-swupdate
bitbake-layers add-layer ../layers/meta-swupdate-boards

Add the following to build/conf/local.conf (Raspberry pi doesn't use uboot bootloader by default. swupdate requires ext4.gz image.)

RPI_USE_U_BOOT = "1"
IMAGE_FSTYPES = "rpi-sdimg ext4.gz"
PREFERRED_PROVIDER_u-boot-fw-utils = "libubootenv"

Now finally bake it. meta-swupdate-boards contains example for a few hardware. I was able to copy raspberrypi3 board implementation to support raspberrypi2 easily.

MACHINE=raspberrypi3 bitbake update-image

This should create core-image-full-cmdline-raspberrypi3.rpi-sdimg and update-image-raspberrypi3.swu files under build/tmp/deploy/image/raspberrypi3/.

Lets burn core-image-full-cmdline-raspberrypi3.rpi-sdimg image to sd card and use update-image-raspberrypi3.swu to update it.

Update to your flash using UI tool like Balena Etcher or via command line. Please note the target file system /dev/disk2 may be different.

sudo dd if=core-image-full-cmdline-raspberrypi3.rpi-sdimg of=/dev/disk2 bs=1m

Once the pi starts up, goto pi_ipaddress:8080. Drag and drop update-image-raspberrypi3.swu to update the firmware.

Danish Shrestha
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  • Thank you so much. I will try to follow your steps and let you know the result – Prudhvi Reddy Vemireddy Mar 24 '20 at 20:53
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    Did it worked ok? I've followed the steps, flashed the .rpi-sdimg but the Raspberry keeps complaining about "wrong image format for bootm command" – Matteo Iervasi Aug 28 '20 at 16:38
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    This answer is extremely useful, however I suggest that IMAGE_FSTYPES to wic instead of rpi-sdimg... check https://groups.google.com/g/swupdate/c/R87EdIsOujU/m/kNv0q7GoCAAJ – Bernardo Rodrigues Apr 03 '21 at 21:11
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    there's actually a few extra issues, Stefano explains them in detail in that mail thread... I guess the safest path is to use the terminal-server and use the build vars he suggests – Bernardo Rodrigues Apr 03 '21 at 21:26
  • also the actual image to be built is terminal-server-image – Bernardo Rodrigues Apr 04 '21 at 00:25
  • Does your setup use /boot/cmdline.txt ? Im trying to figure out how to get swupdate to update that file. – uglyoldbob Aug 31 '21 at 16:11
  • I think one issue is that `core-image-full-cmdline-raspberrypi3.{wic,rpi-sdimg}` is the image upon which `update-image` is based (for generating the `.swu` file), but this image does not contain any SWUpdate functionality since it's a Poky recipes-extended image. So after flashing it to an SD card, it doesn't actually contain anything SWUpdate-related. I'm still trying to work out how to create an initial .wic image that can be flashed _and_ contains SWUpdate. – davidA Jul 05 '22 at 22:02
  • Also, looks like the "terminal-server" branch in the referenced "Homeassistant" repo has been deleted. Anyone know which remaining branch is closest to what it was? – davidA Jul 05 '22 at 22:04
  • Responding to myself earlier: I suppose the answer is to append `swupdate` and friends to `CORE_IMAGE_EXTRA_INSTALL`, but none of these instructions, nor the ones linked, mention that step. – davidA Jul 05 '22 at 22:20