wolfSSL Secure Bootloader (Home page)

wolfBoot is a portable, OS-agnostic, secure bootloader solution for 32-bit microcontrollers, relying on wolfCrypt for firmware authentication, providing firmware update mechanisms.

Due to the minimalist design of the bootloader and the tiny HAL API, wolfBoot is completely independent from any OS or bare-metal application, and can be easily ported and integrated in existing embedded software projects to provide a secure firmware update mechanism.

• Multi-slot partitioning of the flash device
• Integrity verification of the firmware image(s)
• Authenticity verification of the firmware image(s) using wolfCrypt's Digital Signature Algorithms (DSA)
• Minimalist hardware abstraction layer (HAL) interface to facilitate portability across different vendors/MCUs
• Copy/swap images from secondary slots into the primary slots to consent firmware update operations
• In-place chain-loading of the firmware image in the primary slot

This repository contains the following components:

• the wolfBoot bootloader
• key generator and image signing tools (requires python 3.x and wolfcrypt-py https://github.com/wolfSSL/wolfcrypt-py)
• Baremetal test applications

wolfBoot is a memory-safe standalone bare-metal application, designed to run on a generic microcontroller, with no dynamic memory allocation mechanism or linkage to any standard C library besides wolfCrypt.

The bootloader consists of the following components:

• wolfCrypt, which is used to verify the signature of the images
• A minimalist Hardware Abstraction Layer, with an implementation provided for the supported target, which is in charge for IAP flash access and clock setting on the specific MCU
• The core bootloader
• A small application library used by the application to interact with the bootloader src/libwolfboot.c

Only ARM Cortex-M boot mechanism is supported at this stage. Support for more architectures and microcontrollers will be added later. Relocating the interrupt vector can be disabled if needed.

• See docs/Targets.md for reference implementation examples.
• Provide a HAL implementation for the target platform (see Hardware Abstraction Layer)
• Decide a flash partition strategy and modify include/target.h accordingly (see Flash partitions)
• Change the entry point of the firmware image to account for bootloader presence
• Equip the application with the wolfBoot library to interact with the bootloader
• Configure and compile a bootable image with a single "make" command
• For help signing firmware see wolfBoot Signing

Additional examples available on our GitHub wolfBoot-examples repository here.

The following steps are automated in the default Makefile target, using the baremetal test application as an example to create the factory image. By running make, the build system will:

• Create a Ed25519 Key-pair using the ed25519_keygen tool
• Compile the bootloader. The public key generated in the step above is included in the build
• Compile the firmware image from the test application in test_app
• Re-link the firmware to change the entry-point to the start address of the primary partition
• Sign the firmware image using the ed25519_sign tool
• Create a factory image by concatenating the bootloader and the firmware image

The factory image can be flashed to the target device. It contains the bootloader and the signed initial firmware at the specified address on the flash.

The sign.py tool transforms a bootable firmware image to comply with the firmware image format required by the bootloader.

For detailed information about the firmware image format, see Firmware image

For detailed information about the configuration options for the target system, see Compiling wolfBoot

• Compile the new firmware image, and link it so that its entry point is at the start address of the primary partition
• Sign the firmware using the sign.py tool and the private key generated for the factory image
• Transfer the image using a secure connection, and store it to the secondary firmware slot
• Trigger the image swap using libwolfboot wolfBoot_update() function. See wolfBoot library API for a description of the operation
• Reboot to let the bootloader begin the image swap
• Confirm the success of the update using libwolfboot wolfBoot_success() function. See wolfBoot library API for a description of the operation

For more detailed information about firmware update implementation, see Firmware Update

1. Python errors when signing a key:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "tools/keytools/keygen.py", line 135, in <module>
    rsa = ciphers.RsaPrivate.make_key(2048)
AttributeError: type object 'RsaPrivate' has no attribute 'make_key'

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "tools/keytools/sign.py", line 189, in <module>
    r, s = ecc.sign_raw(digest)
AttributeError: 'EccPrivate' object has no attribute 'sign_raw'

You need to install the latest wolfcrypt-py here: https://github.com/wolfSSL/wolfcrypt-py

Use pip3 install wolfcrypt.

Or to install based on a local wolfSSL installation use:

cd wolfssl
./configure --enable-keygen --enable-rsa --enable-ecc --enable-ed25519 --enable-des3 CFLAGS="-DFP_MAX_BITS=8192 -DWOLFSSL_PUBLIC_MP"
make
sudo make install

cd wolfcrypt-py
USE_LOCAL_WOLFSSL=/usr/local pip3 install .

• Initial release with fail-safe update, HAL support for STM32 and nRF52

• Added support for ECC-256 DSA
• Added support for external (e.g. SPI) flash for Update/swap
• Anti-rollback protection via version number
• Hardware support
  • Added compile options for Cortex-M0
  • new HAL: Atmel SamR21
  • new HAL: TI cc26x2
  • new HAL: NXP/Freescale Kinetis SDK
• Improved sign/update tools compatibility (windows)

• Added support for multiple architectures
• key generation and signing tools rewritten in python for portability
• Added compile-time option to move flash-writing functions to RAM
• Introduced the possibility for the bootloader to update itself
• Fixed compile issues on macOS and WSL
• Hardware support
  • Added RV32 RISC-V architecture
  • Added hardware-assisted dual-bank support on STM32F76x/77x
  • new HAL: RV32 FE310 (SiFive HiFive-1)
  • new HAL: STM32L0
  • new HAL: STM32G0
  • new HAL: STM32F7

• New configuration mechanism based on make config, helps creating and storing target-specific configurations
  • Configuration examples provided for a number of existing platforms
• fix bug in self-update mechanism when SPI flash is in use
• Introduced support for hardware-assisted signature verification, using public-key hardware accelerators
  • Added support for STM32 PKA (e.g. STM32WB55)
  • Added support for Kinetis/Freescale PKHA (e.g. Kinetis K82F)

• TPM2.0 support
  • Integration with wolfTPM
  • Extended STM32 SPI driver to support dual TPM/FLASH communication
  • Tested on STM32 with Infineon 9670
• RSA 2048 bit digital signature verification
• Hardware support
  • New HAL: STM32H7