I’ve just pushed an update to rBoot that allows 2-way communication between rBoot and the running user application. This is something I had though about previously, and I mentioned it in a previous post, but nobody had actually asked for it until a couple of weeks ago. The main use of this is to allow … Continue reading New rBoot version allows temporary boot
rBoot has now been integrated into Sming. This includes rBoot itself (allowing the bootloader to be built alongside a user app) and a new Sming specific rBoot OTA class. The sample app from my GitHub repo has been improved and included under the name Basic_rBoot, it demonstrates OTA updates, big flash support and multiple spiffs … Continue reading rBoot now in Sming
Although it’s always been possible to use Sming compiled apps with rBoot it wasn’t easy. I’ve shared Makefiles and talked a few people through it previously on the esp8266.com forum, but now there is a new sample project on GitHub to help everyone do it. The sample demonstrates: Compiling a basic app (similar to the … Continue reading rBoot now supports Sming for ESP8266
I’ve become aware of a serious limitation that testing should should have found, if I’d done a bit more of it! The ESP8266 only memory maps the the first 8 Mbit of the SPI flash. rBoot doesn’t use memory mapped flash, it uses SPI reads, so rBoot itself is fine with any size of flash. … Continue reading Memory map limitation affecting rBoot
Ok, hope you’re still with me after my previous massive post. Now I’m going to show you how to perform an over-the-air (OTA) update with rBoot. I’ve covered all the background already, so this should be pretty straight forward as long as you have a simple two rom rBoot setup running. Now add rboot.h, rboot-ota.h … Continue reading rBoot tutorial for ESP8266 – OTA updates
To help illustrate my previous explanation of getting started with rBoot I’ve produced a simple sample project. It doesn’t do anything very exciting itself, but it shows you how to compile, link and build roms that will work with rBoot. When I’ve written my next post on OTA updating with rBoot I’ll add an implementation … Continue reading A sample rBoot project
From recent reading and discussions it seems that lots of people aren’t using the Espressif boot loader (or my own rBoot, but that’s less of a surprise) on the ESP8266. Why? Maybe people aren’t aware of the reasons why you might want to. Or maybe they can’t figure out how to – when I started … Continue reading A boot loader tutorial for ESP8266 using rBoot
As promised here is my new boot loader for the ESP8266 – rBoot. Advantages over SDK supplied bootloader: Open source (written in C) – this is the big one. Supports any number of roms. Roms can be different sizes. Rom slots can be used for resource storage as well as bootable apps (and benefit from … Continue reading rBoot – A new boot loader for ESP8266
Looks like I finally have a fix for the flash write issue, thanks to some help from Espressif. Embarrassingly it turns out to be my fault, but I’m not too proud to admit that. So what was the problem? Since SDK v1.5.1 people have been reporting intermittent failed OTA updates and I’ve been able to … Continue reading Flash write bug fix
Users of rBoot have reported OTA problems when using Espressif SDK v1.5.1 which I have been able to reproduce on this version and v1.5.2. The problem appears to be in the sdk flash write functions. While most writes work fine some will occasional fails to fully write (leaving small areas of blank data (0xff)). To … Continue reading Flash write bug in Espressif SDK v1.5.1+