Firmware Tips and Tricks

Firmware
32

@mdma Works great!! when using with the make and program-dfu option… but, by default the PARTICLE_SERIAL_DEV auto-DFU option will not work with the particle-cli utility :disappointed:

For me it would be great if the particle keys server (and in general the particle-cli) will auto enter in DFU mode, in this case to set the local Cloud public key and its IP address… and finally reboot (with :leave option).

First, I started trying the particle-cli, and it doesn’t support the auto-DFU mode using the PARTICLE_SERIAL_DEV variable:

$ particle keys server default_key.pub.pem 192.168.1.1
running dfu-util -l
Apparently I didnt find a DFU device? util said  dfu-util 0.7
 
Copyright 2005-2008 Weston Schmidt, Harald Welte and OpenMoko Inc.
Copyright 2010-2012 Tormod Volden and Stefan Schmidt
This program is Free Software and has ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
Please report bugs to dfu-util@lists.gnumonks.org
 
 
Make sure your device is in DFU mode (blinking yellow), and is connected to your computer
Error - no dfu device found.

But then, I saw in the module.mk file of the 0.4.3 firmware that setting the Photon dev file with stty does the trick of entering in DFU mode, before calling to dfu-util:

...
program-dfu: $(TARGET_BASE).dfu
ifdef START_DFU_FLASHER_SERIAL_SPEED
# PARTICLE_SERIAL_DEV should be set something like /dev/tty.usbxxxx and exported
#ifndef PARTICLE_SERIAL_DEV
ifeq ("$(wildcard $(PARTICLE_SERIAL_DEV))","")
	@echo Serial device PARTICLE_SERIAL_DEV : $(PARTICLE_SERIAL_DEV) not available
else
	@echo Entering dfu bootloader mode:
	stty -f $(PARTICLE_SERIAL_DEV) $(START_DFU_FLASHER_SERIAL_SPEED)
	sleep 1
endif
endif
	@echo Flashing using dfu:
	$(DFU) -d $(USBD_VID_SPARK):$(USBD_PID_DFU) -a 0 -s $(PLATFORM_DFU)$(if $(PLATFORM_DFU_LEAVE),:leave) -D $<
...

So, finally the following 3 commands solved my problem of: Entering DFU -> use particle-cli DFU operation -> Exit DFU:

$ stty -f $PARTICLE_SERIAL_DEV 14400
$ particle keys server default_key.pub.pem 192.168.1.1
$ dfu-util -d 2b04:d006 -a 0 -s 0x080A0000:leave -D /dev/null

As shown, these 3 commands auto-updates the cloud public key and IP address without physically interacting with any Reset or Setup buttons but only using the USB port.

The same trick can be used to update/load/save, etc. any key, firmware or parameter that needs to be done in DFU mode using the particle-cli, without using any buttons.

EDIT: This was tested using a Photon on Mac OS X. In GNU/Linux stty -F /dev/ttyACM0 14400 doesn’t work, so I don’t really know how to force the auto-DFU mode in GNU/Linux or in Windows.

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