1# MCUboot release notes
2
3- Table of Contents
4{:toc}
5
6## Version 2.0.0
7
8Note that this release, 2.0.0 is a new major number, and contains a small API
9change in the interface between mcuboot and the platform.  All platforms
10contained within the MCUboot tree have been updated, but any external platforms
11will have to be adjusted.  The following commit makes the API change, in the
12function `boot_save_shared_data`.
13
14    commit 3016d00cd765e7c09a14af55fb4dcad945e4b982
15    Author: Jamie McCrae <jamie.mccrae@nordicsemi.no>
16    Date:   Tue Mar 14 12:35:51 2023 +0000
17
18        bootutil: Add active slot number and max app size to shared data
19
20### About this release
21
22- Add error when flash device fails to open.
23- Panic bootloader when flash device fails to open.
24- Fixed issue with serial recovery not showing image details for
25  decrypted images.
26- Fixes issue with serial recovery in single slot mode wrongly
27  iterating over 2 image slots.
28- CDDL auto-generated function code has been replaced with zcbor function
29  calls, this now allows the parameters to be supplied in any order.
30- Added currently running slot ID and maximum application size to
31  shared data function definition.
32- Make the ECDSA256 TLV curve agnostic and rename it to ECDSA_SIG.
33- imgtool: add P384 support along with SHA384.
34- espressif: refactor after removing IDF submodule
35- espressif: add ESP32-C6, ESP32-C2 and ESP32-H2 new chips support
36- espressif: adjustments after IDF v5.1 compatibility, secure boot build and memory map organization
37- Serial recovery image state and image set state optional commands added
38- imgtool: add 'dumpinfo' command for signed image parsing.
39- imgtool: add 'getpubhash' command to dump the sha256 hash of the public key
40- imgtool's getpub can print the output to a file
41- imgtool can dump the raw versions of the public keys
42- Drop ECDSA P224 support
43- Fixed an issue with boot_serial repeats not being processed when
44  output was sent, this would lead to a divergence of commands
45  whereby later commands being sent would have the previous command
46  output sent instead.
47- Fixed an issue with the boot_serial zcbor setup encoder function
48  wrongly including the buffer address in the size which caused
49  serial recovery to fail on some platforms.
50- zcbor library files have been updated to version 0.7.0
51- Reworked boot serial extensions so that they can be used by modules
52  or from user repositories by switching to iterable sections.
53- Removed Zephyr custom img list boot serial extension support.
54- (Zephyr) Adds support for sharing boot information with
55  application via retention subsystem
56- Zephyr no longer builds in optimize for debug mode, this saves a
57  significant amount of flash space.
58- Reworked image encryption support for Zephyr, static dummy key files
59  are no longer in the code, a pem file must be supplied to extract
60  the private and public keys. The Kconfig menu has changed to only
61  show a single option for enabling encryption and selecting the key
62  file.
63- Serial recovery can now read and handle encrypted seondary slot
64  partitions.
65- Serial recovery with MBEDTLS no longer has undefined operations which
66  led to usage faults when the secondary slot image was encrypted.
67- espressif: allow the use of a different toolchain for building
68
69## Version 1.10.0
70
71The 1.10.0 release of MCUboot contains...
72
73### About this release
74
75- Various fixes to boot serial.
76- Various fixes to the mbed target.
77- Various fixes to the Espressif native target.
78- Various fixes to the Zephyr target.
79- Workflow improvements with Zephyr CI.
80- Add multi image support to the espressif esp32 target.
81- Improvements and corrections to the simulator.
82- Improve imgtool, including adding 3rd party signing support.
83- Various fixes to the mynewt target.
84- Various fixes to the nuttx target.
85- Dates to dependencies for doc generation.
86- Add downgrade prevention for modes using swap.
87- Various general fixes to the boot code.
88- Prefer swap move on zephyr if the scratch partition is not enabled.
89- Upgrade fault-injection hardening, improving cases injections are detected.
90- Add a new flash api `flash_area_get_sector`, along with support for each
91  target, that replaces `flash_area_sector_from_off`. This is a step in cleaning
92  up the flash API used by MCUboot.
93
94### Security fixes
95
96There are no security vulnerabilities reported on the MCUboot code for this
97release. There have been several updates to the dependencies in the Ruby code
98used to generate the documentation. This should only affect users that generate
99their own documentation.
100
101## Version 1.9.0
102
103The 1.9.0 release of MCUboot contains various bug fixes, improves
104support on some recent targets, and adds support for devices with a
105write alignment larger than 8.
106
107This change introduces a potentially incompatible change to the format
108of the image trailer.  If `BOOT_MAX_ALIGN` is kept at 8, the trailer
109format does not change.  However, to support larger write alignments,
110this value can be increased, which will result in a different magic
111number value.  These targets were previously unsupported in MCUboot,
112so this change should not affect any existing targets.  The change has
113been tested with a `BOOT_MAX_ALIGN` up to 32 bytes.
114
115### About this release
116
117- Add native flash encryption to Espressif targets
118- Numerous documentation improvements
119- Increase coverage of large images in the simulator
120- Add stm32 watchdog support
121- Add support for the `mimxrt685_evk` board
122- Add support for "partial multi-image booting"
123- Add support for clear image generation with encryption capability to
124  imgtool
125- Fix Zephyr when `CONFIG_BOOT_ENCRYPTION_KEY_FILE` is not defined
126- Remove zephyr example test running in shell.  The Go version is
127  primary and much more featureful.
128- imgtool: make `--max-align` default reasonable in most cases.
129- Implement the mcumgr echo command in serial boot mode
130
131### Security fixes
132
133## Version 1.8.0
134
135The 1.8.0 release of MCUboot contains numerous fixes, and adds support
136for the NuttX RTOS, and the Espressif ESP32 SDK.
137
138### About this release
139
140- Add support for the NuttX RTOS.
141- Add support for the Espressif ESP32 SDK.
142- `boot_serial` changed to use cddl-gen, which removes the dependency
143  on tinycbor.
144- Add various hooks to be able to change how image data is accessed.
145- Cypress supports Mbed TLS for encryption.
146- Support using Mbed TLS for ECDSA.  This can be useful if Mbed TLS is
147  brought in for another reason.
148- Add simulator support for testing direct-XIP and ramload.
149- Support Mbed TLS 3.0.  Updates the submodule for Mbed TLS to 3.0.
150- Enable direct-xip mode in Mbed-OS port.
151- extract `bootutil_public` library, a common interface for MCUboot
152  and the application.
153- Allow to boot primary image if secondary one is unreachable.
154- Add AES256 image encryption support.
155- Add Multiimage boot for direct-xip and ram-load mode.
156- Cargo files moved to top level, now `cargo test` can be run from the
157  top level directory.
158- Fault injection tests use updated TF-M.
159- Thingy:53 now supports multi-image DFU.
160- ram load and image encryption can be used together, allowing the
161  entire contents of flash to always remain encrypted.
162
163### Security fixes
164
165- [GHSA-gcxh-546h-phg4](https://github.com/mcu-tools/mcuboot/security/advisories/GHSA-gcxh-546h-phg4)
166  has been published.  There is not a fix at this time, but a caution
167  to be sure to follow the instructions carefully, and make sure that
168  the development keys in the repo are never used in a production
169  system.
170
171## Version 1.7.0
172
173The 1.7.0 release of MCUboot adds support for the Mbed-OS platform,
174Equal slots (direct-xip) upgrade mode, RAM loading upgrade mode,
175hardening against hardware level fault injection and timing attacks
176and single image mode.
177There are bug fixes, and associated imgtool updates as well.
178
179### About this release
180
181- Initial support for the Mbed-OS platform.
182- Added possibility to enter deep sleep mode after MCUboot app execution
183  for cypress platform.
184- Added hardening against hardware level fault injection and timing attacks.
185- Introduced Abstract crypto primitives to simplify porting.
186- Added RAM-load upgrade mode.
187- Renamed single-image mode to single-slot mode.
188- Allow larger primary slot in swap-move
189- Fixed boostrapping in swap-move mode.
190- Fixed issue causing that interrupted swap-move operation might brick device
191  if the primary image was padded.
192- Abstracting MCUboot crypto functions for cleaner porting
193- Droped flash_area_read_is_empty() porting API.
194- boot/zephyr: Added watchdog feed on nRF devices.
195  See `CONFIG_BOOT_WATCHDOG_FEED` option.
196- boot/zephyr: Added patch for turning off cache for Cortex M7 before
197  chain-loading.
198- boot/zephyr: added option to relocate interrupts to application
199- boot/zephyr: clean ARM core configuration only when selected by user
200- boot/boot_serial: allow nonaligned last image data chunk
201- imgtool: added custom TLV support.
202- imgtool: added possibility to set confirm flag for hex files as well.
203- imgtool: Print image digest during verify.
204
205### Zephyr-RTOS compatibility
206
207This release of MCUboot works with the Zephyr "main" at the time of the
208release. It was tested as of has 7a3b253ce. This version of MCUboot also
209works with the Zephyr v2.4.0, however it is recommended to enable
210`CONFIG_MCUBOOT_CLEANUP_ARM_CORE` while using that version.
211
212## Version 1.6.0
213
214The 1.6.0 release of MCUboot adds support for the PSOC6 platform,
215X25519 encrypted images, rollback protection, hardware keys, and a
216shared boot record to communicate boot attestation information to
217later boot stages.  There are bug fixes, and associated imgtool
218updates as well.
219
220### About this release
221
222- Initial support for the Cypress PSOC6 plaformt.  This platform
223  builds using the Cypress SDK, which has been added as submodules.
224- CBOR decoding in serial recovery replaced by code generated from a
225  CDDL description.
226- Add support for X25519 encrypted images.
227- Add rollback protection.  There is support for a HW rollback counter
228  (which must be provided as part of the platform), as well as a SW
229  solution that protects against some types of rollback.
230- Add an optional boot record in shared memory to communicate boot
231  attributes to later-run code.
232- Add support for hardware keys.
233- Various fixes to work with the latest Zephyr version.
234
235### Security issues addressed
236
237- CVE-2020-7595 "xmlStringLenDecodeEntities in parser.c in libxml2
238  2.9.10 has an infinite loop in a certain end-of-file situation." Fix
239  by updating a dependency in documentation generation.
240
241### Zephyr-RTOS compatibility
242
243This release of MCUboot works the Zephyr "main" at the time of the
244release.  It was tested as of has 1a89ca1238.  When Zephyr v2.3.0 is
245released, there will be a possible 1.6.1 or similar release of Zephyr
246if needed to address any issues.  There also may be branch releases of
247MCUboot specifically for the current version of Zephyr, e.g.
248v1.6.0-zephyr-2.2.1.
249
250## Version 1.5.0
251
252The 1.5.0 release of MCUboot adds support for encrypted images using
253ECIES with secp256r1 as an Elliptic Curve alternative to RSA-OAEP. A
254new swap method was added which allows for upgrades without using a
255scratch partition. There are also lots of bug fixes, extra simulator
256testing coverage and some imgtool updates.
257
258### About this release
259
260- TLVs were updated to use 16-bit lengths (from previous 8). This
261  should work with no changes for little-endian targets, but will
262  break compatibility with big-endian targets.
263- A benchmark framework was added to Zephyr
264- ed25519 signature validation can now build without using Mbed TLS
265  by relying on a bundled tinycrypt based sha-512 implementation.
266- imgtool was updated to correctly detect trailer overruns by image.
267- Encrypted image TLVs can be saved in swap metadata during a swap
268  upgrade instead of the plain AES key.
269- imgtool can dump private keys in C format (getpriv command), which
270  can be added as decryption keys. Optionally can remove superfluous
271  fields from the ASN1 by passing it `--minimal`.
272- Lots of other smaller bugs fixes.
273- Added downgrade prevention feature (available when the overwrite-based
274  image update strategy is used)
275
276### Known issues
277
278- TLV size change breaks compatibility with big-endian targets.
279
280## Version 1.4.0
281
282The 1.4.0 release of MCUboot primarily adds support for multi-image
283booting.  With this release, MCUboot can manage two images that can be
284updated independently.  With this, it also supports additions to the
285TLV that allow these dependencies to be specified.
286
287Multi-image support adds backward-incompatible changes to the format
288of the images: specifically adding support for protected TLV entries.
289If multiple images and dependencies are not used, the images will be
290compatible with previous releases of MCUboot.
291
292### About this release
293
294- Fixed CVE-2019-5477, and CVE-2019-16892.  These fix issue with
295  dependencies used in the generation of the documentation on github.
296- Numerous code cleanups and refactorings
297- Documentation updates for multi-image features
298- Update imgtool.py to support the new features
299- Updated the Mbed TLS submodule to current stable version 2.16.3
300- Moved the Mbed TLS submodule from within sim/mcuboot-sys to ext.
301  This will make it easier for other board supports to use this code.
302- Added some additional overflow and bound checks to data in the image
303  header, and TLV data.
304- Add a `-x` (or `--hex_addr`) flag to imgtool to set the base address
305  written to a hex-format image.  This allows the image to be flashed
306  at an offset, without having to use additional tools to modify the
307  image.
308
309## Version 1.3.1
310
311The 1.3.1 release of MCUboot consists mostly of small bug fixes and updates.
312There are no breaking changes in functionality. This release should work with
313Mynewt 1.6.0 and up, and any Zephyr `main` after sha
314f51e3c296040f73bca0e8fe1051d5ee63ce18e0d.
315
316### About this release
317
318- Fixed a revert interruption bug
319- Added ed25519 signing support
320- Added RSA-3072 signing support
321- Allow ec256 to run on CC310 interface
322- Some preparation work was done to allow for multi image support, which
323  should land in 1.4.0. This includes a simulator update for testing
324  multi-images, and a new name for slot0/slot1 which are now called
325  "primary slot" and "secondary slot".
326- Other minor bugfixes and improvements
327
328## Version 1.3.0
329
330The 1.3.0 release of MCUboot brings in many fixes and updates.  There
331are no breaking changes in functionality.  Many of the changes are
332refactorings that will make the code easier to maintain going forward.
333In addition, support has been added for encrypted images.  See [the
334docs](encrypted_images.md) for more information.
335
336### About this release
337
338- Modernize the Zephyr build scripts.
339- Add a `ptest` utility to help run the simulator in different
340  configurations.
341- Migrate the simulator to Rust 2018 edition.  The sim now requires at
342  least Rust 1.32 to build.
343- Simulator cleanups.  The simulator code is now built the same way
344  for every configuration, and queries the MCUboot code for how it was
345  compiled.
346- Abstract logging in MCUboot.  This was needed to support the new
347  logging system used in Zephyr.
348- Add multiple flash support.  Allows slot1/scratch to be stored in an
349  external flash device.
350- Add support for [encrypted images](encrypted_images.md).
351- Add support for flash devices that read as '0' when erased.
352- Add support to Zephyr for the `nrf52840_pca10059`.  This board
353  supports serial recovery over USB with CDC ACM.
354- imgtool is now also available as a python package on pypi.org.
355- Add an option to erase flash pages progressively during recovery to
356  avoid possible timeouts (required especially by serial recovery
357  using USB with CDC ACM).
358- imgtool: big-endian support
359- imgtool: saves in intel-hex format when output filename has `.hex`
360  extension; otherwise saves in binary format.
361
362## Version 1.2.0
363
364The 1.2.0 release of MCUboot brings a lot of fixes/updates, where much of the
365changes were on the boot serial functionality and imgtool utility. There are
366no breaking changes in MCUboot functionality, but some of the CLI parameters
367in imgtool were changed (either removed or added or updated).
368
369### About this release
370
371- imgtool accepts .hex formatted input
372- Logging system is now configurable
373- Most Zephyr configuration has been switched to Kconfig
374- Build system accepts .pem files in build system to autogenerate required
375  key arrays used internally
376- Zephyr build switched to using built-in flash_map and TinyCBOR modules
377- Serial boot has substantially decreased in space usage after refactorings
378- Serial boot build doesn't require newlib-c anymore on Zephyr
379- imgtool updates:
380  + "create" subcommand can be used as an alias for "sign"
381  + To allow imgtool to always perform the check that firmware does not
382    overflow the status area, `--slot-size` was added and `--pad` was updated
383    to act as a flag parameter.
384  + `--overwrite-only` can be passed if not using swap upgrades
385  + `--max-sectors` can be used to adjust the maximum amount of sectors that
386    a swap can handle; this value must also be configured for the bootloader
387  + `--pad-header` substitutes `--included-header` with reverted semantics,
388    so it's not required for firmware built by Zephyr build system
389
390### Known issues
391
392None
393
394## Version 1.1.0
395
396The 1.1.0 release of MCUboot brings a lot of fixes/updates to its
397inner workings, specially to its testing infrastructure which now
398enables a more thorough quality assurance of many of the available
399options. As expected of the 1.x.x release cycle, no breaking changes
400were made. From the tooling perpective the main addition is
401newt/imgtool support for password protected keys.
402
403### About this release
404
405- serial recovery functionality support under Zephyr
406- simulator: lots of refactors were applied, which result in the
407  simulator now leveraging the Rust testing infrastructure; testing
408  of ecdsa (secp256r1) was added
409- imgtool: removed PKCS1.5 support, added support for password
410  protected keys
411- tinycrypt 0.2.8 and the Mbed TLS ASN1 parser are now bundled with
412  MCUboot (eg secp256r1 is now free of external dependencies!)
413- Overwrite-only mode was updated to erase/copy only sectors that
414  actually store firmware
415- A lot of small code and documentation fixes and updates.
416
417### Known issues
418
419None
420
421## Version 1.0.0
422
423The 1.0.0 release of MCUboot introduces a format change.  It is
424important to either use the `imgtool.py` also from this release, or
425pass the `-2` to recent versions of the `newt` tool in order to
426generate image headers with the new format.  There should be no
427incompatible format changes throughout the 1.x.y release series.
428
429### About this release
430
431- Header format change.  This change was made to move all of the
432  information about signatures out of the header and into the TLV
433  block appended to the image.  This allows
434  - The signature to be replaced without changing the image.
435  - Multiple signatures to be applied.  This can be used, for example,
436    to sign an image with two algorithms, to support different
437    bootloader configurations based on these image.
438  - The public key is referred to by its SHA1 hash (or a prefix of the
439    hash), instead of an index that has to be maintained with the
440    bootloader.
441  - Allow new types of signatures in the future.
442- Support for PKCS#1 v1.5 signatures has been dropped.  All RSA
443  signatures should be made with PSS.  The tools have been changed to
444  reflect this.
445- The source for Tinycrypt has been placed in the MCUboot tree.  A
446  recent version of Tinycrypt introduced breaking API changes.  To
447  allow MCUboot to work across various platforms, we stop using the
448  Tinycrypt bundled with the OS platform, and use our own version.  A
449  future release of MCUboot will update the Tinycrypt version.
450- Support for some new targets:
451  - Nordic nRF51 and nRF52832 dev kits
452  - Hexiwear K64
453- Clearer sample applications have been added under `samples`.
454- Test plans for [zephyr](testplan-zephyr.md), and
455  [mynewt](testplan-mynewt.md).
456- The simulator is now able to test RSA signatures.
457- There is an unimplemented `load_addr` header for future support for
458  RAM loading in the bootloader.
459- Numerous documentation.
460
461### Known issues
462
463None
464
465## Version 0.9.0
466
467This is the first release of MCUboot, a secure bootloader for 32-bit MCUs.
468It is designed to be operating system-agnostic and works over any transport -
469wired or wireless. It is also hardware independent, and relies  on hardware
470porting layers from the operating system it works with. For the first release,
471we have support for three open source operating systems: Apache Mynewt, Zephyr
472and RIOT.
473
474### About this release
475
476- This release supports building with and running Apache Mynewt and Zephyr
477  targets.
478- RIOT is supported as a running target.
479- Image integrity is provided with SHA256.
480- Image originator authenticity is provided supporting the following
481  signature algorithms:
482  - RSA 2048 and RSA PKCS#1 v1.5 or v2.1
483  - Elliptic curve DSA with secp224r1 and secp256r1
484- Two firmware upgrade algorithms are provided:
485  - An overwrite only which upgrades slot 0 with the image in slot 1.
486  - A swapping upgrade which enables image test, allowing for rollback to a
487    previous known good image.
488- Supports both Mbed TLS and tinycrypt as backend crypto libraries. One of them
489  must be defined and the chosen signing algorithm will require a particular
490  library according to this list:
491  - RSA 2048 needs Mbed TLS
492  - ECDSA secp224r1 needs Mbed TLS
493  - ECDSA secp256r1 needs tinycrypt as well as the ASN.1 code from Mbed TLS
494    (so still needs that present).
495
496### Known issues
497
498- The image header and TLV formats are planned to change with release 1.0:
499  https://runtimeco.atlassian.net/browse/MCUB-66
500