nRF Util 7.0.0 and later supports Device Firmware Update (DFU) and
cryptographic functionality, designed for nRF5 SDK, when the command nrf5sdk-tools is installed.
Note: If you plan to use nRF Utils with NCS or nRF5 SDK, for
functionality other than
DFU and cryptography, please refer to:
nRF Util.
The nRF Util for nRF5 SDK application has the following features:
- DFU package generation
- Cryptographic key generation, management, and storage
- Bootloader settings generation
- DFU procedure on the following protocols:
- Bluetooth®
Low Energy
- Serial over UART
- Serial over USB
- Thread unicast
- Thread multicast
- Zigbee
- ANT™
There are two different
DFU package formats:
- Legacy – Uses a simple structure and has no security.
- Modern – Uses Google's protocol buffers for serialization and can be cryptographically
signed.
The DFU package format transitioned from legacy to modern in nRF5 SDK v12.0.0. nRF Util for
nRF5 SDK supports only modern firmware packages compatible with nRF5 SDK v15.3.0 and later.
For support of earlier SDKs and the legacy firmware format, see the documentation for the
legacy Python package: nRF Util User Guide v6.1.0.
Note: By default, firmware images compatible with nRF SDK 15.3.0 and later are created. Firmware
images compatible with nRF SDK 12.0 to nRF SDK 15.0 can be supported by using the --no-backup
command when generating the DFU settings.
See the DFU bootloader and BLE Secure DFU Bootloader example in the nRF5 SDK documentation for more
information about DFU.