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LibrariesinsideFreeRTOS labs

Updated Jul 2025

MCUBoot

NOTE: The FreeRTOS MCUBoot demo is a FreeRTOS Lab Project provided for community interest and to serve as a reference. It is fully functional, but may not comply with our production code standards. It is available from the Lab-Project-FreeRTOS-MCUBootexternal_link repository on GitHub.

Introduction

MCUBoot is a configurable secure bootloader maintained by several industry leaders. It can operate as the first or second stage bootloader, with support for cryptographic verification of software images with support for these schemes:

  • ECDSA-P256
  • RSA-2048
  • RSA-3072

By default, it supports image reversion whereby downloaded firmware image updates are tentatively booted once. Upon the initial upgrade boot, if the upgrade image marks itself as confirmed, it is retained as the primary image. If the upgrade image is not confirmed, the subsequent boot will rollback to the prior confirmed image. If no valid image is available in any slot, the device bricks itself as a safety precaution. The developers of MCUBoot have more detailed documentation in their docsexternal_link repository on GitHub.

MCUBoot also provides subset support for MCUMGRexternal_link when a device enters serial boot recovery mode. If enabled, serial mode can be triggered during bootup via user input, such as a button hold. The MCUMGR interface enables users to retrieve image diagnostics from the board, query resets, upload/modify images, and more.