OTA micropython firmware update possible ?

[ondrej1024]

I am trying to find out if it is possible to update the MP firmware on the Pico-W (or Pico with Ethernet) via network connection.
I found some tools which can update files in the filesystem via network. But I am looking for a way to replace the whole MP firmware including the frozen modules baked into the firmware. It's what you would do with mpremote when you load a uf2 file vie USB connection to the Pico, but via network connection.

Is this something that can be done or has even already been implemented?

[jimmo]

@ondrej1024 You'd need a second-stage bootloader to achieve this (as the built-in bootloader doesn't support this).

For example on the stm32 port, MicroPython provides an optional second-stage bootloader (mboot) that can read the MicroPython filesystem to apply a compressed firmware image. (Including cryptographic signature verification).

Unfortunately I don't know of any existing projects that provide this functionality for rp2040 (although I haven't looked closely).

[ondrej1024]

Thanks @jimmo
I had a look around and there seem to be at least a couple of projects which implement a second-stage bootloader for the RP2040:

• picowota
• pico-flashloader

So I guess this would have to be integrated into MicroPython. But I'm afraid we won't see this anytime soon 🙄