---
title: "Update packages"
---

# Update packages

RAUC bundles, SWUpdate images and Mender artifacts read with their signature verdict, keys and contents, built with BitBake, and installed on a bench board after a confirmation naming the slots written, with Mender commit and rollback.

Products built with meta-rauc, meta-swupdate or meta-mender ship signed update packages. An update writes a slot: use a bench board, never a vehicle or field unit.

**State:** modelled with RAUC 1.11.3 (`rauc bundle` and `rauc info`; a real install through RAUC's service with file-backed slots, run locally, where the predicted slots equalled the slots written), SWUpdate 2023.12.1 (`swupdate -i` of a CMS-signed `.swu` on a BusyBox stand-in board over OpenSSH 9.6p1), the Mender client 3.4.0 (standalone install and commit on the stand-in) and mender-artifact 3.9.0; signatures checked with right, wrong and unusable trust anchors; `bitbake -e` with meta-rauc scarthgap; the running app. Not run on a real board with a reboot into the new slot, RAUC over SSH to a board, verity bundles, the Mender client 4, Mender rootfs-image installs, interrupted installs and rollback, PKCS#11 signing in a build, Windows, a real build server or Wind River Linux. Copy speed on localhost was about 0.5 MiB/s through the laptop and 12 MiB/s from the build host.

## Open a package

**Open Update Package** picks a RAUC bundle, SWUpdate image or Mender artifact from the build's deploy folders. It is read on the build host with `rauc info`, the module's own `.swu` reader with openssl, or `mender-artifact read`, and the editor shows:

- the signature verdict, the certificates in the signature compared with the build's, and the trust anchor;
- the keys as the recipe names them (files or PKCS#11 URIs), with each variable's file and line; a private key is named, never read, and a PKCS#11 PIN is never shown;
- the images with their SHA-256; SWUpdate's software sets and what each writes; Mender's payloads, device types and provides;
- the recipe's variables from `bitbake -e`, and RAUC's product `system.conf` (slots, bootloader, compatible, keyring) at its lines.

**Verify Update Package With...** checks the signature against another trust anchor.

## Build a package

**Build Update Package** builds a bundle or update image recipe you pick with BitBake; the package opens afterwards.

## Install on a bench board

1. In Targets, right-click the board and run **Install Update Package on Target...** (or **Install on Target...** in the editor).
2. Pick how the package gets there: **Through This Computer** (in pieces over this computer's SSH sessions) or **From the Build Host** (with the build host's own ssh, as devtool deploy-target copies). Pick a folder on the board with enough space.
3. The installation is planned from the board's own client: `rauc status`, the board's SWUpdate configuration (`/etc/swupdate/conf.d`), or Mender's device type. The confirmation names the board, the package, its SHA-256 and the slots or devices that will be written.
4. The package is copied, checked by SHA-256 on the board, and installed with `rauc install`, `swupdate -i`, `mender-update install` or `mender install`, with progress.
5. **Show Update Status of Target** shows the slot states before and after; reboot from the editor to start the updated slot.
6. For Mender, **Commit Mender Update on Target...** keeps the update and **Roll Back Mender Update on Target...** returns to the previous one.

## Agent tools

Packages, update recipes, a package with its signature and a board's update status are read-only tools. Installing, committing and rolling back always ask first with the board, the package and its SHA-256, and what is written.

Next: [Package feeds](https://neuralinverse.com/docs/modules/embedded-linux/package-feeds/).