Open Source Summit + Embedded Linux Conference + OSPOCon 2021

There are always challenges for deploying software upgrades to fleets of embedded Linux IoT devices. A common strategy is to rely on an A/B redundant system with two identical partitions using popular open source solutions like Mender or RAUC. Although they provide great features out of the box there are still plenty of technical obstacles to overcome for real-world use cases. In this presentation we will walk through practical experiences using both Mender and RAUC with the Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded. We will discuss BSP integration and porting efforts for new devices, bootloader requirements and configurations, tips and tricks for ARM and x86-64 systems, various including read-only file systems, partition layouts, storing persistent data during upgrades, managing single-file artifacts, simultaneous setup with Docker and other containers. The talk is appropriate for anyone, interested in software over the air upgrades for embedded Linux devices.