DOKK / manpages / debian 10 / fwupd / dfu-tool.1.en
DFU-TOOL(1) User Commands DFU-TOOL(1)

dfu-tool - dfu-tool

This manual page documents briefly the dfu-tool command.

dfu-tool allows a user to write various kinds of firmware onto devices supporting the USB Device Firmware Upgrade protocol. This tool can be used to switch the device from the normal runtime mode to `DFU mode' which allows the user to read and write firmware. Either the whole device can be written in one operation, or individual `targets' can be specified with the alternative name or number.

dfu-tool uses the libdfu shared library to perform actions. All synchronous actions can be safely cancelled and on failure will return errors with both a type and a full textual description. libdfu supports DFU 1.0, DFU 1.1 and the ST DfuSe vendor extension, and handles many device `quirks' necessary for the real-world implementations of DFU.

Additionally dfu-tool can be used to convert firmware from various different formats, or to modify details about the elements, images and metadata contained inside the firmware file. For example, you can easily convert DFU 1.1 firmware into the vendor-specific DfuSe format, convert a Intel HEX file into a raw file padded to a specific size, or add new copyright and licensing information to an existing file. Fields such as the vendor and product IDs can be changed, and the firmware elements can be encrypted and decrypted using various different methods. Merging two DfuSe files together is also possible, although specifying different alt-setting numbers before merging is a good idea to avoid confusion.

Although dfu-tool tries to provide a large number of easy-to-use commands, it may only be possible to do certain operations using the libdfu library directly. This is easier than it sounds, as the library is built with GObject Introspection support making it usable in many languages such as C, Javascript and Python. Furthermore, using the library is a good idea if you want to perform multiple operations on large firmware files, for instance, converting from an Intel HEX file, padding to a certain size, setting vendor and adding licensing information and then saving to a remote location.

dfu-tool [OPTION?]
Attach DFU capable device back to runtime
Convert firmware to DFU format
Decrypt firmware data
Detach currently attached DFU capable device
Dump details about a firmware file
Encrypt firmware data
List currently attached DFU capable devices
Merge multiple firmware files into one
Apply a binary patch
Create a binary patch using two files
Dump information about a binary patch to the screen
Read firmware from device into a file
Read firmware from one partition into a file
Replace data in an existing firmware file
Reset a DFU device
Set element address on firmware file
Set alternative number on firmware file
Set alternative name on firmware file
Sets metadata on a firmware file
Set product ID on firmware file
Set release version on firmware file
Set the firmware size for the target
Set vendor ID on firmware file
Watch DFU devices being hotplugged
Write firmware from file into device
write-alt FILENAME DEVICE-ALT-NAME|DEVICE-ALT-ID [IMAGE-ALT-NAME|IMAGE-ALT-ID]
Write firmware from file into one partition

Show help options

Print the version number
Print verbose debug statements
Specify Vendor/Product ID(s) of DFU device
Specify the number of bytes per USB transfer
Force the action ignoring all warnings
May 2021 dfu-tool 1.2.14