Updating in the field
There have been several well-publicized security flaws, including Heartbleed (a bug in the OpenSSL libraries) and Shellshock (a bug in the bash shell), both of which could have serious consequences for embedded Linux devices that are currently deployed. For this reason alone, it is highly desirable to have a mechanism to update devices in the field so that you can fix security problems as they arise. There are other good reasons as well: to deploy other bug fixes and feature updates.
The guiding principle of update mechanisms is that they should do no harm, remembering Murphy's Law: if it can go wrong, it will go wrong, eventually. Any update mechanism must be:
- Robust: It must not render the device inoperable. I will talk about ...
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