Device Integration
This section is for engineers who already have a working embedded Linux build process and want to integrate the OTA-Pulse agent into their device images. The agent handles firmware downloads, A/B partition switching, and rollback — once it is in your image and pointed at your OTA-Pulse server, deployments work end-to-end without any manual SSH steps.
Today, OTA-Pulse ships a production-ready Yocto layer (meta-otapulse) that bakes the agent, its configuration template, and its systemd service unit directly into your image. The layer has been verified against Kirkstone, Langdale, Mickledore, Nanbield, and Scarthgap.
Three integration methods are available:
| Method | When to use |
|---|---|
Yocto layer (meta-otapulse) | Greenfield or existing Yocto builds — recommended production path |
Buildroot external tree (buildroot-otapulse) | Buildroot-based boards |
| Manual binary install | Quick device tests, development VMs, or any running Linux device |
Two more guides cover boards whose own bootloader (U-Boot or GRUB) should own the A/B switch and the rollback:
| Method | When to use |
|---|---|
| Bootloader compatibility mode | Yocto builds for boards that boot through U-Boot or GRUB and that you qualify yourself. Two QEMU targets are qualified. No physical board is. |
otapulse-convert | A Debian or Raspberry Pi OS disk image that you want to turn into an OTA-Pulse image without a Yocto build. A Debian 12 arm64 conversion boots under QEMU. It is not yet OTA qualified. |
See Install the OTA-Pulse Agent for full instructions on all three methods.