A small library for firmware updates over USB with devices that support the DFU and DfuSe protocols. Specifically, pyfu-usb supports listing DFU capable devices and downloading binary files to them.
Compared to dfu-util
dfu-util is the popular host side tool for interacting with DFU/DfuSe devices. pyfu-usb has only a small sliver the functionality contained in dfu-util: Listing and downloading binary files. The reason you would use pyfu-usb over dfu-util is if you have a Python project that needs firmware update capabilities and don't want an external (non-Python) dependency.
Compared to pydfu.py
pydfu.py is a tool in the OpenMV project that solves the exact problem described above, but it is only for DfuSe devices (e.g. STM32) and also hard codes a number of parameters including device address and max transfer size. It also appears to only work with .dfu files, which require an extra conversion step. Since binary files can be directly generated by many embedded toolchains using them is simpler, although less portable.
The code in this package originates from pydfu.py and the OpenMV license agreement has been copied into the repository. Along with refactoring the code and adding support for "classic" DFU devices, several modernizations were added:
- Colored logs and progress bar with
rich - Using
logginginstead ofprintfor output messages - Consistent style and linting with
ruff
Even though this package may appear pure Python, by relying on pyusb we rely on libusb being installed. See the pyusb docs for more details on platform support.
Install with pip:
pip install pyfu-usb
List connected DFU devices:
pyfu-usb --list
Download a file to a DfuSe capable device, specifying a start address in hex:
pyfu-usb --download <filename> -a <start_address>
Download a file to a DFU capable device:
pyfu-usb --download <filename>
Use the --device argument to specify the vid:pid of the device in hex if multiple are connected. See the examples directory for more detailed examples.
This project uses uv for Python tooling. It also uses just to simplify running project specific specific commands.
To install pre-commit hooks (e.g. style, linting):
just setup
To run pre-commit hooks:
just lint
To run unit tests:
just test
To view code coverage:
just coverage
To build the package:
uv build
Please see the documentation prior to contributing.
Licensed under the MIT license.
