Secure boot on Nerves

Carrying everything learned on the lab unit into a real, purpose-built Nerves system — without touching the build running in the field.

The second half of the project. Same hardware, same lab unit, but now against a real production Nerves system — done in a fork, so the version in the field is never at risk.

Part 1
3 min

From a lab unit to a real production Nerves system

The first series of posts on this was all about one disposable lab unit, kept deliberately wide open, with nothing depending on it, so I could make every…

Part 2
4 min

Forking the system, and a first signed boot

Series one's flow is fully proven now — real signing, real hardware checks, real tampering caught and rejected, all without ever locking the device down.

Part 3
3 min

Signing the kernel, clean on the first try

The bootloader half of this is done and proven. This post covers the other half — the kernel itself — and something that genuinely surprised me a little: it…

Part 4
4 min

The build signs itself now

Up to this point, every signed thing in this project was signed by me, by hand, one command at a time.

Part 5
4 min

It boots — and a gate I didn't know I had

This is the post where it all actually comes together — and where I found out that something I'd been planning to build had been there the whole time.