RPIBOOT(1)

💖 rpiboot — the manual page, but make it cute 💖

okay bestie, so this is rpiboot, straight out of the General Commands Manual section of your friendly neighbourhood Unix docs. grab a snack, we're booting a Raspberry Pi over USB and it's gonna be iconic 🍓✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

rpiboot — Boot a Raspberry Pi in device mode

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

rpiboot [-d directory] [-l] [-o] [-m delay] [-v] [-s] [-0|1|2|3|4|5|6]

rpiboot -h

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

So. rpiboot is a command line utility for booting a Raspberry Pi in USB device mode. the whole vibe is this: you've got firmwares provided that boot a Pi directly as a mass storage device — which is lowkey the most useful thing ever for flashing Compute Module devices that have on-board eMMC storage — or, alternatively, you can hand it a set of boot files in a directory and boot from those instead. that directory can even contain an initramfs to boot with a Linux kernel. slay. 👑

for more info about the bootloader EEPROM, go check out [EEPROM]. iykyk.

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• -d directory — Boot the device using the boot files in directory. and if you don't pass this option? then the device boots into mass storage device (MSD) mode instead. no notes.
• -l — Loop forever 🔁. without this, the app dips out as soon as the boot files have been successfully transferred and the device re-appears on the USB bus (like, as a mass storage device, bestie).
• -o — Only makes sense alongside -d: it says that files from the "overlay" sub-directory (sitting under the directory you gave with -d) should be used, if they exist. if they don't exist, no drama.
• -m delay — The number of micro-seconds delay between checking for new devices. defaults to 500µs. yes, microseconds, she's precise like that 💅
• -v — Produce more verbose output. more words, more lore.
• -s — Sign boot files using bootsig.bin ✍️
• -0|1|2|3|4|5|6 — Only look for Compute Modules attached to USB port number 0 through 6. pick your fave port, girl.
• -h — Display a brief help page. the classic. 🫶

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

• rpiboot — Boot an attached Compute Module as a mass storage device (MSD).
• rpiboot -v -1 — Boot a Compute Module on USB port 1 (only) as a mass storage device, with verbose reporting.
• rpiboot -d recovery — Flash the default bootloader EEPROM image onto a Compute Module 4. ✨

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

rpi-eeprom-update(1), rpi-eeprom-config(1)

⭐ REFERENCES ⭐

• [EEPROM] — ⟨https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/raspberry-pi.html#raspberry-pi-4-boot-eeprom⟩

and that's the whole page, bestie — this one's from the 2022-01-31 era and it lives under RPIBOOT(1) in the General Commands Manual. go forth and boot something. periodt. 💖🦋🌸