dfu-util is the host side implementation of the DFU 1.0 and DFU 1.1 specifications of the USB forum. DFU is intended to download and upload firmware to devices connected over USB. It ranges from small devices like micro-controller boards up to mobile phones. Using dfu-util you can download firmware to your DFU-enabled device or upload firmware from it. dfu-util has been tested with the Openmoko Neo1973 and Freerunner and many other devices.
See the manual page for examples of use.
Releases of the dfu-util software can be found in the releases folder. The latest release tarball is dfu-util-0.7.tar.gz. From version 0.6 onwards we also offer binaries for Microsoft Windows. dfu-util uses libusb 1.0 to access your device, so on Windows you have to register the device with the WinUSB driver (alternatively libusb-win32 or libusbK if libusbx 1.0.13 or later), please see the libusbx wiki for more details.
Development happens in a GIT repository. Browse it via the web interface or clone it with:
git clone git://gitorious.org/dfu-util/dfu-util.git
See our build instructions for how to build the source on different platforms.
This software is licensed under the GPL version 2.
If you have questions about the development or use of dfu-util please send an e-mail to our dedicated mailing list for dfu-util.
Major Linux distributions already ship dfu-util for those who not want to compile dfu-util from source. On Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora and Gentoo you can install it through the normal software package tools. For other distributions (namely OpenSuSe, Mandriva, and CentOS) Holger Freyther was kind enough to provide binary packages through the Open Build Service.
dfu-util was originally written by Harald Welte partially based on code from dfu-programmer 0.4 and is currently maintained by Stefan Schmidt and Tormod Volden.