Firmware Image Format

This is technical documentation for the firmware image format used by the ROM bootloader. These are the images created by esptool.py elf2image.

The firmware file consists of a header, an extended header, a variable number of data segments and a footer. Multi-byte fields are little-endian.

File Header

The image header is 8 bytes long:

Byte	Description
0	Magic number (always 0xE9)
1	Number of segments
2	SPI Flash Mode (0 = QIO, 1 = QOUT, 2 = DIO, 3 = DOUT)
3	High four bits - Flash size (0 = 1MB, 1 = 2MB, 2 = 4MB, 3 = 8MB, 4 = 16MB, 5 = 32MB, 6 = 64MB, 7 = 128MB”) Low four bits - Flash frequency (0 = 40MHz, 1 = 26MHz, 2 = 20MHz, 0xf = 80MHz)
4-7	Entry point address

esptool.py overrides the 2nd and 3rd (counted from 0) bytes according to the SPI flash info provided through the command line option. These bytes are only overridden if this is a bootloader image (an image written to a correct bootloader offset of 0x0), in this case, the appended SHA256 digest is also updated to reflect the header changes. Generating images without SHA256 digest can be achieved by running esptool.py elf2image with the --dont-append-digest argument.

Extended File Header

The 16-byte long extended header comes right after the image header, individual segments come right after it:

Byte	Description
0	WP pin when SPI pins set via efuse (read by ROM bootloader)
1-3	Drive settings for the SPI flash pins (read by ROM bootloader)
4-5	Chip ID (which ESP device is this image for)
6	Minimal chip revision supported by the image (deprecated, use the following field)
7-8	Minimal chip revision supported by the image (in format: major * 100 + minor)
9-10	Maximal chip revision supported by the image (in format: major * 100 + minor)
11-14	Reserved bytes in additional header space, currently unused
15	Hash appended (If 1, SHA256 digest is appended after the checksum)

Segment

Byte	Description
0-3	Memory offset
4-7	Segment size
8…n	Data

Footer

The file is padded with zeros until its size is one byte less than a multiple of 16 bytes. A last byte (thus making the file size a multiple of 16) is the checksum of the data of all segments. The checksum is defined as the xor-sum of all bytes and the byte 0xEF.

If hash appended in the extended file header is 0x01, a SHA256 digest “simple hash” (of the entire image) is appended after the checksum. This digest is separate to secure boot and only used for detecting corruption. The SPI flash info cannot be changed during flashing if hash is appended after the image.

If secure boot is enabled, a signature is also appended (and the simple hash is included in the signed data). This image signature is Secure Boot V1 and Secure Boot V2 specific.

Analyzing a Binary Image

To analyze a binary image and get a complete summary of its headers and segments, use the image_info command with the --version 2 option.