Feature Request: Porting to nRF52840 about solo1

[0x0ece]

As for SoloKeys, we simply deprioritized porting to multiple platforms because we settled on the stm32 for all our products (solo, tap, and soon somu).

Maintaining portability right now would be at the expenses of building more features, and we feel that at least ssh/gpg are much higher priority, so that's what we're focused on.

TBH I don't see us making a BLE authenticator (with battery) anytime soon, for a variety of reasons including security of BLE, logistic nightmare of batteries, and user support with moving pieces.

This said, porting to nRF52840-MDK and possibly even implementing BLE is something certainly super interesting, if anyone is willing to contribute we're happy to accept.

[nickray]

I am the wrong person to ask for C ports :)

[caizelin]

@SandeepanSengupta The U2F works on nRF52840 now. See the nrf52-u2f repo. And I think it's possible to port solo to the nrf52840-mdk-usb-dongle.

[0x0ece]

There’s a partial port of Solo for the Nordic already, see code inside targets/. I’m not sure the state, but originally we were thinking to this chip for Solo, then considered SAM L11, and finally landed to the STM L4. To my understanding, all MCU but the STM required an external chip to handle usb (I might be wrong though). I’m saying this just because if you look at our code, you might find the hid missing. Thank you both for sharing these pointers, it’s a really interesting platform to explore in the future. -- Emanuele Cesena [email protected] Check out my new security key: https://solokeys.com

@emanuele Cesena
STM32F103 and F303 have really tine footprint (TQFP/QTN48 or smaller) and have build in UBS that supports multiple endpoints. People have already made composite devices out of it. Check them out. Its cool. However they lack built in cryptographic engine. A solution can be including ATECC508A/ATECC608A or similar.

[conorpp]

@SandeepanSengupta cryptographic engine isn't really necessary as most things can be reasonably implemented in software with good enough performance. Software-based is more flexible as well. The STM32L4 also has multiple endpoints and we currently use them for a composite device (HID + CDC ACM).

NRF52840 is nice since it has Bluetooth, NFC, and USB. But the NFC is not a passive solution and the chip is overall to power hungry to power off of something like the AS3956.

I originally ported FIDO2 application to NRF52840 but decided to switch to something else. You can see the application in targets/nrf52840/. The FIDO2 "API" has changed a bit since then so it probably won't build, and it's missing some features, like saving state to flash.

[cypher386]

I'm actually working on this port o. The mdk-dongle to add passwordsafe support for all platforms. I'm still working on my development system but I have the hardware and tools. We'll see what happens.

@cypher386 , @conorpp
I wish to contribute with the limited engineering expertise I have. I currently have access to nRF52840-MDK by @makerdiary and also have a few programming/debugging tools.
Let me know if there is any way I can collaborate.

[TaaviE]

Are there any updates on this or reasons why the support hasn't been maintained? The dongle is really cheap and would make a really nice security key.