Patching a patch - software updates using horizontal patching

Abstract

This paper presents a method for optimizing software updates of consumer electronic devices running multiple applications with a common software component, called horizontal patching. Instead of using separate deltas for patching different applications, the method generates one delta from the other. Due to the large similarities between the deltas, this horizontal delta is small in size. Experimental results on two test sets, consisting of software updates for sensor networks and smart phones, show that significant improvements can be achieved. Between 27% and 84% data can be saved from transmission, depending on the type of applications and shared components 1 .

A Large-Scale Analysis of IoT Firmware Version Distribution in the Wild

“…for bringing new functionality, or correcting discovered bugs" [39, p. 435]. However, patching is a not a trivial process [39]. Software engineers have developed a wide range of possible solutions and proof-of-concepts to improve IoT patching.…”

Incremental updates based on graph theory for consumer electronic devices

“…When a completely identical block is found in two versions, BSDIFF tries to expand exact matches in both directions so that a similar but not completely identical block is found [1]. It uses Larsson and Sadakane's suffix sorting algorithm to construct suffix array for the old version [15].…”

“…Another situation is that multiple versions of a single application exist in the network. Stolikj et al [1] present an incremental update method named horizontal patching for the first situation. Kiyohara et al [6] present another method for the second situation.…”

“…Software updating is essential to consumer electronics, because it brings new features or fixes bugs [1]. Most changes in software come in the form of incremental updates [2].…”

“…The delta is compressed into a patch. When the client device gets the patch, it decompresses the patch into a delta, and converts the old version to the new one with the help of the delta [1].…”