# Securely booting user application in ESP Privilege Separation

DevFeed: [Securely booting user application in ESP Privilege Separation](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/securely-booting-user-application-in-esp-privilege-separation-13954.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://developer.espressif.com/blog/securely-booting-user-application-in-esp-privilege-separation/>)

Author: John Lee

Published: 2023-02-18T00:00:00Z

Content type: tutorial

Language: en

Sources: [Blog on Developer Portal](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/blog-on-developer-portal.md>)

Topics: [ESP-IDF](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/esp-idf.md>), [Security](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/security.md>), [Embedded Software Dev](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/embedded-software-dev.md>), [Hardware](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/hardware.md>)

Tags: [blog](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/blog.md>), [embedded](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/embedded.md>), [esp-idf](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/esp-idf.md>), [esp-privilege-separation](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/esp-privilege-separation.md>), [esp32](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/esp32.md>), [firmware](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/firmware.md>), [hardware](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/hardware.md>), [iot](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/iot.md>), [public-key](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/public-key.md>), [secure-boot](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/secure-boot.md>), [security](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/security.md>), [trust](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/trust.md>), [verification](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/verification.md>)

## AI overview

This article describes certificate-based secure boot for user applications in the ESP Privilege Separation framework. It explains how protected and user applications can have independent update cycles and signing keys, and how the protected application verifies the user application when eFuse memory is scarce.

## Source excerpt

In the previous post, we demonstrated the ability to independently update the user application in the ESP Privilege Separation framework. With the separation and isolation of the protected app and user app, it becomes convenient to decouple the ownership of each of these apps and their updates. This also potentially allows the possibility of having multiple user applications for a single protected application, somewhat like an "application store" for user app.