Alex Gonzalez: Hi Philipp, thanks for your contribution. Let me try to explain the architectural vision we have for hostOS updates.
Currently, hostOS updates can be manually performed from a device using hostapp-update and update-balena-supervisor. This is explained in the forums in several replies.
So, a script that automates that has always been possible and used by the community.
Now, balenaHup is a component of the proxy element in balenaCloud. It is the wrapping shell script that balenaCloud currently uses to update the hostOS. It is convoluted as it is backwards compatible all the way to resinOS 1.x. My personal feeling is that you would be better served by creating a new script from scratch.
Now, the vision for hostOS updates future is to replace the current implementation with supervisor driven hostOS updates. In this way, hostOS (both rootfs and supervisor) will be managed in the same way apps updates are. These pattern solves a bunch of other problems we currently have with hostOS updates.
Also, balenaOS needs to work with a variety of cloud environments - at least balenaCloud, openBalena and balenaMachine (onPremise). Ideally each environment would have its own registry and storage, and would offer a way to import/export OS images into it. We are working on several product improvements that get us closer to that.
In summary, when we speak about supporting hostOS updates in openBalena, the scope is broader than scripting automated hostOS updates, which has always been a possibility, and not something we provide or support as it does not fit with the vision we have for the product.
I hope that helps to explain what the current status is.