GATEWAY DEVICE, IN-VEHICLE NETWORK SYSTEM, AND FIRMWARE UPDATE METHOD

A gateway device is connected via network(s) to electronic controllers on-board a vehicle, where at least one of the electronic controllers is implemented in a virtual machine. The gateway device includes one or more memories, and circuitry that acquires firmware update information. The circuitry determines whether a first electronic controller satisfies a second condition based on second information, which is whether the first electronic controller includes a firmware cache for performing a pre-update firmware cache operation. The circuitry also causes, when the second condition is not satisfied, the gateway device to execute a proxy process, where the gateway device requests the first electronic controller to transmit boot ROM data to the gateway device, creates updated boot ROM data with the updated firmware, and transmits the updated boot ROM data to the first electronic controller that updates the boot ROM and resets the first electronic controller with the updated firmware.