| 1 | # vi: set sw=4 ts=4:
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| 2 |
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| 3 | =head1 NAME
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| 4 |
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| 5 | BusyBox - The Swiss Army Knife of Embedded Linux
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| 6 |
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| 7 | =head1 SYNTAX
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| 8 |
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| 9 | busybox <applet> [arguments...] # or
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| 10 |
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| 11 | <applet> [arguments...] # if symlinked
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| 12 |
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| 13 | =head1 DESCRIPTION
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| 14 |
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| 15 | BusyBox combines tiny versions of many common UNIX utilities into a single
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| 16 | small executable. It provides minimalist replacements for most of the utilities
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| 17 | you usually find in GNU coreutils, util-linux, etc. The utilities in BusyBox
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| 18 | generally have fewer options than their full-featured GNU cousins; however, the
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| 19 | options that are included provide the expected functionality and behave very
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| 20 | much like their GNU counterparts.
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| 21 |
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| 22 | BusyBox has been written with size-optimization and limited resources in mind.
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| 23 | It is also extremely modular so you can easily include or exclude commands (or
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| 24 | features) at compile time. This makes it easy to customize your embedded
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| 25 | systems. To create a working system, just add /dev, /etc, and a Linux kernel.
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| 26 | BusyBox provides a fairly complete POSIX environment for any small or embedded
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| 27 | system.
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| 28 |
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| 29 | BusyBox is extremely configurable. This allows you to include only the
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| 30 | components you need, thereby reducing binary size. Run 'make config' or 'make
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| 31 | menuconfig' to select the functionality that you wish to enable. Then run
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| 32 | 'make' to compile BusyBox using your configuration.
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| 33 |
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| 34 | After the compile has finished, you should use 'make install' to install
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| 35 | BusyBox. This will install the 'bin/busybox' binary, in the target directory
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| 36 | specified by CONFIG_PREFIX. CONFIG_PREFIX can be set when configuring BusyBox,
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| 37 | or you can specify an alternative location at install time (i.e., with a
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| 38 | command line like 'make CONFIG_PREFIX=/tmp/foo install'). If you enabled
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| 39 | any applet installation scheme (either as symlinks or hardlinks), these will
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| 40 | also be installed in the location pointed to by CONFIG_PREFIX.
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| 41 |
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| 42 | =head1 USAGE
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| 43 |
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| 44 | BusyBox is a multi-call binary. A multi-call binary is an executable program
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| 45 | that performs the same job as more than one utility program. That means there
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| 46 | is just a single BusyBox binary, but that single binary acts like a large
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| 47 | number of utilities. This allows BusyBox to be smaller since all the built-in
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| 48 | utility programs (we call them applets) can share code for many common
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| 49 | operations.
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| 50 |
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| 51 | You can also invoke BusyBox by issuing a command as an argument on the
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| 52 | command line. For example, entering
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| 53 |
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| 54 | /bin/busybox ls
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| 55 |
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| 56 | will also cause BusyBox to behave as 'ls'.
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| 57 |
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| 58 | Of course, adding '/bin/busybox' into every command would be painful. So most
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| 59 | people will invoke BusyBox using links to the BusyBox binary.
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| 60 |
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| 61 | For example, entering
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| 62 |
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| 63 | ln -s /bin/busybox ls
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| 64 | ./ls
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| 65 |
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| 66 | will cause BusyBox to behave as 'ls' (if the 'ls' command has been compiled
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| 67 | into BusyBox). Generally speaking, you should never need to make all these
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| 68 | links yourself, as the BusyBox build system will do this for you when you run
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| 69 | the 'make install' command.
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| 70 |
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| 71 | If you invoke BusyBox with no arguments, it will provide you with a list of the
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| 72 | applets that have been compiled into your BusyBox binary.
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| 73 |
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| 74 | =head1 COMMON OPTIONS
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| 75 |
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| 76 | Most BusyBox applets support the B<--help> argument to provide a terse runtime
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| 77 | description of their behavior. If the CONFIG_FEATURE_VERBOSE_USAGE option has
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| 78 | been enabled, more detailed usage information will also be available.
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| 79 |
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| 80 | =head1 COMMANDS
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| 81 |
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| 82 | Currently available applets include:
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