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