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