BUSYBOX

The Swiss Army Knife of Embedded Linux

BusyBox combines tiny versions of many common UNIX utilities into a single small executable. It provides minimalist replacements for most of the utilities you usually find in GNU fileutils, shellutils, etc. The utilities in BusyBox generally have fewer options than their full-featured GNU cousins; however, the options that are included provide the expected functionality and behave very much like their GNU counterparts. BusyBox provides a fairly complete POSIX environment for any small or embedded system.

BusyBox has been written with size-optimization and limited resources in mind. It is also extremely modular so you can easily include or exclude commands (or features) at compile time. This makes it easy to customize your embedded systems. To create a working system, just add /dev, /etc, and a kernel.

BusyBox is maintained by Erik Andersen, and licensed under the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE.

### Screenshot

Because everybody loves screenshots, a screenshot of BusyBox is now available right here.

### Mailing List Information

BusyBox has a mailing list.
To subscribe, go and visit this page.
Before asking questions on the mailing list you should probably first search the mailing list archives... ...

Latest News

- 12 Sept 2003 -- BusyBox 1.0.0-pre3 released

  Here goes the third pre-release for the new BusyBox stable series. The last prerelease has help up quite well under testing, but a number of problems have turned up as the number of people using it has increased. Thanks everyone for all the testing, bug reports, and patches!

  If you have submitted a patch or a bug report to the busybox mailing list and no one has emailed you explaining why your patch was rejected, it is safe to say that your patch has somehow gotten lost or forgotten. That happens sometimes. Please re-submit your patch or bug report to the BusyBox mailing list!

  The point of the "-preX" versions is to get a larger group of people and vendors testing, so any problems that turn up can be fixed prior to the final 1.0.0 release. The main feature (besides additional testing) that is still still on the TODO list before the final BusyBox 1.0.0 release is sorting out the modutils issues. For the new 2.6.x kernels, we already have patches adding insmod and rmmod support and those need to be integrated. For 2.4.x kernels, for which busybox only supports a limited number of architectures, we may want to invest a bit more work before we cut 1.0.0. Or we may just leave 2.4.x module loading alone.

  I had hoped this release would be out a month ago. And of course, it wasn't since Erik became busy getting a release of uClibc out the door. Many thanks to Glenn McGrath (bug1) for stepping in and helping get a bunch of patches merged! I am not even going to state a date for releasing BusyBox 1.0.0 -pre4 (or the final 1.0.0). We're aiming for late September... But if this release proves as to be exceptionally stable (or exceptionally unstable!) then next release may be very soon indeed.

  The changelog has all the details. And as usual you can download busybox here.

  Have Fun!

- Old News
  For the old news, visit the old news page.

Sponsors

Please visit our sponsors and thank them for their support! They have provided money for equipment and bandwidth. Next time you need help with a project, consider these fine companies!

- Penguru Consulting
  Custom development for embedded Linux systems and multimedia platforms
- opensource.se
  Embedded open source consulting in Europe.
- Codepoet Consulting
  Custom Linux, embedded Linux, BusyBox, and uClibc development.

Several individuals have also contributed. If you have already contributed and would like your name added here, just let me know. If you would like to be a BusyBox sponsor, email Erik.

Download

Source for the latest release can always be downloaded from http://www.busybox.net/downloads.

BusyBox now has two CVS trees. The "busybox-stable" tree contains the older 0.60.x stable series. The "busybox" tree contains the latest 1.0.0-preX development version of busybox.

- Daily Snapshots of the the latest stable, and the latest development CVS source trees can be found right here.
- Click here to browse the CVS tree for the 1.0.0-preX development version of BusyBox
- Click here to browse the CVS tree for the stable 0.60.x version of BusyBox.
- Anonymous CVS access is available.
- For those that are actively contributing there is even CVS write access.

Documentation

Current documentation for BusyBox includes:

- BusyBox.html. This is a list of the all the available commands in BusyBox with complete usage information and examples of how to use each app. I have spent a lot of time updating these docs and trying to make them fairly comprehensive. If you find any errors (factual, grammatical, whatever) please let me know.
- README. This is the README file included in the busybox source release.
- If you need more help, the BusyBox mailing list is a good place to start.

Important Links

- Free Software from Bruce Perens
  The original idea for BusyBox, and all versions up to 0.26 were written by Bruce Perens. This is his BusyBox website.
- Freshmeat AppIndex record for BusyBox
- TinyLogin is a nice embedded tool for handling authentication, changing passwords, and similar tasks which nicely complements BusyBox.
- udhcp is a tiny dhcp client and/or server which is ideal for embedded systems.
- uClibc is a C library for embedded systems. You can actually statically link a "Hello World" application under x86 that only takes 4k (as opposed to 200k under GNU libc). It can do dynamic linking too and works nicely with BusyBox to create very small embedded Linux systems.

Products/Projects Using BusyBox

I know of the following products and/or projects that use BusyBox -- listed in the order I happen to add them to the web page:

- buildroot a configurable means for building your own busybox/uClibc based system systems.
- Debian installer (boot floppies) project
- Red Hat installer
- Slackware Installer
- Gentoo Linux install/boot CDs
- The Mandrake installer
- Linux Embedded Appliance Firewall (the sucessor of the Linux Router Project) supporting all sorts of embedded Linux gateways, routers, wireless routers, and firewalls,
- LEM
- tomsrtbt
- Stormix Installer
- EMAC Linux 2.0 SBC
- Trinux
- ODDAS project
- Build Your Linux Disk
- BasicLinux
- Zdisk
- AdTran - VPN/firewall VPN Linux Distribution
- mkCDrec - make CD-ROM recovery
- Linux on nanoEngine
- Floppyfw
- Midori Linux - Article on Midori Linux on Wired. Quote from Erik at the top of this page
- Linux Terminal Server Project
- Devil-Linux
- DutNux
- Mindi
- ttylinux
- Coyote Linux
- Partition Image
- fli4l the on(e)-disk-router
- Tinfoil Hat Linux
- Familiar Linux - a linux distribution for handheld computers
- Timo's Rescue CD Set
- Netstation
- GNU/Fiwix Operating System
- Generations Linux
- SystemImager / System Installation Suite
- GENDIST distribution generator
- DIET-PC embedded Linux thin client distribution
- BYZantine Gnu/Linux
- Darik's Boot and Nuke
- TimeSys real-time Linux
- MoviX -- boots from CD and automatically plays every video file on the CD
- katamaranLinux, X11, xfce windowmanager, based on BusyBox
- Prometheus SimplyGNUstep
- lowlifeA documentation project on how to make your own uClibc-based systems and floppy.
- Metadistrosa project to allow you easily make Live-CD distributions.
- SalvareMore Linux than tomsrtbt but less than Knoppix, aims to provide a useful workstation as well as a rescue disk.
- stresslinuxminimal linux distribution running from a bootable cdrom or via PXE.
- thinstationconvert standard PCs into full-featured diskless thinclients.
- UHU-Linux Hungary
- Tuxscreen Linux Phone
- The Kerbango Internet Radio
- LinuxMagic VPN Firewall
- I-Silver Linux appliance servers
- Sharp Zaurus PDA
- Cyclades-TS and other Cyclades products
- Buffalo WBR-G54 wireless router
- Belkin 54g Wireless DSL/Cable Gateway Router
- Linksys WRT54G - Wireless-G Broadband Router
- Dell TrueMobile 1184
- Actiontec Dual PC Modem

Do you use BusyBox? I'd love to know about it and I'd be happy to link to you.

Mail all comments, insults, suggestions and bribes to Erik Andersen The Busybox logo is copyright 1999-2002, Erik Andersen. |  |  |  |  |