busybox

Version: 1.10

Status: Done

Description

Busybox is the swiss army coat hanger of embedded Linux and a very powerful tool. It can be compiled to contain any of a long list of standard GNU programs. When invoked, it examines the command used and responds as if it was that command. Eg:

This will cause busybox to act just like GNU tar and uncompress the specified file. This is why it is called a Multi call binary, it can be called by many names and takes on the role of whatever you call it. Normally, there are loads of symlinks to the main BusyBox binary so you just use the command as normal and BusyBox is invoked to do the job.

The busybox present in the MG-35 is quite simplified and it only knows the commands needed to perform the bootstrapping required to get the main file system mounted. However, it's pretty easy to build a new BusyBox with loads of nice features and use this instead.

We have another build named bigbox which includes a lot more applets than the original one. There is also a version provided in the MG350HD, which we named betterbox.

The documentation for all the possible applets is on the busybox site or on the linuxman site.

Download Applets

If you do not have ipkg already installed, put the .bin format tool command (above) into your /usr/bin directory .

History

Version 1.10 - [John, 2008-04-13]

• Ported busybox-1.10 multi-tool binary.
• Lots of new commands.
• Greatly improved hush shell (with interactive prompt)