4 The BusyBox build process is similar to the Linux kernel build:
6 make menuconfig # This creates a file called ".config"
7 make # This creates the "busybox" executable
8 make install # or make PREFIX=/path/from/root install
10 The full list of configuration and install options is available by typing:
17 The easy way to try out BusyBox for the first time, without having to install
18 it, is to enable all features and then use "standalone shell" mode with a
21 To enable all features, use "make defconfig", which produces the largest
22 general-purpose configuration. (It's allyesconfig minus debugging options,
23 optional packaging choices, and a few special-purpose features requiring
24 extra configuration to use.)
30 Standalone shell mode causes busybox's built-in command shell to run
31 any built-in busybox applets directly, without looking for external
32 programs by that name. Supplying an empty command path (as above) means
33 the only commands busybox can find are the built-in ones.
35 (Note that the standalone shell currently requires /proc/self/exe to
41 Busybox is optimized for size, but enabling the full set of functionality
42 still results in a fairly large executable -- more than 1 megabyte when
43 statically linked. To save space, busybox can be configured with only the
44 set of applets needed for each environment. The minimal configuration, with
45 all applets disabled, produces a 4k executable. (It's useless, but very small.)
47 The manual configurator "make menuconfig" modifies the existing configuration.
48 (For systems without ncurses, try "make config" instead.) The two most
49 interesting starting configurations are "make allnoconfig" (to start with
50 everything disabled and add just what you need), and "make defconfig" (to
51 start with everything enabled and remove what you don't need). If menuconfig
52 is run without an existing configuration, make defconfig will run first to
53 create a known starting point.
55 Other starting configurations (mostly used for testing purposes) include
56 "make allbareconfig" (enables all applets but disables all optional features),
57 "make allyesconfig" (enables absolutely everything including debug features),
58 and "make randconfig" (produce a random configuration).
60 Configuring BusyBox produces a file ".config", which can be saved for future
61 use. Run "make oldconfig" to bring a .config file from an older version of
67 Busybox is a single executable that can behave like many different commands,
68 and BusyBox uses the name it was invoked under to determine the desired
69 behavior. (Try "mv busybox ls" and then "./ls -l".)
71 Installing busybox consists of creating symlinks (or hardlinks) to the busybox
72 binary for each applet enabled in busybox, and making sure these symlinks are
73 in the shell's command $PATH. Running "make install" creates these symlinks,
74 or "make install-hardlinks" creates hardlinks instead (useful on systems with
75 a limited number of inodes). This install process uses the file
76 "busybox.links" (created by make), which contains the list of enabled applets
77 and the path at which to install them.
79 Installing links to busybox is not always necessary. The special applet name
80 "busybox" (or with any optional suffix, such as "busybox-static") uses the
81 first argument to determine which applet to behave as, for example
82 "./busybox cat LICENSE". (Running the busybox applet with no arguments gives
83 a list of all enabled applets.) The standalone shell can also call busybox
84 applets without links to busybox under other names in the filesystem. You can
85 also configure a standaone install capability into the busybox base applet,
86 and then install such links at runtime with one of "busybox --install" (for
87 hardlinks) or "busybox --install -s" (for symlinks).
89 If you enabled the busybox shared library feature (libbusybox.so) and want
90 to run tests without installing, set your LD_LIBRARY_PATH accordingly when
91 running the executable:
93 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd` ./busybox
98 By default, the BusyBox build puts its temporary files in the source tree.
99 Building from a read-only source tree, or building multiple configurations from
100 the same source directory, requires the ability to put the temporary files
103 To build out of tree, cd to an empty directory and configure busybox from there:
105 make -f /path/to/source/Makefile defconfig
109 Alternately, use the O=$BUILDPATH option (with an absolute path) during the
110 configuration step, as in:
112 make O=/some/empty/directory allyesconfig
113 cd /some/empty/directory
115 make PREFIX=. install
120 Se also the busybox FAQ, under the questions "How can I get started using
121 BusyBox" and "How do I build a BusyBox-based system?" The BusyBox FAQ is
122 available from http://www.busybox.net/FAQ.html or as the file
123 docs/busybox.net/FAQ.html in this tarball.