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The following document includes a continuous description of the current
commands, functions and utilities included in the busybox.
John Cooper
johnc@lineo.com
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BusyBox 0.38, Functions and the Arguments they Support
New Apps that have been added to BusyBox since this document was written:
ping, hostname, mkfifo, free, tail, du, tee, head, sort, uniq, lsmod, rmmod, fbset, and loadacm.
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cat [file]
Display file contents to standard output.
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chmod [-R] Mode,[Mode] file
Change file access permissions (mode) of one or more files.
-R Follows the directory tree from the current location thru all sub-directories,
applying changes.
Mode = u User
g Group
o Other
a All
Permission = r Read
w Write
s Set user (or group) ID
t Sticky bit file cannot be removed by other
than the owner.
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chown [option] owner[group]file
Change owner and (or) group of file to owner and (or) group.
Only the current owner or a priveleged user may change an owner.
-R Follows the directory tree from the current location thru all sub-directories, applying
changes.
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chgrp [option] newgroup file
Change group of file or files to new group name or ID number located in /etc/group.
Only the current owner or a priveleged user may change the group name or ID
-R Follows the directory tree from the current location thru all sub-directories,
applying changes.
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chroot NEWROOT [Command...] (System Admin Command)
Run command with root directory set to NEWROOT. Only the current owner or a priveleged
user may use this command.
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clear
Clear screen.
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cp [option] fileA fileB
Copy fileA to fileB or fileA to directory maintaining fileA name.
-a archive Maintain file attributes whenever possible. Same as -dpR
-d no dereference Maintain hard link relationships between fileA and fileB.
No dereference of symbolic links.
-p maintain file Maintain all file attributes and information including owner
attributes group permissions and time information.
-R recursive Copies directories recursively
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date [option [+format] [date]
date [option] [MMDDhhmm[[CC]YY][.SS]]
Display the current system date and time.
-R RFC-822 string Output an RFC-822 compliant date string.
-s set DATE Set date where date is entered in MMDDhhmm etc. format.
-u universal Print or set Coordinated Universal Time.
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dd [if=name] [of=name] [bs=n] [count=n]
Copy a file, converting and formatting according to options. Most useful when copying from
physical input and output devices.
if=fileA (instead of standard input)
of=fileB (instead of standard output)
bs=n Read and write N Bytes at a time.
count=n Copy only n input blocks.
Bytes may be suffixed by k for x1024, b for x512 and w for x2.
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df
Display filesystem, number of blocks used, number of blocks available, number of blocks in use,
and mount point.
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dmesg [-c] [-n level] [-s bufsize] (System Admin Command)
Display system control messages. Stored in the kernel ring buffer are all messages since the
last system boot, or the most recent if the buffer had been full.
-c Clear buffer after printing messages.
-n level Set the level of system message to be displayed on the console.
-s bufsize Display the size of the kernel ring buffer.
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find [PATH] [EXPRESSION]
Search for files in the current directory, and all subdirectories for patterns that match
expression. Expressions may consist of the following.
-follow Dereference symbolic links.
-name PATTERN Find files that match PATTERN. Metacharacters should be escaped or
quoted.
-print Print full file name, followed by a newline, to standard out.
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chvt N
Change foreground virtual terminal to /dev/ttyN.
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deallocvt N
Deallocate unused virtual terminal /dev/ttyN.
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fsck.minix [-larvsmf] /dev/name
Perform a consistency check for minix filesystems.
-l List filenames.
-r Perform interactive repairs.
-a Perform automatic repairs
-v Verbose
-s Output superblock information
-m Activates minix-like "mode not cleared" warnings.
-f Force file system check.
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mkfs.minix [-c | -l filename ] [-nXX] [-iXX] /dev/name [blocks]
Make a minix file system.
-c Check device for bad blocks.
-n [ 14|30 ] Specify max length of filenames.
-i Specify number of inodes for filesystem.
-l filename
Read the bad blocks list from filename.
-v Make a minix version 2 filesystem.
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grep [OPTIONS] PATTERN [FILE]
Search for PATTERN in each FILE or from standard input.
-h Suppress prefixing filename on output.
-i Ignore case distinctions.
-n Print line number with output lines.
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init
The parent of all processes. Only to be run by the kernel.
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kill [ -s sigspec | -signum | -sigspec ] [pid | job ] or
kill -l [ exitstatus ]
Currently no information help page for this command
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ln [option] TARGET... LINK_NAME|DIRECTORY
Create a link named LINK_NAME or DIRECTORY to TARGET.
-s Make symbolic links instead of hard links.
-f Remove existing destination files.
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ls [ -1acdelnpuxACF ] [FILENAMES]
List contents of directories.
-1 Single entry per column of output.
-a All files including hidden files beginning with a ..
-c Files are listed by status change time.
-d List directories, not there contents.
-e (no information on this option)
-l List in long format including permissions, owner, size
modification time etc.
-n Similar to -l, except use group ID and user ID instead
of owner and group names.
-p Directories are marked with a /.
-u Display files sorted by file access time.
-x Display files across the screen in rows.
-A Display hidden and all other files except . and ...
-C (Default, display files in columns)
-F Tag files by type by appending:
/ to directories
* to executables
@ to symbolic links
| to fifo's
= to sockets
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mkdir [OPTION] directory
Create directories if they do not already exist. You must have write permission to create
directories. Default mode can be modified by users umask.
-m Used to set permission mode. (See chmod description)
-p Make parent directories if they don't already exist. Return error code if
they already exist.
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mknod NAME TYPE MAJOR MINOR
Make block or character special files.
TYPEs include:
b: Make a block (buffered) device.
c or u: Make a character (un-buffered) device.
p: Make a named pipe. Major and minor are ignored for named pipes.
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mkswap [-c] [ -v0|-v1 ] device [block-count]
Prepare a disk partition to be used as a swap partition.
-c Check for read-ability.
-v0 Make version 0 swap [max 128 megs]
-v1 Make version 1 swap [big |] default for
kernels > 2.1.117.
block-count
Number of blocks to use. (Default is the entire
partition).
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more [file]
Display file one screen page at a time.
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mount [flags]
mount [flags] device directory [-o options, more options ]
Mount a filesystem for file access.
-a Mount all file systems in fstab.
-o option
async/sync: Writes are asynchronous/synchronous.
dev/nodev: Allow use of special device files
/disallow them.
exec/noexec: Allow use of executable files
/disallow them.
suid/nosuid: Allow set-user-id-root programs
/disallow them.
remount: Remount a currently-mounted filesystem
changing it's flags.
ro/rw: Mount for read-only/read-write.
(There are more flags specific to each filesystem.
See the written documentation for those.)
-r Mount the filesystem read only.
-t FILESYSTEM TYPE
Specify the filesystem type.
-w Mount for reading and writing default
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mv fileA fileB or
mv fileA dirA
Move fileA to fileB. (Renames fileA to fileB)
Move fileA to dirA (Moves fileA into dirA)
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ps
Report process status. No options are currently supported.
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pwd
Print working directory
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reboot
Reboot system. No options are currently supported.
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rm [option] file
Remove or unlink the files.
-f Remove existing destinations. Never prompt.
-r or -R Remove contents of directories recursively.
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rmdir [OPTION] ... directory
Remove directories if they are empty.
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sed
Usage: sed [-n] -e script [file...]
Allowed sed scripts come in the following form:
'ADDR [!] COMMAND'
where address ADDR can be:
NUMBER Match specified line number
$ Match last line
/REGEXP/ Match specified regexp
(! inverts the meaning of the match)
and COMMAND can be:
s/regexp/replacement/[igp]
which attempt to match regexp against the pattern space
and if successful replaces the matched portion with replacement.
aTEXT
which appends TEXT after the pattern space
Options:
-e add the script to the commands to be executed
-n suppress automatic printing of pattern space
This version of sed matches full regular expresions.
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sleep N
Pause for N seconds.
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tar -[cxtvOf] [tarFileName] [file]
Create, extract or list files from a tar file.
c=create
x=extract
t=list contents
v=verbose
O=extract to stdout
f=tarfile or "-" for standard input
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swapon device
Start swapping virtual memory pages on the given device.
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swapoff device
Stop swapping virtual memory pages on the given device.
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sync
Write all buffered filesystem blocks to disk.
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touch [-c] file [file...]
Update the last modified date on given file(s).
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true
A null command that returns a successful 0 exit status code. (See false)
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false
A null command that returns an unsuccessful or non-zero exit status.
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uname [option]
Print certain system information. With no option, same as -s.
-a Display all information
-m Display machine hardware type.
-n Display machine network node hostname.
-r Display OS release
-s Display OS Name.
-p Display Host processor type.
-v Display OS Version.
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umount [flags] filesystem | directory
Unmounts designated filesystem previously mounted on device.
-a Unmount all file systems.
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update
cvs update [options] files
Incorporates recent changes from the repository into files in your working directory. No
options are currently supported.
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zcat [options] files
Usage: zcat [OPTION]... FILE
Uncompress FILE (or standard input if FILE is '-').
(When invoked as zcat, defaults to having -c turned on)
Options:
-c Write output to standard output
-t Test compressed file integrity
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gunzip (Same as zcat, but without the "-c" option.)
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gzip [OPTION]... FILE
Compress FILE with maximum compression.
When FILE is -, reads standard input. Implies -c.
Options:
-c Write output to standard output instead of FILE.gz
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loadfont
No information available with --help.
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loadkmap
No information available with --help
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linuxrc
No information available with --help
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