BusyBox
| BusyBox | |
|---|---|
| Original author(s) | Bruce Perens |
| Developer(s) | Erik Andersen, Rob Landley, Denys Vlasenko and others |
| Initial release | November 4, 1999 |
| Stable release | 1.36.1
/ 19 May 2023 |
| Repository | |
| Written in | C |
| Operating system | Unix-like |
| Size | 2.1 MB (compressed "tar.bz2") |
| Type | |
| License | Since 1.3.0: GPL-2.0-only Until 1.2.2.1: GPL-2.0-or-later |
| Website | busybox |
BusyBox is a software suite that provides several Unix utilities in a single executable file. It runs in a variety of POSIX environments such as Linux, Android, and FreeBSD, although many of the tools it provides are designed to work with interfaces provided by the Linux kernel. It was specifically created for embedded operating systems with very limited resources. The authors dubbed it "The Swiss Army knife of Embedded Linux", as the single executable replaces basic functions of more than 300 common commands. It is released as free software under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2, after controversially deciding not to move to version 3.