BusyBox is a single multi-call binary that bundles hundreds of commands and tools into one file. It is particularly useful on minimalist distributions or Docker images like Alpine, and on embedded devices [Link] — often called “The Swiss Army Knife of Embedded Linux”.
It includes around 300 of the most common Linux/UNIX commands and works on virtually any platform it is compiled for, including OpenWRT, Android, and managed network devices like routers and switches.
INSTALLATION
which busybox || sudo apt install busybox -y
You can also run it in a container to explore and test:
docker pull busybox docker run busybox ls
LIST THE AVAILABLE COMMANDS
busybox busybox --list
Example output of “Currently defined functions” from Ubuntu 22.04:
[, [[, acpid, adjtimex, ar, arch, arp, arping, ash, awk, basename, bc, blkdiscard, blockdev, brctl, bunzip2, busybox, bzcat, bzip2, cal, cat, chgrp, chmod, chown, chpasswd, chroot, chvt, clear, cmp, cp, cpio, crond, crontab, cttyhack, cut, date, dc, dd, deallocvt, depmod, devmem, df, diff, dirname, dmesg, dnsdomainname, dos2unix, dpkg, dpkg-deb, du, dumpkmap, dumpleases, echo, ed, egrep, env, expand, expr, factor, fallocate, false, fatattr, fdisk, fgrep, find, fold, free, freeramdisk, fsfreeze, fstrim, ftpget, ftpput, getopt, getty, grep, groups, gunzip, gzip, halt, head, hexdump, hostid, hostname, httpd, hwclock, i2cdetect, i2cdump, i2cget, i2cset, id, ifconfig, ifdown, ifup, init, insmod, ionice, ip, ipcalc, ipneigh, kill, killall, klogd, last, less, link, linux32, linux64, linuxrc, ln, loadfont, loadkmap, logger, login, logname, logread, losetup, ls, lsmod, lsscsi, lzcat, lzma, lzop, md5sum, mdev, microcom, mkdir, mkdosfs, mke2fs, mkfifo, mknod, mkpasswd, mkswap, mktemp, modinfo, modprobe, more, mount, mt, mv, nameif, nc, netstat, nl, nologin, nproc, nsenter, nslookup, nuke, od, openvt, partprobe, passwd, paste, patch, pidof, ping, ping6, pivot_root, poweroff, printf, ps, pwd, rdate, readlink, realpath, reboot, renice, reset, resume, rev, rm, rmdir, rmmod, route, rpm, rpm2cpio, run-init, run-parts, sed, seq, setkeycodes, setpriv, setsid, sh, sha1sum, sha256sum, sha512sum, shred, shuf, sleep, sort, ssl_client, start-stop-daemon, stat, static-sh, strings, stty, su, sulogin, svc, svok, swapoff, swapon, switch_root, sync, sysctl, syslogd, tac, tail, tar, taskset, tc, tee, telnet, telnetd, test, tftp, time, timeout, top, touch, tr, traceroute, traceroute6, true, truncate, tty, tunctl, ubirename, udhcpc, udhcpd, uevent, umount, uname, uncompress, unexpand, uniq, unix2dos, unlink, unlzma, unshare, unxz, unzip, uptime, usleep, uudecode, uuencode, vconfig, vi, w, watch, watchdog, wc, wget, which, who, whoami, xargs, xxd, xz, xzcat, yes, zcat
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
If these commands are not provided by another source, BusyBox is likely supplying all of them to the current system.
BONUS
Check out ToyBox, an alternative created by the same developer but focused on Android [Link].
Try Termux on Android for a terminal emulator with a Linux environment [Link].
Also worth exploring: CoreUtils [Link] and MoreUtils [Link].