Linux : busybox,dpkg,apt-get,apt

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Key TakeAway : Concept of Busybox, dpkg, apt-get, apt-cache, apt-mark, apt  with demo.

Busybox : The Swiss Army Knife of Embedded Linux 

It combines many small optimized utilities into a single binary. You may find it in normal desktop linux /bin folder but there are separate binaries for ls,cat,cp  etc . However , in Embedded Linux, you may find all these utilities linked to this single busybox binary .

Let me show you one common use case from a home router using telnet.

Step 1: Telnet should be disabled by default for network security. I have enabled it using GUI for testing purpose and simply removed the external internet  cable for security.

Step 2: Start a telnet session to router IP using putty

Step 3: Login using admin credentials and check the implementation of different linux binaries. These are linked to busybox (ls /bin -lart —->busybox)

You can watch this GIF file.

step 4: Double check  the system OS and target

admin@RT-AC51U:/# uname -a

Linux RT-AC51U 2.6.36 #1 Fri Aug 17 16:42:51 CST 2018 mips GNU/Linux

admin@RT-AC51U:/# cat /proc/cpuinfo

system type : MT7620

processor : 0

cpu model : MIPS 24Kc V5.0

BogoMIPS : 386.04

wait instruction : yes

microsecond timers : yes

tlb_entries : 32

extra interrupt vector : yes

hardware watchpoint : yes, count: 4, address/irw mask: [0x0000, 0x03f8, 0x0fe0, 0x0bf8]

ASEs implemented : mips16 dsp

shadow register sets : 1

core : 0

VCED exceptions : not available

VCEI exceptions : not available

Software Package Management

Software packages for Linux distributions are based on different package formats such as deb(Debian,Ubuntu,Kali Linux), rpm(Red Hat,Fedora) etc. Hence different package installers such as apt,yum etc are available. Let me take the case of Ubuntu

Embedded System Course-May 2024

Debian Package or dpkg

dpkg is the low-level package installer for Debian based operating systems such as Ubuntu, Kali Linux  etc. The file format used is deb

dpkg -l  //List of all installed packages

dpkg –help

Please note that dpkg will not check the dependency,install or configure automatically. There is a provision of another high level package manager for this purpose. These high level package managers apt* use dpkg for installation purpose

You may like to watch the dpkg Demo

Advance Packaging Tool apt-get , apt-cache, apt

• The apt-get utility is used for managing all software packaging requirements i.e. Installing/Removing/Updating software packages or Operating System itself. This check the package dependency and do necessary installation & configuration.
  • sudo apt-get update
  • sudo apt-get install
  • sudo apt-get upgrade
  • sudo apt-get remove — purge tftpd
  • purge option to remove configuration as well
• The apt-cache utility to search packages in apt’s cache
  • apt-cache pkgnames
  • apt-cache search tftpd
• The latest apt utility consists of all important commands from apt-get and apt-cache. So this should be used
  • apt list
  • apt show tftpd
  • apt –help
  • sudo apt edit-sources
• apt-mark can be utilized to mark packages auto,manual,hold etc
  • apt-mark showmanual  

You may like to watch the APT-Commands Demo

Busybox Help command

The detail in help may differ depending on its implementation. For ex :  Desktop Ubuntu provides complete information of busybox tftp –help

But in embedded linux , It may be as follows

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