How to Install busybox on a rooted device

19 December 2009 by Vinay 6 Comments

In our last post we talked about Droid Explorer to manage your Android device using Windows Explorer. Droid Explorer works with a rooted android device with busybox already installed. BusyBox is a single multicall binary that packages the functionality of many popular standard Unix tools. BusyBox combines tiny versions of many common UNIX utilities into a single small executable. It provides replacements for most of the utilities you usually find in GNU fileutils, shellutils, etc

Now the question is how to install busybox? Here is the workaround, you need to do in order to install busybox on your rooted device

Download the busybox (version 1.15.2) ,
Connect device and start adb shell
Make the system path Read/Write so we can push the file there

$ su
# mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
# exit

copy busybox to the device

adb push ./busybox /system/sbin

open the adb shell again and setup and install busybox with following commands.

$ su
# cd /system/sbin
# chmod 0755 ./busybox
# busybox --install .
# mount -o ro,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
# busybox
# exit

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6 Comments »

Pål A. said:

I have no /system/sbin/ folder on my Hero. What to do?

# 20 December 2009 at 2:55 pm

panie said:

I followed your instructions but the following command failed:
adb push ./busybox /system/sbin
with this error: Permission denied
What should I do?
How can I push the busybox to the /system/bin folder/

# 22 January 2011 at 9:39 pm

panie said:

Hi again.
I have managed to overcome the adb push command using cat file1 > file2 command.
I installed the busybox to another system folder. Not the /system/bin. I need to include this folder in the PATH variable. How can I do it?
Thanks.

# 23 January 2011 at 5:08 am

panie said:

I tried to edit the /init.rc
I did so acquiring the necessary rights. The problem is that after reboot my mobile reinstall the initial settings. Hopefully it did affect my busybox installation.
However the problem remains. How can I set the global PATH variable to include my busybox installation.

# 23 January 2011 at 5:53 am

panie said:

I meant It did not affect my busybox folder.
Sorry for the typing mistake.

# 23 January 2011 at 5:55 am

MikiNP said:

on my u8110
mount -o ro,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
didnt work, system is mounted of mtblock4, u can check with command mount
# mount
…
/dev/block/mtdblock4 /system yaffs2 rw 0 0
…
so I did:
# mount -o ro,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock4 /system
# chmod 0775 /system
# chmod 0775 /system/xbin
# exit
and adb push worked
# chmod 0775 /system/xbin/busybox
# cd /system/xbin
# busybox –install .
and that worked!
then I put back permisions:
# chmod 0755 /system
# chmod 0755 /system/xbin
# reboot

# 4 February 2011 at 7:43 am