# # For a description of the syntax of this configuration file, # see scripts/kbuild/config-language.txt. # menu "Linux System Utilities" config CONFIG_DMESG bool "dmesg" default n help dmesg is used to examine or control the kernel ring buffer. When the Linux kernel prints messages to the system log, they are stored in the kernel ring buffer. You can use dmesg to print the kernel's ring buffer, clear the kernel ring buffer, change the size of the kernel ring buffer, and change the priority level at which kernel messages are also logged to the system console. Enable this option if you wish to enable the 'dmesg' utility. config CONFIG_FEATURE_DMESG_PRETTY bool "pretty dmesg output" default y depends on CONFIG_DMESG help If you wish to scrub the syslog level from the output, say 'Y' here. The syslog level is a string prefixed to every line with the form "<#>". With this option you will see: # dmesg Linux version 2.6.17.4 ..... BIOS-provided physical RAM map: BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009f000 (usable) Without this option you will see: # dmesg <5>Linux version 2.6.17.4 ..... <6>BIOS-provided physical RAM map: <6> BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009f000 (usable) config CONFIG_FBSET bool "fbset" default n help fbset is used to show or change the settings of a Linux frame buffer device. The frame buffer device provides a simple and unique interface to access a graphics display. Enable this option if you wish to enable the 'fbset' utility. config CONFIG_FEATURE_FBSET_FANCY bool "Turn on extra fbset options" default n depends on CONFIG_FBSET help This option enables extended fbset options, allowing one to set the framebuffer size, color depth, etc. interface to access a graphics display. Enable this option if you wish to enable extended fbset options. config CONFIG_FEATURE_FBSET_READMODE bool "Turn on fbset readmode support" default n depends on CONFIG_FBSET help This option allows fbset to read the video mode database stored by default as /etc/fb.modes, which can be used to set frame buffer device to pre-defined video modes. config CONFIG_FDFLUSH bool "fdflush" default n help fdflush is only needed when changing media on slightly-broken removable media drives. It is used to make Linux believe that a hardware disk-change switch has been actuated, which causes Linux to forget anything it has cached from the previous media. If you have such a slightly-broken drive, you will need to run fdflush every time you change a disk. Most people have working hardware and can safely leave this disabled. config CONFIG_FDFORMAT bool "fdformat" default n help fdformat is used to low-level format a floppy disk. config CONFIG_FDISK bool "fdisk" default n help The fdisk utility is used to divide hard disks into one or more logical disks, which are generally called partitions. This utility can be used to list and edit the set of partitions or BSD style 'disk slices' that are defined on a hard drive. config FDISK_SUPPORT_LARGE_DISKS bool "support over 4GB disks" default y depends on CONFIG_FDISK help Enable this option to support large disks > 4GB. config CONFIG_FEATURE_FDISK_WRITABLE bool "Write support" default y depends on CONFIG_FDISK help Enabling this option allows you to create or change a partition table and write those changes out to disk. If you leave this option disabled, you will only be able to view the partition table. config CONFIG_FEATURE_AIX_LABEL bool "Support AIX disklabels" default n depends on CONFIG_FDISK && CONFIG_FEATURE_FDISK_WRITABLE help Enabling this option allows you to create or change AIX disklabels. Most people can safely leave this option disabled. config CONFIG_FEATURE_SGI_LABEL bool "Support SGI disklabels" default n depends on CONFIG_FDISK && CONFIG_FEATURE_FDISK_WRITABLE help Enabling this option allows you to create or change SGI disklabels. Most people can safely leave this option disabled. config CONFIG_FEATURE_SUN_LABEL bool "Support SUN disklabels" default n depends on CONFIG_FDISK && CONFIG_FEATURE_FDISK_WRITABLE help Enabling this option allows you to create or change SUN disklabels. Most people can safely leave this option disabled. config CONFIG_FEATURE_OSF_LABEL bool "Support BSD disklabels" default n depends on CONFIG_FDISK && CONFIG_FEATURE_FDISK_WRITABLE help Enabling this option allows you to create or change BSD disklabels and define and edit BSD disk slices. config CONFIG_FEATURE_FDISK_ADVANCED bool "Support expert mode" default n depends on CONFIG_FDISK && CONFIG_FEATURE_FDISK_WRITABLE help Enabling this option allows you to do terribly unsafe things like define arbitrary drive geometry, move the beginning of data in a partition, and similarly evil things. Unless you have a very good reason you would be wise to leave this disabled. config CONFIG_FREERAMDISK bool "freeramdisk" default n help Linux allows you to create ramdisks. This utility allows you to delete them and completely free all memory that was used for the ramdisk. For example, if you boot Linux into a ramdisk and later pivot_root, you may want to free the memory that is allocated to the ramdisk. If you have no use for freeing memory from a ramdisk, leave this disabled. config CONFIG_FSCK_MINIX bool "fsck_minix" default n help The minix filesystem is a nice, small, compact, read-write filesystem with little overhead. It is not a journaling filesystem however and can experience corruption if it is not properly unmounted or if the power goes off in the middle of a write. This utility allows you to check for and attempt to repair any corruption that occurs to a minix filesystem. config CONFIG_MKFS_MINIX bool "mkfs_minix" default n help The minix filesystem is a nice, small, compact, read-write filesystem with little overhead. If you wish to be able to create minix filesystems this utility will do the job for you. comment "Minix filesystem support" depends on CONFIG_FSCK_MINIX || CONFIG_MKFS_MINIX config CONFIG_FEATURE_MINIX2 bool "Support Minix fs v2 (fsck_minix/mkfs_minix)" default y depends on CONFIG_FSCK_MINIX || CONFIG_MKFS_MINIX help If you wish to be able to create version 2 minix filesystems, enable this. If you enabled 'mkfs_minix' then you almost certainly want to be using the version 2 filesystem support. config CONFIG_GETOPT bool "getopt" default n help The getopt utility is used to break up (parse) options in command lines to make it easy to write complex shell scripts that also check for legal (and illegal) options. If you want to write horribly complex shell scripts, or use some horribly complex shell script written by others, this utility may be for you. Most people will wisely leave this disabled. config CONFIG_HEXDUMP bool "hexdump" default n help The hexdump utility is used to display binary data in a readable way that is comparable to the output from most hex editors. config CONFIG_HWCLOCK bool "hwclock" default n help The hwclock utility is used to read and set the hardware clock on a system. This is primarily used to set the current time on shutdown in the hardware clock, so the hardware will keep the correct time when Linux is _not_ running. config CONFIG_FEATURE_HWCLOCK_LONG_OPTIONS bool "Support long options (--hctosys,...)" default n depends on CONFIG_HWCLOCK && CONFIG_GETOPT_LONG help By default, the hwclock utility only uses short options. If you are overly fond of its long options, such as --hctosys, --utc, etc) then enable this option. config CONFIG_FEATURE_HWCLOCK_ADJTIME_FHS bool "Use FHS /var/lib/hwclock/adjtime" default y depends on CONFIG_HWCLOCK help Starting with FHS 2.3, the adjtime state file is supposed to exist at /var/lib/hwclock/adjtime instead of /etc/adjtime. If you wish to use the FHS behavior, answer Y here, otherwise answer N for the classic /etc/adjtime path. http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#VARLIBHWCLOCKSTATEDIRECTORYFORHWCLO config CONFIG_IPCRM bool "ipcrm" default n select CONFIG_FEATURE_SUID help The ipcrm utility allows the removal of System V interprocess communication (IPC) objects and the associated data structures from the system. config CONFIG_IPCS bool "ipcs" default n select CONFIG_FEATURE_SUID help The ipcs utility is used to provide information on the currently allocated System V interprocess (IPC) objects in the system. config CONFIG_LOSETUP bool "losetup" default n help losetup is used to associate or detach a loop device with a regular file or block device, and to query the status of a loop device. This version does not currently support enabling data encryption. config CONFIG_MDEV bool "mdev" default n help mdev is a mini-udev implementation: call it with -s to populate /dev from /sys, then "echo /sbin/mdev > /proc/sys/kernel/hotplug" to have it handle hotplug events afterwards. Device names are taken from sysfs. config CONFIG_FEATURE_MDEV_CONF bool "Support /etc/mdev.conf" default n depends on CONFIG_MDEV help The mdev config file contains lines that look like: hd[a-z][0-9]* 0:3 660 That's device name (with regex match), uid:gid, and permissions. Config file parsing stops on the first matching line. If no config entry is matched, devices are created with default 0:0 660. (Make the last line match .* to override this.) config CONFIG_FEATURE_MDEV_EXEC bool "Support command execution at device addition/removal" default n depends on CONFIG_FEATURE_MDEV_CONF help This adds support for an optional field to /etc/mdev.conf, consisting of a special character and a command line to run after creating the corresponding device(s) and before removing, ala: hdc root:cdrom 660 *ln -s $MDEV cdrom The $MDEV environment variable is set to the name of the device. The special characters and their meanings are: @ Run after creating the device. $ Run before removing the device. * Run both after creating and before removing the device. Commands are executed via system() so you need /bin/sh, meaning you probably want to select a default shell in the Shells menu. config CONFIG_MKSWAP bool "mkswap" default n help The mkswap utility is used to configure a file or disk partition as Linux swap space. This allows Linux to use the entire file or partition as if it were additional RAM, which can greatly increase the capability of low-memory machines. This additional memory is much slower than real RAM, but can be very helpful at preventing your applications being killed by the Linux out of memory (OOM) killer. Once you have created swap space using 'mkswap' you need to enable the swap space using the 'swapon' utility. config CONFIG_FEATURE_MKSWAP_V0 bool "version 0 support" default n depends on CONFIG_MKSWAP # depends on CONFIG_MKSWAP && CONFIG_DEPRECATED help Enable support for the old v0 style. If your kernel is older than 2.1.117, then v0 support is the only option. config CONFIG_MORE bool "more" default n help more is a simple utility which allows you to read text one screen sized page at a time. If you want to read text that is larger than the screen, and you are using anything faster than a 300 baud modem, you will probably find this utility very helpful. If you don't have any need to reading text files, you can leave this disabled. config CONFIG_FEATURE_USE_TERMIOS bool "Use termios to manipulate the screen" default y depends on CONFIG_MORE help This option allows utilities such as 'more' and 'top' to determine the size of the screen. If you leave this disabled, your utilities that display things on the screen will be especially primitive and will be unable to determine the current screen size, and will be unable to move the cursor. config CONFIG_MOUNT bool "mount" default n help All files and filesystems in Unix are arranged into one big directory tree. The 'mount' utility is used to graft a filesystem onto a particular part of the tree. A filesystem can either live on a block device, or it can be accessible over the network, as is the case with NFS filesystems. Most people using BusyBox will also want to enable the 'mount' utility. config CONFIG_FEATURE_MOUNT_NFS bool "Support mounting NFS file systems" default n depends on CONFIG_MOUNT help Enable mounting of NFS file systems. config CONFIG_FEATURE_MOUNT_FLAGS depends on CONFIG_MOUNT bool "Support lots of -o flags in mount." default y help Without this, mount only supports ro/rw/remount. With this, it supports nosuid, suid, dev, nodev, exec, noexec, sync, async, atime, noatime, diratime, nodiratime, loud, bind, move, shared, slave, private, unbindable, rshared, rslave, rprivate, and runbindable. config CONFIG_FEATURE_MOUNT_FSTAB depends on CONFIG_MOUNT bool "Support /etc/fstab and -a" default y help Support mount all and looking for files in /etc/fstab. config CONFIG_PIVOT_ROOT bool "pivot_root" default n help The pivot_root utility swaps the mount points for the root filesystem with some other mounted filesystem. This allows you to do all sorts of wild and crazy things with your Linux system and is far more powerful than 'chroot'. Note: This is for initrd in linux 2.4. Under initramfs (introduced in linux 2.6) use switch_root instead. config CONFIG_RDATE bool "rdate" default n help The rdate utility allows you to synchronize the date and time of your system clock with the date and time of a remote networked system using the RFC868 protocol, which is built into the inetd daemon on most systems. config CONFIG_READPROFILE bool "readprofile" default n help This allows you to parse /proc/profile for basic profiling. config CONFIG_SETARCH bool "setarch" default n help The linux32 utility is used to create a 32bit environment for the specified program (usually a shell). It only makes sense to have this util on a system that supports both 64bit and 32bit userland (like amd64/x86, ppc64/ppc, sparc64/sparc, etc...). config CONFIG_SWAPONOFF bool "swaponoff" default n help This option enables both the 'swapon' and the 'swapoff' utilities. Once you have created some swap space using 'mkswap', you also need to enable your swap space with the 'swapon' utility. The 'swapoff' utility is used, typically at system shutdown, to disable any swap space. If you are not using any swap space, you can leave this option disabled. config CONFIG_SWITCH_ROOT bool "switch_root" default n help The switch_root utility is used from initramfs to select a new root device. Under initramfs, you have to use this instead of pivot_root. (Stop reading here if you don't care why.) Booting with initramfs extracts a gzipped cpio archive into rootfs (which is a variant of ramfs/tmpfs). Because rootfs can't be moved or unmounted*, pivot_root will not work from initramfs. Instead, switch_root deletes everything out of rootfs (including itself), does a mount --move that overmounts rootfs with the new root, and then execs the specified init program. * Because the Linux kernel uses rootfs internally as the starting and ending point for searching through the kernel's doubly linked list of active mount points. That's why. config CONFIG_UMOUNT bool "umount" default n help When you want to remove a mounted filesystem from its current mount point, for example when you are shutting down the system, the 'umount' utility is the tool to use. If you enabled the 'mount' utility, you almost certainly also want to enable 'umount'. config CONFIG_FEATURE_UMOUNT_ALL bool "umount -a option" default n depends on CONFIG_UMOUNT help Support -a option to unmount all currently mounted filesystems. comment "Common options for mount/umount" depends on CONFIG_MOUNT || CONFIG_UMOUNT config CONFIG_FEATURE_MOUNT_LOOP bool "Support loopback mounts" default n depends on CONFIG_MOUNT || CONFIG_UMOUNT help Enabling this feature allows automatic mounting of files (containing filesystem images) via the linux kernel's loopback devices. The mount command will detect you are trying to mount a file instead of a block device, and transparently associate the file with a loopback device. The umount command will also free that loopback device. You can still use the 'losetup' utility (to manually associate files with loop devices) if you need to do something advanced, such as specify an offset or cryptographic options to the loopback device. (If you don't want umount to free the loop device, use "umount -D".) config CONFIG_FEATURE_MTAB_SUPPORT bool "Support for the old /etc/mtab file" default n depends on CONFIG_MOUNT || CONFIG_UMOUNT help Historically, Unix systems kept track of the currently mounted partitions in the file "/etc/mtab". These days, the kernel exports the list of currently mounted partitions in "/proc/mounts", rendering the old mtab file obsolete. (In modern systems, /etc/mtab should be a symlink to /proc/mounts.) The only reason to have mount maintain an /etc/mtab file itself is if your stripped-down embedded system does not have a /proc directory. If you must use this, keep in mind it's inherently brittle (for example a mount under chroot won't update it), can't handle modern features like separate per-process filesystem namespaces, requires that your /etc directory be writeable, tends to get easily confused by --bind or --move mounts, won't update if you rename a directory that contains a mount point, and so on. (In brief: avoid.) About the only reason to use this is if you've removed /proc from your kernel. endmenu