BusyBox,
reborn in Rust.
A free-range, non-GMO fork of BusyBox — the whole toolbox in one fully-static binary, now memory-safe and built for the agentic era.
# one static binary, every tool inside $ rustybox grep -rn TODO src/ # ripgrep engine $ rustybox find . -name '*.rs' # walkdir + globset $ rustybox timeout 30 ./flaky-cmd # bound runaway work $ file rustybox rustybox: ELF, statically linked, not a dynamic executable
Why rustybox
One static binary
Fully-static musl for x86_64 and aarch64. Drop it into a container FROM scratch, a rescue image, or a sandbox — no libc, no dependencies.
Memory-safe where it counts
The common tools route to battle-tested Rust: the uutils coreutils, ripgrep's engine for grep, walkdir for find — same CLI, safe internals.
Built for agents
timeout, nohup, dd, shuf and friends baked in — the exact userland an autonomous coding harness needs to bound and script work.
Resurrected in the open
A six-year-dead c2rust transpile, brought back to a current toolchain and hardened arch-by-arch. Read the story →
The toolbox
Pick exactly the applets you want; features gate the dispatch table, not compile time.
Files & text
cat ls cp mv rm mkdir ln stat du df wc sort uniq head tail cut tr sed grep find
Agent & ops
timeout nohup dd shuf nice env printf date sleep base64 sum truncate mktemp realpath nproc
Shells & more
ash hush awk vi tar gzip wget mount … 300+ applets from the BusyBox lineage
Install
# grab a static binary from Releases (x86_64 or aarch64) curl -LO https://github.com/peterlodri-sec/rustybox/releases/latest/download/rustybox-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl chmod +x rustybox-* && ./rustybox-* echo hello # or build a curated core yourself (Linux / Docker) cargo build --release --features "cat ls grep find timeout"
Sponsor the work
rustybox is built in the open, one honest commit at a time — resurrecting dead code, hardening it across architectures, and making the classic Unix toolbox memory-safe. If it saves you a dependency, a container megabyte, or a timeout around a runaway command, back it.
Name in SPONSORS.md + the warm glow of funding safe systems software.
Above + your name/handle in the project README.
Above + your logo right here on rustybox.io.
Above + logo up top + a say in which applets go memory-safe next.
One-time contributions welcome too · every sponsor credited (opt-out anytime)