From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: John Stile <john@stilen.com>
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 17:47:16 -0700
Subject: [Buildroot] how does buildroot avoid requireing root?
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List-Id: <buildroot.busybox.net>
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To: buildroot@busybox.net

I am confused about how buildroot creates busybox.

There are notes that one must ensure that busybox setuid root.

Performing this operation must be performed as root:
   chown 0.0 /bin/busybox; chmod 4755 /bin/busybox

Yet when I use buildroot I never become root.

How does buildroot accomplish this?

In output/build/busybox-1.18.5 I see applets/install.sh calls:
  install -m 755 busybox $prefix/bin/busybox || exit 1

but I don't see how this becomes setuid?

On my embedded system, I see:
-rwsr-xr-x    1 root     root        605876 Jun 28  2013 /bin/busybox*