[Buildroot] [Bug 11836] New: Embedded Shell Scripts in BusyBox

[Buildroot] [Bug 11836] New: Embedded Shell Scripts in BusyBox

[bugzilla at busybox.net]

https://bugs.busybox.net/show_bug.cgi?id=11836

            Bug ID: 11836
           Summary: Embedded Shell Scripts in BusyBox
           Product: buildroot
           Version: unspecified
          Hardware: All
                OS: All
            Status: NEW
          Severity: enhancement
          Priority: P5
         Component: Other
          Assignee: unassigned at buildroot.uclibc.org
          Reporter: br-max at re-gister.com
                CC: buildroot at uclibc.org
  Target Milestone: ---

BusyBox has the feature to embed custom shell scripts into the main binary
during the build process.
Details are described at the following link:
https://git.busybox.net/busybox/tree/docs/embedded-scripts.txt

If the BusyBox config FEATURE_SH_EMBEDDED_SCRIPTS is set to yes (which is the
default setting), all scripts from the 'embed' directory of the BusyBox build
folder are compressed and embedded in the BusyBox binary.

It would be great to be able to use this feature with buildroot, but (please
correct me if I'm wrong) unfortunately there is no configuration option in
buildroot to add custom scripts to the 'embed' directory of the BusyBox build
folder.

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[Buildroot] [Bug 11836] Embedded Shell Scripts in BusyBox

[bugzilla at busybox.net]

https://bugs.busybox.net/show_bug.cgi?id=11836

Yann E. MORIN <yann.morin.1998@free.fr> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 CC|                            |yann.morin.1998 at free.fr

--- Comment #1 from Yann E. MORIN <yann.morin.1998@free.fr> ---
Max, All,

> It would be great to be able to use [embedded scripts]

What is the advantage over having the scripts installed in /bin or /usr/bin
instead? If you are concerned about space that much that you want to take
advantage of busybox' compression of the scripts, you would anyway consider
a compressed filesystem like squashfs anyway, so the space gain would
probably be ridiculous.

> there is no configuration option in buildroot [for that]

Indeed no, but it should not be overly complex to add. Yet, I'd like to
see a good explanations why that would be better than to have the scripts
in the filesystem instead.

Regards,
Yann E. MORIN.

PS. Yes, support for embedded scripts is enabled in a default build, but
that's an accident: our busybox .config was created before embedded scripts
were a thing, so they are not explicitly disabled in our .config, and since
the default for them in busybox is 'y', we end up with a buysbox that has
support for embedded script (but no such script).

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[Buildroot] [Bug 11836] Embedded Shell Scripts in BusyBox

[bugzilla at busybox.net]

https://bugs.busybox.net/show_bug.cgi?id=11836

--- Comment #2 from Max <br-max@re-gister.com> ---
Beside the benefit of additional free space on the target filesystem (due to
the compression of the scripts), another advantage is that it is not necessary
to take care about script file permissions (there is no need to set
execute-permissions when the scripts are embedded into the BusyBox binary).

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[Buildroot] [Bug 11836] Embedded Shell Scripts in BusyBox

[bugzilla at busybox.net]

https://bugs.busybox.net/show_bug.cgi?id=11836

Yann E. MORIN <yann.morin.1998@free.fr> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
         Resolution|---                         |INVALID
             Status|NEW                         |RESOLVED

--- Comment #3 from Yann E. MORIN <yann.morin.1998@free.fr> ---
Max, All,

> Beside the benefit of additional free space on the target filesystem (due
> to the compression of the scripts),

As I said: if you are really concerned about the size of the scripts that
you need them to be compressed, you will probably better benefit from a
compressed filesystem to begin with, like squashfs, which would compress
everything, from busybox itself, to the libraries it uses like libc et al.
to all the files on the systems, and not just the few scripts that are
embedded in the busybox binary.

Honestly, I doubt embedding the scripts in the busybox binary wins over
having a squashfs, but I'd like to see numbers.

> another advantage is that it is not necessary to take care about script
> file permissions (there is no need to set execute-permissions when the
> scripts are embedded into the BusyBox binary).

If you can't track the executable bit on your scripts, you have a big
problem in your tooling and/or process and/or build environment.

Again, I am not opposed to having support for embedded scripts, but I'd
like to see a *convincing* argument...

BTW, this is not a bug, but an enhancement request. We usually take new
features as patches sent to the mailing list, so I'm closing this bug.

Regards,
Yann E. MORIN.

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