linuxboot / linuxboot/heads

Consider moving away of busybox

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Description

Some alternatives that might be a direct replacement:

  • rustybox (as name implies its in rust)
  • toybox (c more posix compliant)
  • u-root (go based but not yet tinygo compliant)

Opening this issue because lack of wget/curl in https with cert verification is a still a problem if we want to be able to outsource some of the things currently packed in the evergrowing initrd under Heads

Note: haven't compared applets provided yet, while toybox from my limited experience under Android shell seems to be good enough.

We would have to pack all features in and see what breaks and go from there.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

No specific files or tests are named. Start by comparing the applets provided by rustybox, toybox, and u-root with the current initrd requirements, especially wget/curl HTTPS certificate verification; done means selecting a viable replacement, packing the needed features, and identifying what breaks.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
c, go, linux, rust
Domain
build-system, embedded-iot, operating-systems
Issue type
Refactor
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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