busybox-w32/win32/process.c, branch waitfor

win32: code shrink procps_scan()

2026-07-15T15:26:35+00:00

The principal change is to replace four separate arrays (one for pids and three for time values) with a single array of structs. There are some other minor adjustments. Saves 96-144 bytes. (GitHub PR #609) Signed-off-by: Ron Yorston

fix: procps_scan: do not confirm a process to be parent if either creation time is unknown.

2026-07-15T14:45:39+00:00

fix: procps_scan: compare process creation times to ensure ppid is real

2026-07-15T14:45:39+00:00

Windows aggressively reuses PIDs of exited processes. When a new irrelevant process gets assigned the former PID of the parent of an orphaned process, `pkill -P`, `pgrep -P`, `ps -o ppid` sees the new process as the parent of the orphaned process, and PPID of the orphan is no longer 1. So in theory, all `pkill -P`, `pgrep -P` calls are potentially dangerous and possible to kill an innocent process which outlives its parent. This issue is already discussed in various Internet communities: - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6593003/how-can-i-reliably-check-whether-one-windows-process-is-the-parent-of-another-in - https://web.archive.org/web/20140701081232/https://www.sapphiresteel.com/Blog/Killing-Trees-the-Windows-way Comparing process creation times seems a feasible mitigation that should almost always work (though not theoretically sound). The executable is added 512 bytes after the patch.

win32: avoid problems with forward slashes in path to cmd.exe

2026-06-06T09:55:46+00:00

Running 'C:/Windows/System32/cmd.exe' from the shell was found to have the unxpected result of creating the directory '.exe'. This is due to the weirdness of cmd.exe. A similar problem with batch files was already being handled in `spawnveq()` by converting forward slashes to backslashes in the path to the executable file. Doing this unconditionally will fix the above case too. (GitHub issue #598) Signed-off-by: Ron Yorston

win32: add FAST_FUNC annotations

2026-05-04T10:51:00+00:00

I've been far too lax in applying FAST_FUNC annotations. These can make function calls smaller and faster, but only on 32-bit systems and for non-static, non-variadic functions with non-void arguments. Saves 4680 bytes in the 32-bit build; 64-bit builds are unaffected.

Add crond and crontab (#561)

2026-05-03T08:53:07+00:00

* Enable crontab * Enable crond * Allow sendmail to be used in crond This also adds another option to the mingw_popen_fd function to capture stderr as well. And also added the options to support WNOHANG as well as an unused status in mingw_wait3 * Check current uid when running crond * Only show tail for mailto jobs * Use system drive for cron * crond: add missing feature check * crond: use spawn_detach for background operation

ash: allow 'times' built-in to report process timing

2026-04-12T10:49:29+00:00

Move existing code which obtains process execution times into a separate function. Use it to allow times(2) to report execution times for the current process, though not child execution times. Change TICKS_PER_SECOND from 100 to 1000 to increase the displayed resolution of process times (though the measured resolution may well be less than this). Adds 48-80 bytes. (GitHub issue #574)

ash: allow execution of busybox-w32 binary without extension

2026-02-25T09:33:36+00:00

If the busybox-w32 binary didn't have an extension the shell was unable to spawn itself: $ ls -l busybox -rwxrwxr-x 1 rmy rmy 661006 Feb 25 09:37 busybox $ ./busybox sh $ ls sh: unable to spawn shell This happened because the shell used spawnve() from the C runtime to execute itself. Microsoft insists on trying to add an extension to the name of the binary unless it has an explicit '.' as its last character. Use the internal spawnveq() instead, as it handles various quirks like the above. Adds 16-32 bytes. (GitHub issue #566)

Allow building with older mingw-w64/gcc

2025-10-01T07:38:49+00:00

Recent versions of busybox-w32 rely on features which are only available in contemporary versions of mingw-w64 and gcc. Allow building on somewhat older toolchains. (GitHub issue #527)

Merge branch 'busybox' into merge

2025-08-15T08:00:13+00:00