GNU cp and busybox cp behave differently if both -L (follow symlinks) and -l (create hardlinks) are specified, and you try to copy a symlink. GNU cp (8.24) makes a hardlink to the file that's the target of the symlink. busybox cp (1.23.2) makes a hardlink to the symlink itself. Here's an example: $ date >orig $ ln -s orig symlink $ cp -Ll symlink gnu-copy $ busybox cp -Ll symlink busybox-copy $ ls -li orig symlink gnu-copy busybox-copy 64454 lrwxrwxrwx 2 ats ats 4 Jul 10 17:48 busybox-copy -> orig 64453 -rw-r--r-- 2 ats ats 29 Jul 10 17:48 gnu-copy 64453 -rw-r--r-- 2 ats ats 29 Jul 10 17:48 orig 64454 lrwxrwxrwx 2 ats ats 4 Jul 10 17:48 symlink -> orig -l isn't specified by POSIX, but the GNU cp behaviour is basically what I'd expect.