stdbuf supposed behavior for subprocesses

straceing the execve (with environ) and write system calls can help see what's going on:

Here with the stdbuf of GNU coreutils 8.25. I beleive FreeBSD's stdbuf works similarly:

exec and no fork:

$ env -i strace -s200 -vfe execve,write /usr/bin/stdbuf -o0 /usr/bin/env /usr/bin/env > /dev/null
execve("/usr/bin/stdbuf", ["/usr/bin/stdbuf", "-o0", "/usr/bin/env", "/usr/bin/env"], []) = 0
execve("/usr/bin/env", ["/usr/bin/env", "/usr/bin/env"], ["_STDBUF_O=0", "LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/coreutils/libstdbuf.so"]) = 0
execve("/usr/bin/env", ["/usr/bin/env"], ["_STDBUF_O=0", "LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/coreutils/libstdbuf.so"]) = 0
write(1, "_STDBUF_O=0\n", 12)           = 12
write(1, "LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/coreutils/libstdbuf.so\n", 60) = 60
+++ exited with 0 +++

LD_PRELOAD and the config in _STDBUF_O is passed to both env commands. The two write() system calls even though the output doesn't go to a terminal confirms the output is not buffered.

fork and exec:

$ env -i strace -s200 -vfe execve,write /usr/bin/stdbuf -o0 /bin/sh -c '/usr/bin/env; :' > /dev/null
execve("/usr/bin/stdbuf", ["/usr/bin/stdbuf", "-o0", "/bin/sh", "-c", "/usr/bin/env; :"], []) = 0
execve("/bin/sh", ["/bin/sh", "-c", "/usr/bin/env; :"], ["_STDBUF_O=0", "LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/coreutils/libstdbuf.so"]) = 0
Process 16809 attached
[pid 16809] execve("/usr/bin/env", ["/usr/bin/env"], ["_STDBUF_O=0", "LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/coreutils/libstdbuf.so", "PWD=/home/stephane"]) = 0
[pid 16809] write(1, "_STDBUF_O=0\n", 12) = 12
[pid 16809] write(1, "LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/coreutils/libstdbuf.so\n", 60) = 60
[pid 16809] write(1, "PWD=/home/stephane\n", 19) = 19
[pid 16809] +++ exited with 0 +++
--- SIGCHLD {si_signo=SIGCHLD, si_code=CLD_EXITED,

Same situation.

So yes stdbuf applies to the command it runs and all of its descendants (provided they don't clean their environment like the dynamic linker or libc do with LD_PRELOAD for setuid/setgid... applications).