NAME
cdrecord - record audio or data Compact Discs from a master
SYNOPSIS
cdrecord [ general options ] dev=device [ track options ]
track1...trackn
DESCRIPTION
Cdrecord is used to record data or audio Compact Discs on an
Orange Book CD-Recorder.
The device refers to scsibus/target/lun of the CD-Recorder.
Communication on SunOS is done with the SCSI general driver
scg. Other operating systems are using a library simulation
of this driver. Possible syntax is: dev=
scsibus,target,lun or dev= target,lun. In the latter case,
the CD-Recorder has to be connected to the default SCSI bus
of the machine.
Scsibus, target and lun are integer numbers. To make
cdrecord portable to all UNIX platforms, there is no way to
specify a real device file name. Scsibus 0 is the default
SCSI bus on the machine. Watch the boot messages for more
information or look into /var/adm/messages for more informa-
tion about the SCSI configuration of your machine.
Each track corresponds to a single file that contains the
prepared data for that track. If the argument is `-', stan-
dard input is used for that track. There may only be one
track that is taken from stdin.
GENERAL OPTIONS
General options must be before any track file name or track
option.
-version
Print version information and exit.
-v Be verbose during work, display the progress of the
writing process.
-V Be verbose in respect of SCSI command transport. This
helps to debug problems during the writing process,
that occur in the CD-Recorder. If you get incomprehen-
sible error messages you should use this flag to get
more detailed output. Using -V slows down the process
and may be the reason for a buffer underrun.
-debug
Print additional debug messages. This may help to find
out problems with sector sizes and sector types. Using
-debug slows down the process and may be the reason for
a buffer underrun.
-dummy
The CD-Recorder will go through all steps of the
recording process, but the laser is turned off during
this procedure. It is recommended to run several tests
before actually writing to a Compact Disk, if the tim-
ing and load response of the system is not known.
-multi
Allow multi session CD's to be made. This flag needs to
be present on all sessions of a multi session disk,
except you want to create a session that will be the
last session on the media. The fixation will be done
in a way that allows the CD-Recorder to append addi-
tional sessions later. This is done by generation a TOC
with a link to the next program area. The so generated
media is not 100% compatible to manufactured CD's. Use
only for recording a multi session CD. If this option
is present, the default track type is CD-ROM XA mode 2.
The Sony drives have no hardware support for CD-ROM XA
mode 2. You have tp specify the -data option in order
to create multi session disks on these drives.
-msinfo
Retrieve multi session info in a form suitable for
mkisofs-1.10 or later.
-toc Retrieve and print out the table of content or PMA of
a CD. With this option, cdrecord will work also with a
CD-Rom drive.
-fix The disk will only be fixated (i.e. a TOC for a CD-
Reader will be written). This may be used, if for some
reason the disk has been written but not fixated.
-nofix
Do not fixate the disk after writing the tracks. This
may be used to create an audio disk in steps. An unfix-
ated disk can usually not be used on a non CD-writer
type drive but there are audio CD players that will be
able to play such a disk.
-eject
Eject disk after doing the work. Some Devices (e.g.
Philips) need to eject the medium before creating a new
disk. Doing a -dummy test and immediately creating a
real disk would not work on these devices.
speed=#
Set the speed factor of the writing process to #. # is
an integer, representing a multiple of the audio speed.
This is about 150 KB/s for CD-ROM and about 172 KB/s
for CD-Audio. If no speed option is present, cdrecord
will try to get the speed value from the CDR_SPEED
environment. If your drive has problems with speed=2
or speed=4, you should try speed=0.
dev=target
Sets the SCSI target for the CD-Recorder, see notes
above. If no dev option is present, cdrecord will try
to get the device from the CDR_DEVICE environment.
driver=name
Allows to use a user supplied driver name for the dev-
ice. To get a list of possible drivers use
driver=help. The reason for the existence of this
option is to allow users to use cdrecord with drives
that are similar to supported drives but not known
directly by cdrecord. Use this option with extreme
care. If a wrong driver is used for a device, the pos-
sibility of creating corrupted disks is high. The
minimum problem related to a wrong driver is that the -
speed or -dummy will not work.
-checkdrive
Checks if a driver for the current drive is present and
exit. If the drive is a known drive, cdrecord uses
exit code 0.
-inq Do an inquiry for the drive, print the inquiry info
and exit.
-scanbus
Scan all SCSI devices on all SCSI busses and print the
inquiry strings. This option may be used to find SCSI
address of the CD-Recorder on a system.
TRACK OPTIONS
Track options may be mixed with track file names.
-audio
If this flag is present, all subsequent tracks are
written in CD-DA (similar to Red Book) audio format.
The file with data for this tracks should contain
stereo, 16-bit digital audio with 44100 samples/s. The
byte order should be the following: MSB left, LSB left,
MSB right, LSB right, MSB left and so on. The track
should be a multiple of 2352 bytes. It is not possible
to put the master image of an audio track on a raw disk
because data will be read in multiple of 2352 bytes
during the recording process. The audio data stream
must not have any headers. Using audio data formats
with headers as input to cdrecord will usually work if
the structure of the data is the structure described
above but you will hear a click at the start of a
track.
-swab
If this flag is present, swapped audio data may be used
for writing to CD. Some types of CD-Writers e.g.
Yamaha, Sony and the new SCSI-3/mmc drives are using
the wrong byte order for audio data, ignoring the fact
that the SCSI-protocol otherwise correctly uses network
(big endian) byte order. Cdrecord knows if a CD-
Recorder needs byte swapping and corrects the byte
order of the data stream to the byte order described
with the -audio flag. You only need the -swab flag if
your data stream is in Intel byte order. Note that the
verbose output of cdrecord instead will not show you if
the -swab flag was present for a track. Cdrecord shows
you if it really needs to swab that track.
-data
If this flag is present, all subsequent tracks are
written in CD-ROM mode 1 (Yellow Book) format. The data
is a multiple of 2048 bytes. The file with track data
should contain an ISO-9660 or Rock Ridge filesystem
image (see mkisofs for more details). If the track data
is an ufs filesystem image, fragment size should be set
to 2 KB or more to allow CR-drives with 2 KB sector
size to to be used for reading.
-data is the default, if no other flag is present.
-mode2
If this flag is present, all subsequent tracks are
written in CD-ROM mode 2 format. The data is a multiple
of 2048 bytes.
-xa1 If this flag is present, all subsequent tracks are
written in CD-ROM XA mode 1 format. The data is a mul-
tiple of 2048 bytes.
-xa2 If this flag is present, all subsequent tracks are
written in CD-ROM XA mode 2 format. The data is a mul-
tiple of 2048 bytes.
-cdi If this flag is present, all subsequent tracks are
written in CDI format. The data is a multiple of 2048
bytes.
-isosize
Use the ISO-9660 file system size as the size of the
next track. This option is needed if you want to read
the image of a track from a raw disk partition or on a
master CD. In the first case the option -isosize is
needed to limit the size of the CD to the size of the
iso filesystem. In the second case the option -isosize
is needed to prevent cdrecord from reading the two run
out blocks that are appended by each CD-recorder in
track at once mode. These two run out blocks cannot be
read and would cause a buffer underrun that would cause
e defective copy. Do not use this option if cdrecord
reads the track data from stdin. This option currently
cannot be used to determine the size of a file system
if the multi session option is present.
-pad If the track is a data track, 15 sectors of zeroed
data will be added to the end of this and each subse-
quent data track. Use this option if your CD-drive is
not able to read the last sectors of a track or if you
want to read to be able to read the CD on a Linux sys-
tem with the iso9660 filesystem read ahead bug. If the
-pad option refers to an audio track, cdrecord will pad
the audio data to be a multiple of 2352 bytes. The
audio data padding is done with binary zeroes which is
equal to absolute silence.
-nopad
Do not pad the following tracks - the default.
-preemp
If this flag is present, all TOC entries for subsequent
audio tracks will indicate that the audio data has been
sampled with 50/15 µsec preemphasis. The data, however
is not modified during the process of transferring from
file to disk. This option has no effect on data tracks.
-nopreemp
If this flag is present, all TOC entries for subsequent
audio tracks will indicate that the audio data has been
mastered with linear data - this is the default.
bytes=#
If the master image for the next track has been stored
on a raw disk, use this option to specify the valid
amount of data on this disk. If the image of the next
track is stored in a regular file, the size of that
file is taken to determine the length of this track.
If the track contains an ISO 9660 filesystem image use
the -isosize option to determine the length of that
filesystem image.
EXAMPLES
For all examples below, it will be assumed that the CD-
Recorder is connected to the primary SCSI bus of the
machine. The SCSI target id is set to 2.
To record a pure CD-ROM at double speed, using data from the
file cdimage.raw:
cdrecord -v speed=2 dev=2,0 cdimage.raw
To create an image for a ISO 9660 filesystem with Rock Ridge
extensions:
mkisofs -R -o cdimage.raw /home/joerg/master/tree
To check the resulting file before writing to CD on Solaris:
mount -r -F fbk -o type=hsfs /dev/fbk0:cdimage.raw /mnt
On Linux:
mount cdimage.raw -r -t iso9660 -o loop /mnt
Go on with:
ls -lR /mnt
umount /mnt
If the overall speed of the system is sufficient and the
structure of the filesystem is not too complex, cdrecord
will run without creating an image of the ISO 9660 filesys-
tem. Simply run the pipeline:
mkisofs -R /master/tree | cdrecord -v speed=2 dev=2,0 -
If your system is loaded, you should run mkisofs in the real
time class too. To raise the priority of mkisofs replace
the command
mkisofs -R /master/tree
by
priocntl -e -c RT -p 59 mkisofs -R /master/tree
on Solaris and by
nice -18 mkisofs -R /master/tree
on SunOS.
Cdrecord runs at priority 59 on Solaris, you should run
mkisofs at no more than priority 58. On SunOS, you should
run mkisofs at no less than nice -18.
Creating a CD-ROM without file system image on disk has been
tested on a Sparcstation-2 with a Yamaha CDR-100. It did
work up to double speed. A faster machine may be able to
handle quad speed also.
To record a pure CD-DA (audio) at single speed, with each
track contained in a file named track01.cdaudio,
track02.cdaudio, etc:
cdrecord -v speed=1 dev=2,0 -audio track*.cdaudio
To check if it will be ok to use double speed for the exam-
ple above. Use the dummy write option:
cdrecord -v -dummy speed=2 dev=2,0 -audio track*.cdaudio
To record a mixed-mode CD with an ISO 9660 filesystem from
cdimage.raw on the first track, the other tracks being audio
tracks from the files track01.cdaudio, track02.cdaudio, etc:
cdrecord - v - dummy dev=2,0 cdimage.raw - audio
track*.cdaudio
SEE ALSO
mkisofs(1), scg(7), fbk(7).
NOTES
The current version of cdrecord will only record track at
once Discs. If the so made disks contain more than one
track, they are not suitable for direct mass production by
CD manufacturers. You will need the disk at once option to
record such disks. Nevertheless the disks made with
cdrecord will normally be read in all CD players. Some old
audio CD players however may produce a two second click
between two audio tracks.
The minimal size of a track is 4 seconds or 300 sectors. If
you write smaller tracks, the CD-Recorder will add dummy
blocks. This is not an error, even though the SCSI-error
message looks this way.
Cdrecord has been tested on an upgraded Philips CDD-521
recorder at single and double speed on a SparcStation 20/502
with no problems, slower computer systems should work also.
The newer Philips/HP/Plasmon/Grundig drives as well as
Yamaha CDR-100 and CDR-102 work also. The Plasmon RF-4100
work, but has not tested in multi session. A Philips CDD-
521 that has not been upgraded will not work. The Sony
CDU-924 has been tested, but does not support XA-mode2 in
hardware. The sony therefore cannot create conforming multi
session disks. The Ricoh RO-1420C works, but some people
seem to have problems to use them with speed=2, try speed=0
in this case.
The Yamaha CDR-400 and all new SCSI-3/mmc conforming drives
are supported in single and multi-session. CD-RW drives
like the Ricoh MP-6200 are currently supported as CD-R
drives only. Erasing the disk or parts of the disk will be
added in a later version of cdrecord.
You should run several tests in all supported speeds of your
drive with the - dummy option turned on if you are using
cdrecord on an unknown system. Writing a CD is a realtime
process. You can currently not use cdimages that are located
on NFS file systems. NFS will not deliver constantly the
needed data rates. I used cdrecord with with medium load on
a SS20/502 and even at quad speed on a Sparcstation-2 which
was heavily loaded, but it is recommended to leave the sys-
tem as lightly loaded as possible while writing a CD.
Cdrecord needs to run as root to get access to the /dev/scg?
device nodes and to be able to lock itself into memory.
If you don't want to allow users to become root on your sys-
tem, cdrecord may safely be installed suid root. This allows
all users or a group of users with no root privileges to use
cdrecord. Cdrecord in this case checks, if the real user
would have been able to read the specified files. To give
all user access to use cdrecord, enter:
chmod 4711 /usr/local/bin/cdrecord
To give a restricted group of users access to cdrecord
enter:
chmod 4710 /usr/local/bin/cdrecord
chgrp cdburners /usr/local/bin/cdrecord
and add a group cdburners on your system.
Never give write permissions for non root users to the
/dev/scg? devices unless you would allow anybody to
read/write/format all your disks.
You should not connect old drives that do not support
disconnect/reconnect to either the SCSI bus that is con-
nected to the CD-Recorder or the source disk.
A Compact Disc can have no more than 99 tracks.
When creating a disc with both audio and data tracks, the
data should be on track 1 otherwise wou should create a
CDplus disk which is a multi session disk with the first
session containing the audio tracks and the following ses-
sion containing the data track.
Many operating systems are not able to read more than a sin-
gle data track, or need special software to do so.
More information on the SCSI command set of a HP CD-Recorder
can be found at:
http://www.hp.com/isgsupport/cdr/index.html
If you have more information or SCSI command manuals for
other CD-Recorders than Philips CDD 522 or the HP drive men-
tioned above please contact the author.
The Philips CDD 521 CD-Recorder (even in the upgraded ver-
sion) has several firmware bugs. Some of them will force you
to power cycle the device or to reboot the machine.
When using cdrecord with the broken Linux SCSI generic
driver. You should note that cdrecord uses a hack, that
tries to emulate the functionality of the scg driver.
Unfortunately, the sg driver on Linux has several severe
bugs:
o It cannot see if SCSI command could not be sent at
all.
o It cannot get the SCSI status byte. Cdrecord for that
reason cannot report failing SCSI commands in some
situations.
o It cannot get real dma count of transfer. Cdrecord
cannot tell you if there is an dma residual count.
o It cannot get number of bytes valid in auto sense
data. Cdrecord cannot tell you if device transfers no
sense data at all.
o It fetches to few data in auto request sense
(CCS/SCSI-2/SCSI-3 needs >= 18).
DIAGNOSTICS
You have 9 seconds to type ^C to abort cdrecord after you
see the message:
Starting to write CD at speed %d in %s mode for %s session.
A typical error message for a SCSI command looks like:
cdrecord: I/O error. test unit ready: scsi sendcmd: no error
status: 0x2 (CHECK CONDITION)
Sense Bytes: 70 00 05 00 00 00 00 0A 00 00 00 00 25 00 00 00 00 00
Sense Key: 0x5 Illegal Request, Segment 0
Sense Code: 0x25 Qual 0x00 (logical unit not supported) Fru 0x0
Sense flags: Blk 0 (not valid)
The first line gives information about the transport of the
command. The text after the first colon gives the error
text for the system call from the view of the kernel. It
usually is: I/O error unless other problems happen. The
next words contain a short description for the SCSI command
that fails. The rest of the line tells you if there were any
problems for the transport of the command over the SCSI bus.
fatal error means that it was not possible to transport the
command (i.e. no device present at the requested SCSI
address).
The second line gives information on the SCSI status code
returned by the command, if the transport of the command
succeeds. This is error information from the SCSI device.
The third line is a hex dump of the auto request sense
information for the command.
The fourth line is the error text for the sense key if
available, followed by the segment number that is only valid
if the command was a copy command. If the error message is
not directly related to the current command, the text
deferred error is appended.
The fifth line is the error text for the sense code and the
sense qualifier if available. If the type of the device is
known, the sense data is decoded from tables in scsierrs.c .
The text is followed by the error value for a field replace-
able unit.
The sixth line prints the block number that is related to
the failed command and text for several error flags. The
block number may not be valid.
The following message is not an error:
Track 01: Total bytes read/written: 2048/2048 (1 sectors).
cdrecord: I/O error. flush cache: scsi sendcmd: no error
status: 0x2 (CHECK CONDITION)
Sense Bytes: F0 00 05 80 00 00 27 0A 00 00 00 00 B5 00 00 00 00 00
Sense Key: 0x5 Illegal Request, Segment 0
Sense Code: 0xB5 Qual 0x00 (dummy data blocks added) Fru 0x0
Sense flags: Blk -2147483609 (valid)
It simply notifies, that a track that is smaller than the
minimum size has been expanded to 300 sectors.
BUGS
Cdrecord should verify that the input data will fit on the
media. Currently you get unpredictable results in this case.
There should be an option to write index numbers for audio
tracks.
There should be a recover option to make disks usable, that
have been written during a power failure.
AUTHOR
Joerg Schilling
Seestr. 110
D-13353 Berlin
Germany
Mail bugs and suggestions to:
joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de or js@cs.tu-berlin.de or
jes@fokus.gmd.de
GMD Homepage
FOKUS Homepage
Schily's Homepage
