Maintenance Procedures MKISOFS(8)
NAME
mkisofs - create an hybrid ISO-9660/JOLIET/HFS/UDF
filesystem-image with optional Rock Ridge attributes.
SYNOPSIS
mkisofs [ options ] [ -o filename ] pathspec [pathspec ...]
mkisofs [ options ] [ -o filename ] -find [find expression]
DESCRIPTION
mkisofs is effectively a pre-mastering program to generate
an ISO-9660/JOLIET/HFS/UDF hybrid filesystem.
ISO-9660/JOLIET/UDF filesystems are limited to a maximum
size of 8 TB. The maximum size of a single file is 8 TB
(single files in UDF are currently limited to aprox.
200 GB). If you like to have files larger than 2 GB, you
need to specify -iso-level 3 or above. If a HFS hybrid is
created, the maximum file size for files in the HFS hybrid
is 2 GB in any case.
Hybrid filesystem support
mkisofs is capable of generating the System Use Sharing Pro-
tocol records (SUSP) specified by the Rock Ridge Interchange
Protocol. This is used to further describe the files in the
ISO-9660 filesystem to a UNIX host, and provides information
such as longer filenames, uid/gid, posix permissions, sym-
bolic links, hard links, block and character devices.
If Joliet, HFS or UDF hybrid command line options are speci-
fied, mkisofs will create additional separate filesystem
meta data for Joliet, HFS or UDF. The file content in this
case refers to the same data blocks on the media. It will
generate a pure ISO-9660 filesystem unless the Joliet, HFS
or UDF hybrid command line options are given.
mkisofs can generate a true (or shared) HFS hybrid filesys-
tem. The same files are seen as HFS files when accessed from
a Macintosh and as ISO-9660 files when accessed from other
machines. HFS stands for Hierarchical File System and is the
native file system used on Macintosh computers up to
Mac OS 9.
As an alternative, mkisofs can generate the Apple Extensions
to ISO-9660 or UDF for each file. These extensions provide
each file with CREATOR, TYPE and certain Finder Flags when
accessed from a Macintosh. See the HFS MACINTOSH FILE FOR-
MATS section below.
Functional description
mkisofs takes a snapshot of a given directory tree, and gen-
erates a binary image which will correspond to an ISO-9660
or Joliet/HFS/UDF filesystem when written to a block device.
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Each file written to the ISO-9660 filesystem must have a
filename in the 8.3 format (8 characters, period, 3 charac-
ters, all upper case), even if Rock Ridge attributes are in
use. This filename is used on systems that are not able to
make use of the Rock Ridge extensions (such as MS-DOS), and
each filename in each directory must be different from the
other filenames in the same directory. mkisofs generally
tries to form correct names by forcing the UNIX filename to
upper case and truncating as required, but often times this
yields unsatisfactory results when there are cases where the
truncated names are not all unique. mkisofs assigns weight-
ings to each filename, and if two names that are otherwise
the same are found the name with the lower priority is
renamed to have a 3 digit number as an extension (where the
number is guaranteed to be unique). An example of this
would be the files foo.bar and foo.bar.~1~ - the file
foo.bar.~1~ would be written as FOO000.BAR;1 and the file
foo.bar would be written as FOO.BAR;1
When used with various HFS or UDF options, mkisofs will
attempt to recognise files stored in a number of Apple/Unix
file formats and will copy the data and resource forks as
well as any relevant finder information. See the HFS MACIN-
TOSH FILE FORMATS section below for more about formats
mkisofs supports.
Note that mkisofs is not designed to communicate with writ-
ers for optical media directly. Most writers have
proprietary command sets which vary from one manufacturer to
another, and you need a specialized tool like cdrecord to
actually burn the disk.
The cdrecord utility is a utility capable of burning an
actual disc. The latest version of cdrecord is available
from https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdrtools/files/ or
https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdrtools/files/alpha/
Also you should know that most CD writers are very particu-
lar about timing. Once you start to burn a disc, you cannot
let their buffer empty before you are done, or you will end
up with a corrupt disc. Thus it is critical that you be
able to maintain an uninterrupted data stream to the writer
for the entire time that the disc is being written.
Dealing with path names
pathspec is the path of the directory tree to be copied into
the ISO-9660 filesystem. Multiple paths can be specified,
and mkisofs will merge the files found in all of the speci-
fied path components to form the cdrom image.
If the option -graft-points has been specified, it is possi-
ble to graft the paths at points other than the root
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directory, and it is possible to graft files or directories
onto the cdrom image with names different than what they
have in the source filesystem. This is easiest to illus-
trate with a couple of examples. Let's start by assuming
that a local file ../old.lis exists, and you wish to include
it in the cdrom image.
foo/bar/=../old.lis
will include the file old.lis in the cdrom image at
/foo/bar/old.lis, while
foo/bar/xxx=../old.lis
will include the file old.lis in the cdrom image at
/foo/bar/xxx. The same sort of syntax can be used with
directories as well. mkisofs will create any directories
required such that the graft points exist on the cdrom image
- the directories do not need to appear in one of the paths.
By default, any directories that are created on the fly like
this will have permissions 0555 and appear to be owned by
the person running mkisofs. If you wish other permissions
or owners of the intermediate directories, see -uid, -gid,
-dir-mode, -file-mode and -new-dir-mode.
mkisofs will also run on Win9x/NTx machines when compiled
with Cygnus' cygwin (available from
http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cygwin/). Therefore most refer-
ences in this man page to Unix also apply to Win32 or Win64.
OPTIONS
-abstract FILE
Specifies the abstract file name in the primary volume
descriptor. There is space on the disc for 37 charac-
ters of information. The related Joliet entry is lim-
ited to 18 characters. This parameter can also be set
in the file .mkisofsrc with ABST=filename. If speci-
fied in both places, the command line version is used.
It is up to the user of mkisofs to include a file with
the apropriate name in the created filesystem tree.
-A application_id
-appid application_id
Specifies a text string that will be written into the
volume header. This should describe the application
that will be on the disc. There is space on the disc
for 128 characters of information. The related Joliet
entry is limited to 64 characters. This parameter can
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also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with APPI=id. If
specified in both places, the command line version is
used.
-allow-leading-dots
-ldots
Allow ISO-9660 filenames to begin with a period. Usu-
ally, a leading dot is replaced with an underscore in
order to maintain MS-DOS compatibility.
This violates the ISO-9660 standard, but it happens to
work on many systems. Use with caution.
-allow-lowercase
This options allows lower case characters to appear in
ISO-9660 filenames.
This violates the ISO-9660 standard, but it happens to
work on some systems. Use with caution.
-no-allow-lowercase
This resets the effect of -allow-lowercase and even
works when -U, -untranslated-filenames or -iso-level 4
have been used to allow lowercase filenames.
-allow-multidot
This options allows more than one dot to appear in
ISO-9660 filenames. A leading dot is not affected by
this option, it may be allowed separately using the
-allow-leading-dots option.
This violates the ISO-9660 standard, but it happens to
work on many systems. Use with caution.
-biblio FILE
Specifies the bibliographic file name in the primary
volume descriptor. There is space on the disc for 37
characters of information. The related Joliet entry is
limited to 18 characters. This parameter can also be
set in the file .mkisofsrc with BIBLO=filename. If
specified in both places, the command line version is
used.
It is up to the user of mkisofs to include a file with
the apropriate name in the created filesystem tree.
-cache-inodes
Cache inode and device numbers to find hard links to
files. If mkisofs finds a hard link (a file with mul-
tiple names), then the file will only appear once on
the CD. This helps to save space on the CD. The option
-cache-inodes is default on UNIX like operating sys-
tems. Be careful when using this option on a filesys-
tem without unique inode numbers as it may result in
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files containing the wrong content on CD.
See the option -duplicates-once for a method that works
on filesystems without unique inode numbers.
If inodes are not cached, mkisofs will revert to the
old Rrip Version-1.10 (see -rrip110) and mkisofs will
not be able to create correct inode numbers for zero
sized files.
-no-cache-inodes
Do not cache inode and device numbers. This option is
needed whenever a filesystem does not have unique inode
numbers. It is the default on old Cygwin versions. As
the Microsoft operating system that runs below Cygwin
uses 64 bit inode numbers for NTFS, it does not have
unique inode numbers in the 32 bit range. Old Cygwin
versions create fake 32-bit inode numbers from a hash
algorithm and thus create non-unique numbers. If
mkisofs would cache inodes on old Cygwin versions, it
would believe that some files are identical although
they are not. The result in this case are files that
contain the wrong content if a significant amount of
different files (> ~5000) is in inside the tree that is
to be archived. This does not happen when the
-no-cache-inodes is used, but the disadvantage is that
mkisofs cannot detect hardlinks anymore and the result-
ing CD image may be larger than expected.
If inodes are not cached, mkisofs will revert to the
old Rrip Version-1.10 (see -rrip110) and mkisofs will
not be able to create correct inode numbers for zero
sized files.
-creation-date date-spec
Set the creation date in the primary volume descriptor
(PVD) to a value different from the current time. This
allows e.g. to set up an intentional date in order to
be able to create reproducible ISO-9660 filesystem
images.
See -modification-date for a description of the date-
spec format and -reproducible-date for a simple way to
create reproducible filesystem images.
-duplicates-once
Tells mkisofs to use a message digest checksum to iden-
tify identical files as apparently hard linked files.
This allows mkisofs to archive inode numbers and hard
links even when it is run on non-POSIX platforms like
DOS.
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-effective-date date-spec
Set the effective date in the primary volume descriptor
(PVD) to a value different from the current time. This
allows e.g. to set up an intentional date in order to
be able to create reproducible ISO-9660 filesystem
images.
See -modification-date for a description of the date-
spec format and -reproducible-date for a simple way to
create reproducible filesystem images.
-b eltorito_boot_image
-eltorito-boot eltorito_boot_image
Specifies the path and filename of the boot image to be
used when making an "El Torito" bootable CD. The path-
name must be relative to the source path and inside the
source tree specified to mkisofs. This option is
required to make an "El Torito" bootable CD. The boot
image must be exactly the size of either a 1200, 1440,
or a 2880 kB floppy, and mkisofs will use this size
when creating the output ISO-9660 filesystem. It is
assumed that the first 512 byte sector should be read
from the boot image (it is essentially emulating a nor-
mal floppy drive). This will work, for example, if the
boot image is a boot floppy.
If the boot image is not an image of a floppy, you need
to add one of the options: -hard-disk-boot or
-no-emul-boot. If the system should not boot off the
emulated disk, use -no-boot.
More than one boot entry may be specified, see
-eltorito-platform and -eltorito-alt-boot on how to
specify more boot entries. The first boot entry is the
default boot entry. Additional boot entries are
members for a multi boot configuration.
If the -sort option has not been specified, the boot
images are sorted with low priority (+2) to the begin-
ning of the medium. If you don't like this, you need
to specify a sort weight of 0 for the boot images.
-eltorito-alt-boot
Start with a new set of "El Torito" boot parameters.
This allows to have more than one El Torito boot entry
on a CD. A maximum of 63 El Torito boot entries may be
put on a single CD.
The -eltorito-alt-boot option starts a new boot entry
with the same platform id but no new boot section
except when it appears past the first boot entry which
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is the default boot entry.
-eltorito-platform id
Set the "El Torito" platform id for a boot record or a
section of boot records. The. id parameter may be
either:
x86 This is the default platform id value and speci-
fies entries for the PC platform. If no
-eltorito-platform option appears before the first
-eltorito-boot option, the default boot entry
becomes an entry for the x86 PC platform.
PPC Boot entries for the Power PC platform.
Mac Boot entries for the Apple Mac platform.
efi Boot entries for EFI based PCs.
# A numeric value specifying any platform id.
If the option -eltorito-platform appears before the
first -eltorito-boot option, it sets the platform id
for the default boot entry.
If the option -eltorito-platform appears after an
-eltorito-boot option and sets the platform id to a
value different from the previous value, it starts a
new set of boot entries.
The second boot entry and any new platform id creates a
new section header and reduces the number of boot
entries per CD by one.
errctl= name
errctl= error control spec
Add the content from file name to the error control
definitions or add error control spec to the error con-
trol definitions. More than one error control file and
more than one error control spec as well as a mixture
of both forms is possible.
The reason for using error control is to make mkisofs
quiet about error conditions that are known to be
irrelevant on the quality of the created filesystem or
to tell mkisofs to abort on certain error conditions
instead of trying to continue with the filesystem.
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A typical reason to use error control is to suppress
warnings about growing log files while doing a backup
on a live file system. Another typical reason to use
error control is to tell mkisofs to abort if e.g. a
file could not be archived instead of continuing to
archive other files from a list.
The error control file contains a set of lines, each
starting with a list of error conditions to be ignored
followed by white space followed by a file name pattern
(see match(1) or patmatch(3) for more information).
The error control spec uses the same syntax as a single
line from the error control file. If the file name
pattern needs to start with white space, use a
backslash to escape the start of the file name. It is
not possible to have new line characters in the file
name pattern. Whenever an error situation is encoun-
tered, mkisofs checks the lines in the error control
file starting from the top. If the current error con-
dition is listed on a line in the error control file,
then mkisofs checks whether the pattern on the rest of
the line matches the current file name. If this is the
case, mkisofs uses the current error control specifica-
tion to control the current error condition.
The list of error conditions to be handled may use one
or more (in this case separated by a '|' character)
identifiers from the list below:
ABORT If this meta condition is included in an
error condition, mkisofs aborts (exits) as
soon as possible after this error condition
has been seen instead of making mkisofs
quiet about the condition. This error con-
dition flag may only be used together with
at another error condition or a list of
error conditions (separated by a '|' char-
acter).
WARN If this meta condition is included in an
error condition, mkisofs prints the warning
about the error condition but the error
condition does not affect the exit code of
mkisofs and the error statistics (which is
printed to the end) does not include the
related errors. This error condition flag
may only be used together with at another
error condition or a list of error condi-
tions (separated by a '|' character). The
WARN meta condition has a lower precedence
than ABORT.
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ALL This is a shortcut for all error conditions
below.
STAT Suppress warnings that mkisofs could not
stat(2) a file.
GETACL Suppress warnings about files on which
mkisofs had problems to retrieve the ACL
information.
OPEN Suppress warnings about files that could
not be opened.
READ Suppress warnings read errors on files.
WRITE Suppress warnings write errors on files.
READLINK Suppress warnings readlink(2) errors on
symbolic links.
GROW Suppress warnings about files that did grow
while they have been archived.
SHRINK Suppress warnings about files that did
shrink while they have been archived.
MISSLINK Suppress warnings about files for which
mkisofs was unable to archive all hard
links.
NAMETOOLONG Suppress warnings about files that could
not be archived because the name of the
file is too long for the archive format.
FILETOOBIG Suppress warnings about files that could
not be archived because the size of the
file is too big for the archive format.
SPECIALFILE Suppress warnings about files that could
not be archived because the file type is
not supported by the archive format.
GETXATTR Suppress warnings about files on that
mkisofs could not retrieve the extended
file attribute information.
SETTIME Suppress warnings about files on that
mkisofs could not set the time information
during extraction.
SETMODE Suppress warnings about files on that
mkisofs could not set the access modes
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during extraction.
SECURITY Suppress warnings about files that have
been skipped on extraction because they
have been considered to be a security risk.
This currently applies to all files that
have a '/../' sequence inside when -.. has
not been specified.
LSECURITY Suppress warnings about links that have
been skipped on extraction because they
have been considered to be a security risk.
This currently applies to all link names
that start with '/' or have a '/../'
sequence inside when -secure-links has been
specified. In this case, mkisofs tries to
match the link name against the pattern in
the error control file.
SAMEFILE Suppress warnings about links that have
been skipped on extraction because source
and target of the link are pointing to the
same file. If mkisofs would not skip these
files, it would end up with removing the
file completely. In this case, mkisofs
tries to match the link name against the
pattern in the error control file.
BADACL Suppress warnings access control list
conversion problems.
SETACL Suppress warnings about files on that
mkisofs could not set the ACL information
during extraction.
SETXATTR Suppress warnings about files on that
mkisofs could not set the extended file
attribute information during extraction.
If a specific error condition is ignored, then the error
condition is not only handled in a silent way but also
excluded from the error statistics that are printed at the
end of the mkisofs run.
Be very careful when using error control as you may ignore
any error condition. If you ignore the wrong error condi-
tions, you may not be able to see real problems anymore.
Note that currently only the tags OPEN, READ, GROW, SHRINK,
are checked from mkisofs.
-expiration-date date-spec
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Set the expiration date in the primary volume descrip-
tor (PVD) to a value different from a zeroed out time.
This allows e.g. to set up an intentional date in order
to be able to create reproducible ISO-9660 filesystem
images.
See -modification-date for a description of the date-
spec format and -reproducible-date for a simple way to
create reproducible filesystem images.
-B img_sun4,img_sun4c,img_sun4m,img_sun4d,img_sun4e
-sparc-boot img_sun4,img_sun4c,img_sun4m,img_sun4d,img_sun4e
Specifies a comma separated list of boot images that
are needed to make a bootable CD for sparc systems.
Partition 0 is used for the ISO-9660 image, the first
image file is mapped to partition 1. There may be
empty fields in the comma separated list. The maximum
number of possible partitions is 8 so it is impossible
to specify more than 7 partition images. This option
is required to make a bootable CD for Sun sparc sys-
tems. If the -B or -sparc-boot option has been speci-
fied, the first sector of the resulting image will con-
tain a Sun disk label. This disk label specifies slice
0 for the ISO-9660 image and slice 1 ... slice 7 for
the boot images that have been specified with this
option. Byte offset 512 ... 8191 within each of the
additional boot images must contain a primary boot that
works for the appropriate sparc architecture. The rest
of each of the images usually contains an ufs filesys-
tem that is used primary kernel boot stage.
The implemented boot method is the boot method found
with SunOS 4.x and SunOS 5.x. However, it does not
depend on SunOS internals but only on properties of the
Open Boot prom. For this reason, it should be usable
for any OS that boots off a sparc system.
For more information also see the NOTES section below.
If the special filename ... is used, the actual and all
following boot partitions are mapped to the previous
partition. If mkisofs is called with -G image -B ...
all boot partitions are mapped to the partition that
contains the ISO-9660 filesystem image and the generic
boot image that is located in the first 16 sectors of
the disk is used for all architectures.
-G generic_boot_image
Specifies the path and filename of the generic boot
image to be used when making a generic bootable CD.
The generic_boot_image will be placed on the first 16
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sectors of the CD. The first 16 sectors are the sectors
that are located before the ISO-9660 primary volume
descriptor. If this option is used together with the
-sparc-boot option, the Sun disk label will overlay the
first 512 bytes of the generic boot image.
-hard-disk-boot
Specifies that the boot image used to create "El Tor-
ito" bootable CDs is a hard disk image. The hard disk
image must begin with a master boot record that con-
tains a single partition.
-ignore-error
Ignore errors. mkisofs by default aborts on several
errors, such as read errors. With this option in
effect, mkisofs tries to continue. Use with care.
-no-emul-boot
Specifies that the boot image used to create "El Tor-
ito" bootable CDs is a 'no emulation' image. The system
will load and execute this image without performing any
disk emulation.
-no-boot
Specifies that the created "El Torito" CD should be
marked as not bootable. The system will provide an emu-
lated drive for the image, but will boot off a standard
boot device.
-boot-load-seg segment_address
Specifies the load segment address of the boot image
for no-emulation "El Torito" CDs.
-boot-load-size load_sectors
Specifies the number of "virtual" (512-byte) sectors to
load in no-emulation mode. The default is to load the
entire boot file. Some BIOSes may have problems if
this is not a multiple of 4.
-boot-info-table
Specifies that a 56-byte table with information of the
CD-ROM layout will be patched in at offset 8 in the
boot file. If this option is given, the boot file is
modified in the source filesystem, so make sure to make
a copy if this file cannot be easily regenerated! See
the EL TORITO BOOT INFO TABLE section for a description
of this table.
-C last_sess_start,next_sess_start
-cdrecord-params last_sess_start,next_sess_start
This option is needed when mkisofs is used to create a
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CDextra or the image of a second session or a higher
level session for a multi session disk. The option -C
takes a pair of two numbers separated by a comma. The
first number is the sector number of the first sector
in the last session of the disk that should be appended
to. The second number is the starting sector number of
the new session. The expected pair of numbers may be
retrieved by calling cdrecord -msinfo ... If the -C
option is used in conjunction with the -M option,
mkisofs will create a filesystem image that is intended
to be a continuation of the previous session. If the
-C option is used without the -M option, mkisofs will
create a filesystem image that is intended to be used
for a second session on a CDextra. This is a multi ses-
sion CD that holds audio data in the first session and
a ISO-9660 filesystem in the second session.
-c boot_catalog
-eltorito-catalog boot_catalog
Specifies the path and filename of the boot catalog to
be used when making an "El Torito" bootable CD. The
pathname must be relative to the source path specified
to mkisofs. This option is required to make a bootable
CD. This file will be inserted into the output tree
and not created in the source filesystem, so be sure
the specified filename does not conflict with an exist-
ing file, as it will be excluded. Usually a name like
"boot.catalog" is chosen.
If the -sort option has not been specified, the boot
catalog sorted with low priority (+1) to the beginning
of the medium. If you don't like this, you need to
specify a sort weight of 0 for the boot catalog.
-check-oldnames
Check all filenames imported from old session for com-
pliance with actual mkisofs ISO-9660 file naming rules.
It his option is not present, only names with a length
> 31 are checked as these files are a hard violation of
the ISO-9660 standard.
-check-session FILE
Check all old sessions for compliance with actual
mkisofs ISO-9660 file naming rules. This is a high
level option that is a combination of the options: -M
FILE -C 0,0 -check-oldnames For the parameter FILE see
description of -M option.
-copyright FILE
Specifies the Copyright file name in the primary volume
descriptor. There is space on the disc for 37
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characters of information. The related Joliet entry is
limited to 18 characters. This parameter can also be
set in the file .mkisofsrc with COPY=filename. If
specified in both places, the command line version is
used.
It is up to the user of mkisofs to include a file with
the apropriate name in the created filesystem tree.
-d
-omit-period
Omit trailing period from files that do not have a
period.
This violates the ISO-9660 standard, but it happens to
work on many systems. Use with caution.
-D
-disable-deep-relocation
Do not use Rock Ridge deep directory relocation, and
instead just pack directories in the way they are in
the master directory tree.
This option was needed with old mkisofs versions to
avoid a visible directory rr_moved. Since August 2006,
mkisofs correctly hides the rr_moved directory from the
Rock Ridge filesystem.
If ISO-9660:1999 has not been selected, this violates
the ISO-9660 standard, but it happens to work on many
systems. Use with caution.
-data-change-warn
If the size of a file changes while the file is being
archived, treat this condition as a warning only that
does not cause mkisofs to abort. A warning message is
still written if the condition is not otherwise ignored
by another rule from an errctl= option. The
-data-change-warn option works as if the last error
control option was
errctl="WARN|GROW|SHRINK *"
-debug
Increment debug value by one.
-dir-mode mode
Overrides the mode of directories used to create the
image to mode. See -new-dir-mode on how to specify a
different mode that is used for directories that do not
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exist in the tree specified by the source-path. Speci-
fying the -dir-mode option automatically enables Rock
Ridge extensions.
-dvd-audio
Generate DVD-Audio compliant UDF file system. This is
done by sorting the order of the content of the
appropriate files. Sorting only works if the DVD-Audio
filenames include upper case characters only.
Note that in order to get a DVD-Audio compliant
filesystem image, you need to prepare a DVD-Audio com-
pliant directory tree. This means you need to have a
directory AUDIO_TS (all caps) in the root directory of
the resulting DVD and you should have a directory
VIDEO_TS. The directory AUDIO_TS needs to include all
needed files (file names must be all caps) for a com-
pliant DVD-Audio filesystem.
-dvd-hybrid
Equivalent to selecting both -dvd-audio and -dvd-video
-dvd-video
Generate DVD-Video compliant UDF file system. This is
done by sorting the order of the content of the
appropriate files and by adding padding between the
files if needed. Sorting only works if the DVD-Video
filenames include upper case characters only.
Note that in order to get a DVD-Video compliant
filesystem image, you need to prepare a DVD-Video com-
pliant directory tree. This means you need to have a
directory VIDEO_TS (all caps) in the root directory of
the resulting DVD and you should have a directory
AUDIO_TS. The directory VIDEO_TS needs to include all
needed files (file names must be all caps) for a com-
pliant DVD-Video filesystem.
-f
-follow-links
Follow all symbolic links when generating the filesys-
tem. When this option is not in use, symbolic links
will be entered using Rock Ridge if enabled, otherwise
the file will be ignored.
See also -posix-L option.
-file-mode mode
Overrides the mode of regular files used to create the
image to mode. Specifying this option automatically
enables Rock Ridge extensions.
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-find
This option acts a separator. If it is used, all
mkisofs options must be to the left of the -find
option. To the right of the -find option, mkisofs
accepts the find command line syntax only.
The find expression acts as a filter between the source
of file names and the consumer, which is archiving
engine. If the find expression evaluated as TRUE, then
the related file is selected for processing, otherwise
it is omited.
In order to make the evaluation of the find expression
more convenient, mkisofs implements additional find
primaries that have side effects on the file meta data.
Mkisofs implements the following additional find pri-
maries:
-help
Lists the available find(1) syntax.
-chatime timespec
The primary always evaluates as true; it modifies
the time of last access of a file in struct stat.
See sfind(1) for a description of timespec.
-chctime timespec
The primary always evaluates as true; it modifies
the time of last status change of a file in struct
stat. See sfind(1) for a description of timespec.
-chmtime timespec
The primary always evaluates as true; it modifies
the time of last modification of a file in struct
stat. See sfind(1) for a description of timespec.
-chgrp gname
The primary always evaluates as true; it sets the
group of the file to gname.
-chmod mode
The primary always evaluates as true; it sets the
permissions of the file to mode. Octal and sym-
bolic permissions are accepted for mode as with
chmod(1).
-chown uname
The primary always evaluates as true; it sets the
owner of the file to uname.
-false
The primary always evaluates as false; it allows
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to make the result of the full expression dif-
ferent from the result of a part of the expres-
sion.
-true
The primary always evaluates as true; it allows to
make the result of the full expression different
from the result of a part of the expression.
The command line:
mkisofs -o o.iso -find . ( -type d -ls -o false ) -o !
-type d
lists all directories and puts all non-directories to
the image o.iso.
The command line:
mkisofs -o o.iso -find . ( -type d -chown root -o true
)
archives all directories so they appear to be owned by
root in the archive, all non-directories are archived
as they are in the file system.
Note that the -ls, -exec and the -ok primary cannot be
used if stdin or stdout has not been redirected.
-gid gid
Overrides the gid read from the source files to the
value of gid. Specifying this option automatically
enables Rock Ridge extensions.
-gui Switch the behaviour for a GUI. This currently makes
the output more verbose but may have other effects in
future.
-graft-points
Allow to use graft points for filenames. If this option
is used, all filenames are checked for graft points.
The filename is divided at the first unescaped equal
sign. All occurrences of '\\' and '=' characters must
be escaped with '\\' if -graft-points has been speci-
fied.
-hide glob
Hide glob from being seen on the ISO-9660 or Rock Ridge
directory. glob is a shell wild-card-style pattern
that must match any part of the filename or path. Mul-
tiple globs may be hidden. If glob matches a direc-
tory, then the contents of that directory will be
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hidden. In order to match a directory name, make sure
the pathname does not include a trailing '/' character.
All the hidden files will still be written to the out-
put CD image file. Should be used with the
-hide-joliet option. See README.hide for more details.
-hide-list file
A file containing a list of globs to be hidden as
above.
-hidden glob
Add the hidden (existence) ISO-9660 directory attribute
for glob. This attribute will prevent glob from being
listed on DOS based systems if the /A flag is not used
for the listing. glob is a shell wild-card-style pat-
tern that must match any part of the filename or path.
In order to match a directory name, make sure the path-
name does not include a trailing '/' character. Multi-
ple globs may be hidden.
-hidden-list file
A file containing a list of globs to get the hidden
attribute as above.
-hide-joliet glob
Hide glob from being seen on the Joliet directory.
glob is a shell wild-card-style pattern that must match
any part of the filename or path. Multiple globs may
be hidden. If glob matches a directory, then the con-
tents of that directory will be hidden. In order to
match a directory name, make sure the pathname does not
include a trailing '/' character. All the hidden files
will still be written to the output CD image file.
Should be used with the -hide option. See README.hide
for more details.
-hide-joliet-list file
A file containing a list of globs to be hidden as
above.
-hide-joliet-trans-tbl
Hide the TRANS.TBL files from the Joliet tree. These
files usually don't make sense in the Joliet World as
they list the real name and the ISO-9660 name which may
both be different from the Joliet name.
-hide-rr-moved
Rename the directory RR_MOVED to .rr_moved in the Rock
Ridge tree. This option has been introduced when
mkisofs was not able to hide the directory in the Rock
Ridge tree. This version of mkisofs always automati-
cally hides the RR_MOVED directory in the Rock Ridge
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tree. If you need to have no RR_MOVED directory at all
(even in the ISO-9660 tree), you should use the -D
option. Note that in case that the -D option has been
specified, the resulting filesystem is not ISO-9660
level-1 compliant and will not be readable on MS-DOS.
See also NOTES section for more information on the
RR_MOVED directory.
-hide-udf glob
Hide glob from being seen on the UDF directory. glob
is a shell wild-card-style pattern that must match any
part of the filename or path. Multiple globs may be
hidden. If glob matches a directory, then the contents
of that directory will be hidden. In order to match a
directory name, make sure the pathname does not include
a trailing '/' character. All the hidden files will
still be written to the output CD image file. Should
be used with the -hide option. See README.hide for more
details.
-hide-udf-list file
A file containing a list of globs to be hidden as
above.
-hide-ignorecase
-exclude-ignorecase
Ignore the case of the filenames with the -hide*
options and with the -exclude-list option.
-input-charset charset
Set up the input charset that defines the characters
used in local file names. To get a list of valid char-
set names, call mkisofs -input-charset help. To get a
1:1 mapping, you may use default as charset name. If
the input charset has not been set up from the locale
in the environment, the default initial values are
cp437 on DOS based systems and iso8859-1 on all other
systems. See CHARACTER SETS section below for more
details.
If -input-charset has not been specified, it will be
set up from the locale in the environment. If you like
to disable this automatic setup, use the empty string
as locale name.
-output-charset charset
Set up the output charset that defines the characters
that will be used in Rock Ridge file names. Defaults to
the input charset. See CHARACTER SETS section below for
more details.
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-iso-level level
Set the ISO-9660 conformance level. Valid numbers are
1..3 and 4.
With level 1, files may only consist of one section and
filenames are restricted to 8.3 characters.
With level 2, files may only consist of one section.
With level 3, no restrictions (other than ISO-
9660:1988) do apply. Starting with this level, mkisofs
also allows files to be larger than 4 GB by implement-
ing ISO-9660 multi-extent files.
With all ISO-9660 levels from 1..3, all filenames are
restricted to upper case letters, numbers and the
underscore (_). The maximum filename length is res-
tricted to 31 characters, the directory nesting level
is restricted to 8 and the maximum path length is lim-
ited to 255 characters.
Level 4 officially does not exists but mkisofs maps it
to ISO-9660:1999 which is ISO-9660 version 2.
With level 4, an enhanced volume descriptor with ver-
sion number and file structure version number set to 2
is emitted. There may be more than 8 levels of direc-
tory nesting, there is no need for a file to contain a
dot and the dot has no more special meaning, file names
do not have version numbers, the maximum length for
files and directory is raised to 207. If Rock Ridge is
used, the maximum ISO-9660 name length is reduced to
197.
When creating Version 2 images, mkisofs emits an
enhanced volume descriptor which looks similar to a
primary volume descriptor but is slightly different. Be
careful not to use broken software to make ISO-9660
images bootable by assuming a second PVD copy and
patching this putative PVD copy into an El Torito VD.
-J Generate Joliet directory records in addition to regu-
lar ISO-9660 file names. This is primarily useful when
the discs are to be used on Windows-NT or Windows-95
machines. The Joliet filenames are specified in
Unicode and each path component can be up to 64 Unicode
characters long. Note that Joliet is no standard -
CD's that use only Joliet extensions but no standard
Rock Ridge extensions may usually only be used on
Microsoft Win32 systems. Furthermore, the fact that the
filenames are limited to 64 characters and the fact
that Joliet uses the UTF-16 coding for Unicode
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characters causes interoperability problems.
-joliet-long
Allow Joliet filenames to be up to 103 Unicode charac-
ters. This breaks the Joliet specification - but
appears to work. Use with caution. The number 103 is
derived from: the maximum Directory Record Length
(254), minus the length of Directory Record (33), minus
CD-ROM XA System Use Extension Information (14),
divided by the UTF-16 character size (2).
-jcharset charset
Same as using -input-charset charset and -J options.
See CHARACTER SETS section below for more details.
-l
-full-iso9660-filenames
Allow full 31 character filenames. Normally the ISO-
9660 filename will be in an 8.3 format which is compa-
tible with MS-DOS, even though the ISO-9660 standard
allows filenames of up to 31 characters. If you use
this option, the disc may be difficult to use on a MS-
DOS system, but this comes in handy on some other sys-
tems (such as the Amiga). Use with caution.
-L Outdated option reserved by POSIX.1-2001, use
-allow-leading-dots instead. This option will get
POSIX.1-2001 semantics with mkisofs-3.02.
-log-file log_file
Redirect all error, warning and informational messages
to log_file instead of the standard error.
-long-rr-time
Use the long ISO-9660 time format for the file time
stamps used in Rock Ridge. This time format allows to
represent year 0 .. year 9999 with a granularity of
10ms.
The short ISO-9660 time format only allows to represent
year 1900 .. year 2155 with a granularity of 1s.
-m glob
Exclude glob from being written to CDROM. glob is a
shell wild-card-style pattern that must match part of
the filename (not the path as with option -x). Techni-
cally glob is matched against the d->d_name part of the
directory entry. Multiple globs may be excluded.
Example:
mkisofs -o rom -m '*.o' -m core -m foobar
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would exclude all files ending in ".o", called "core"
or "foobar" to be copied to CDROM. Note that if you had
a directory called "foobar" it too (and of course all
its descendants) would be excluded.
NOTE: The -m and -x option description should both be
updated, they are wrong. Both now work identical and
use filename globbing. A file is excluded if either the
last component matches or the whole path matches.
-exclude-list file
A file containing a list of globs to be excluded as
above.
-max-iso9660-filenames
Allow 37 chars in ISO-9660 filenames. This option
forces the -N option as the extra name space is taken
from the space reserved for ISO-9660 version numbers.
This violates the ISO-9660 standard, but it happens to
work on many systems. Although a conforming applica-
tion needs to provide a buffer space of at least 37
characters, disks created with this option may cause a
buffer overflow in the reading operating system. Use
with extreme care.
-M path
or
-M device
or
-dev device
Specifies path to existing ISO-9660 image to be merged.
The alternate form takes a SCSI device specifier that
uses the same syntax as the dev= parameter of cdrecord.
The output of mkisofs will be a new session which
should get written to the end of the image specified in
-M. Typically this requires multi-session capability
for the recorder and cdrom drive that you are attempt-
ing to write this image to. This option may only be
used in conjunction with the -C option.
-modification-date date-spec
Set the modification date in the primary volume
descriptor (PVD) to a value different from the current
time. This allows e.g. to set up an intentional UUID
for grub.
The format of date-spec is:
yyyy[mm[dd[hh[mm[ss]]]]][.hh][+-ghgm]
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The fields are year, month, day of month, hour, minute,
second, hundreds of a second, GMT offset in hours and
minutes. The time is interpreted as local time.
Year and the GMT offset are four digit fields, all
other fields take two digits. The GMT offset may be
between -12 and +13 hours in 15 minute steps. Locations
east to Greenwich have positive values. The value is
the sum of the time zone offset and the effects from
daylight saving time. Omited values are replaced by
the minimal possible values. If the GMT offset is
omited, it is computed from the local time value that
has been supplied.
Between year and month as well as between month and day
of month, a separator chosen from '/' and '-' may
appear. In this case, the year may be a two digit
number with values 69..99 representing 1969..1999 and
values 00..68 representing 2000..2068. Between date
and time spec, an optional space is permitted. Between
hours and minutes as well as between minutes and
seconds, an optional ':' separator is permitted. This
allows mkisofs to parse the popular POSIX date format
created by:
date "+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %z"
Note that the possible range for date-spec for 32 bit
programs is limited to values up to 2038 Jan 19
04:14:07 GMT.
The PVD contains the following four date values:
creation-date, expiration-date, effective-date and
modification-date. See the related option for a
description.
-N
-omit-version-number
Omit version numbers from ISO-9660 file names.
This violates the ISO-9660 standard, but no one really
uses the version numbers anyway. Use with caution.
-new-dir-mode mode
Mode to use when creating new directories in the iso fs
image. The default mode in the absence of a -dir-mode
option is 0555.
-noatime
Do not include the file last access time but rather use
the modification time. This allows e.g. to create
reproducible ISO-9660 filesystem images.
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See also the options: -creation-date, -expiration-date,
-effective-date, -modification-date and
-reproducible-date for other options to create reprodu-
cible ISO-9660 filesystem images.
To create reproducible ISO-9660 filesystem images, the
options: -creation-date, -effective-date,
-modification-date and -noatime need to be specified
and the -o option must not be used.
-nobak
-no-bak
Do not include backup files files on the ISO-9660
filesystem. If the -no-bak option is specified, files
that contain the characters '~' or '#' or end in '.bak'
will not be included (these are typically backup files
for editors under UNIX).
-no-limit-pathtables
A ISO-9660 filesystem contains path tables that contain
a list of directories. This list may contain many
directories but only 65535 of them may be parent direc-
tories. When -no-limit-pathtables is in use, further
parent directories will be folded to the root directory
and the resulting filesystem will no longer be usable
on DOS.
-no-long-rr-time
Use the short ISO-9660 time format for the file time
stamps used in Rock Ridge. This time format allows to
represent year 1990 .. year 2155 with a granularity of
one second.
-force-rr
Do not use the automatic Rock Ridge attributes recogni-
tion for previous sessions. This helps to show rotten
ISO-9660 extension records as e.g. created by NERO
burning ROM.
-no-rr
Do not use the Rock Ridge attributes from previous ses-
sions. This may help to avoid getting into trouble
when mkisofs finds illegal Rock Ridge signatures on an
old session.
-no-split-symlink-components
Don't split the SL components, but begin a new Con-
tinuation Area (CE) instead. This may waste some space,
but the SunOS 4.1.4 cdrom driver has a bug in reading
split SL components (link_size = component_size instead
of link_size += component_size).
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Note that this option has been introduced by Eric
Youngdale in 1997. It is questionable whether it makes
sense at all. When it has been introduced, mkisofs did
have a serious bug that did create defective CE signa-
tures if a symlink contained `/../'. This CE signature
bug in mkisofs has been fixed in May 2003.
-no-split-symlink-fields
Don't split the SL fields, but begin a new Continuation
Area (CE) instead. This may waste some space, but the
SunOS 4.1.4 and Solaris 2.5.1 cdrom driver have a bug
in reading split SL fields (a `/' can be dropped).
Note that this option has been introduced by Eric
Youngdale in 1997. It is questionable whether it makes
sense at all. When it has been introduced, mkisofs did
have a serious bug that did create defective CE signa-
tures if a symlink contained `/../'. This CE signature
bug in mkisofs has been fixed in May 2003.
-o filename
is the name of the file to which the ISO-9660 filesys-
tem image should be written. This can be a disk file,
a tape drive, or it can correspond directly to the dev-
ice name of the optical disc writer. If not specified,
stdout is used. Note that the output can also be a
block special device for a regular disk drive, in which
case the disk partition can be mounted and examined to
ensure that the premastering was done correctly.
-pad Pad the end of the whole image by 150 sectors (300 kB).
If the option -B is used, then there is a padding at
the end of the ISO-9660 partition and before the begin-
ning of the boot partitions. The size of this padding
is chosen to make the first boot partition start on a
sector number that is a multiple of 16.
The padding is needed as many operating systems (e.g.
Linux) implement read ahead bugs in their filesystem
I/O. These bugs result in read errors on one or more
files that are located at the end of a track. They are
usually present when the CD is written in Track at Once
mode or when the disk is written as mixed mode CD where
an audio track follows the data track.
To avoid problems with I/O error on the last file on
the filesystem, the -pad option has been made the
default.
-no-pad
Do not Pad the end by 150 sectors (300 kB) and do not
make the the boot partitions start on a multiple of 16
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sectors.
-path-list file
A file containing a list of pathspec directories and
filenames to be added to the ISO-9660 filesystem. This
list of pathspecs are processed after any that appear
on the command line. If the argument is -, then the
list is read from the standard input.
-P Outdated option reserved by POSIX.1-2001, use -pub-
lisher instead. This option will get POSIX.1-2001
semantics with mkisofs-3.02.
-publisher publisher_id
Specifies a text string that will be written into the
volume header. This should describe the publisher of
the CDROM, usually with a mailing address and phone
number. There is space on the disc for 128 characters
of information. The related Joliet entry is limited to
64 characters. This parameter can also be set in the
file .mkisofsrc with PUBL=. If specified in both
places, the command line version is used.
-p preparer_id
-preparer preparer_id
Specifies a text string that will be written into the
volume header. This should describe the preparer of
the CDROM, usually with a mailing address and phone
number. There is space on the disc for 128 characters
of information. The related Joliet entry is limited to
64 characters. This parameter can also be set in the
file .mkisofsrc with PREP=. If specified in both
places, the command line version is used.
-posix-H
Follow all symbolic links encountered on command line
when generating the filesystem.
-posix-L
Follow all symbolic links when generating the filesys-
tem. When this option is not in use, symbolic links
will be entered using Rock Ridge if enabled, otherwise
the file will be ignored.
-posix-P
Do not follow symbolic links when generating the
filesystem (this is the default). If -posix-P is
specified after -posix-H or -posix-L, the effect of
these options will be reset.
-print-size
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Print estimated filesystem size in multiples of the
sector size (2048 bytes) and exit. This option is
needed for Disk At Once mode and with some CD-R drives
when piping directly into cdrecord. In this case it is
needed to know the size of the filesystem before the
actual CD-creation is done. The option -print-size
allows to get this size from a "dry-run" before the CD
is actually written. Old versions of mkisofs did write
this information (among other information) to stderr.
As this turns out to be hard to parse, the number
without any other information is now printed on stdout
too. If you like to write a simple shell script,
redirect stderr and catch the number from stdout. This
may be done with:
cdblocks=` mkisofs -print-size -quiet ... `
mkisofs ... | cdrecord ... tsize=${cdblocks}s -
-quiet
This makes mkisofs even less verbose. No progress out-
put will be provided.
-R
-rock
Generate SUSP and RR records using the Rock Ridge pro-
tocol to further describe the files on the ISO-9660
filesystem. The Rock Ridge protocol is needed in order
to add POSIX like file meta data like permissions,
extended time stamps, user/group is'd, link counts,
inode numbers and symbolic links. The Rock Ridge proto-
col allows to archive hierarchy trees with unlimited
depth.
Warning: When you specify -udf, this causes Rock Ridge
to be in -r/-rational-rock form as well.
-r
-rational-rock
This is like the -R option, but file ownership and
modes are set to more useful values. The uid and gid
are set to zero, because they are usually only useful
on the author's system, and not useful to the client.
All the file read bits are set true, so that files and
directories are globally readable on the client. If
any execute bit is set for a file, set all of the exe-
cute bits, so that executables are globally executable
on the client. If any search bit is set for a direc-
tory, set all of the search bits, so that directories
are globally searchable on the client. All write bits
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are cleared, because the CD-Rom will be mounted read-
only in any case. If any of the special mode bits are
set, clear them, because file locks are not useful on a
read-only file system, and set-id bits are not desir-
able for uid 0 or gid 0. When used on Win32, the exe-
cute bit is set on all files. This is a result of the
lack of file permissions on Win32 and the Cygwin POSIX
emulation layer. See also -uid -gid, -dir-mode,
-file-mode and -new-dir-mode.
-relaxed-filenames
The option -relaxed-filenames allows ISO-9660 filenames
to include digits, upper case characters and all other
7 bit ASCII characters (resp. anything except lowercase
characters).
This violates the ISO-9660 standard, but it happens to
work on many systems. Use with caution.
-reproducible-date date-spec
Is a macro for setting -creation-date, -effective-date,
-modification-date and -noatime in order to create
reproducible ISI 9660 filesystem images.
-root dir
Moves all files and directories into dir in the image.
This is essentially the same as using -graft-points and
adding dir in front of every pathspec, but is easier to
use.
dir may actually be several levels deep. It is created
with the same permissions as other graft points.
-rrip110
Create ISO-9660 file system images that follow the old
Rrip Version-1.10 standard from 1993. This option may
be needed if you know of systems that do not implement
the Rrip protocol correctly and like the file system to
be read by such a system. Currently no such system is
known.
If a file system has been created with -rrip110, the
Rock Ridge attributes do not include inode number
information.
-rrip112
Create ISO-9660 file system images that follow the new
Rrip Version-1.12 standard from 1994, this is the
default.
-old-root dir
This option is necessary when writing a multisession
image and the previous (or even older) session was
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written with -root dir. Using a directory name not
found in the previous session causes mkisofs to abort
with an error.
Without this option, mkisofs would not be able to find
unmodified files and would be forced to write their
data into the image once more.
-root and -old-root are meant to be used together to do
incremental backups. The initial session would e.g.
use: mkisofs -root backup_1 dirs. The next incremen-
tal backup with mkisofs -root backup_2 -old-root
backup_1 dirs. would take another snapshot of these
directories. The first snapshot would be found in
backup_1, the second one in backup_2, but only modified
or new files need to be written into the second ses-
sion.
Without these options, new files would be added and old
ones would be preserved. But old ones would be
overwritten if the file was modified. Recovering the
files by copying the whole directory back from CD would
also restore files that were deleted intentionally.
Accessing several older versions of a file requires
support by the operating system to choose which ses-
sions are to be mounted.
-short-rr-time
Use the short ISO-9660 time format for the file time
stamps used in Rock Ridge. This time format allows to
represent year 1990 .. year 2155 with a granularity of
one second.
-s sector type
-sectype sector type
Set the sector type to be used for the output file with
the ISO-9660 filesystem. The sector type may be one
of:
data This is the default. It results in standard CD-ROM
data sectors with 2048 bytes per sector.
xa1 This sets the sector type to CD-ROM XA mode 1 with
2056 bytes per sector. This sector type is the
official sector type for multi-session CDs, it
should be used together with the -XA option of
mkisofs. It is required to write Kodak Photo CDs
and Kodak Picture CDs. Use the -xa1 option from
cdrecord to tell cdrecord to write CD-ROM XA mode
1 sectors. Do not use for DVD or BluRay media.
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raw This sets the sector type to raw audio sectors
with 2352 bytes per sector. This is reserved for
future enhancements. Do not use for DVD or BluRay
media.
-sort sort file
Sort file locations on the media. Sorting is controlled
by a file that contains pairs of filenames and sorting
offset weighting. If the weighting is higher, the file
will be located closer to the beginning of the media,
if the weighting is lower, the file will be located
closer to the end of the media. There must be only one
space or tabs character between the filename and the
weight and the weight must be the last characters on a
line. The filename is taken to include all the charac-
ters up to, but not including the last space or tab
character on a line. This is to allow for space charac-
ters to be in, or at the end of a filename. This
option does not sort the order of the file names that
appear in the ISO-9660 directory. It sorts the order in
which the file data is written to the CD image - which
may be useful in order to optimize the data layout on a
CD. See README.sort for more details.
-isort sort file
Similiar to -sort but the case if the filenames in the
sort file is ignored.
-sparc-boot img_sun4,img_sun4c,img_sun4m,img_sun4d,img_sun4e
See -B option above.
-sparc-label label
Set the Sun disk label name for the Sun disk label that
is created with the -sparc-boot option.
-split-output
Split the output image into several files of approxi-
mately 1 GB. This helps to create DVD sized ISO-9660
images on operating systems without large file support.
Cdrecord will concatenate more than one file into a
single track if writing to a DVD. To make
-split-output work, the -o filename option must be
specified. The resulting output images will be named:
filename_00,filename_01,filename_02...
-stream-media-size #
Select streaming operation and set the media size to #
sectors. This allows you to pipe the output of the tar
program into mkisofs and to create a ISO-9660 filesys-
tem without the need of an intermediate tar archive
file. If this option has been specified, mkisofs reads
from stdin and creates a file with the name STREAM.IMG.
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The maximum size of the file (with padding) is 200 sec-
tors less than the specified media size. If -no-pad has
been specified, the file size is 50 sectors less than
the specified media size. If the file is smaller, then
mkisofs will write padding. This may take a while.
The option -stream-media-size creates simple ISO-9660
filesystems only and may not used together with multi-
session or hybrid filesystem options.
-stream-file-name name
Set the file name used with -stream-media-size # to a
value different from STREAM.IMG. If this option is
used, the filesystem is created as if -iso-level 4 has
been specified.
-sunx86-boot UFS-img,,,AUX1-img
Specifies a comma separated list of filesystem images
that are needed to make a bootable CD for Solaris x86
systems.
Note that partition 1 is used for the ISO-9660 image
and that partition 2 is the whole disk, so partition 1
and 2 may not be used by external partition data. The
first image file is mapped to partition 0. There may
be empty fields in the comma separated list, and list
entries for partition 1 and 2 must be empty. The max-
imum number of supported partitions is 8 (although the
Solaris x86 partition table could support up to 16 par-
titions), so it is impossible to specify more than 6
partition images. This option is required to make a
bootable CD for Solaris x86 systems.
If the -sunx86-boot option has been specified, the
first sector of the resulting image will contain a PC
fdisk label with a Solaris type 0x82 fdisk partition
that starts at offset 512 and spans the whole CD. In
addition, for the Solaris type 0x82 fdisk partition,
there is a SVr4 disk label at offset 1024 in the first
sector of the CD. This disk label specifies slice 0
for the first (usually UFS type) filesystem image that
is used to boot the PC and slice 1 for the ISO-9660
image. Slice 2 spans the whole CD slice 3 ... slice 7
may be used for additional filesystem images that have
been specified with this option.
A Solaris x86 boot CD uses a 1024 byte sized primary
boot that uses the El-Torito no-emulation boot mode and
a secondary generic boot that is in CD sectors 1..15.
For this reason, both -b bootimage -no-emul-boot and -G
genboot must be specified.
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-sunx86-label label
Set the SVr4 disk label name for the SVr4 disk label
that is created with the -sunx86-boot option.
-sysid ID
Specifies the system ID. There is space on the disc
for 32 characters of information. This parameter can
also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with SYSI=system_id.
If specified in both places, the command line version
is used.
-T
-translation-table
Generate a file TRANS.TBL in each directory on the
CDROM, which can be used on non-Rock Ridge capable sys-
tems to help establish the correct file names. There
is also information present in the file that indicates
the major and minor numbers for block and character
devices, and each symlink has the name of the link file
given.
-table-name TABLE_NAME
Alternative translation table file name (see above).
Implies the -T option. If you are creating a multi-
session image you must use the same name as in the pre-
vious session.
-ucs-level level
Set Unicode conformance level in the Joliet SVD. The
default level is 3. It may be set to 1..3 using this
option.
-UDF Include a UDF hybrid in the generated filesystem image.
As mkisofs always creates a ISO-9660 filesystem, it is
not possible to create UDF only images. Note that UDF
wastes the space from sector ~20 to sector 256 at the
beginning of the disk in addition to the space needed
for real UDF data structures.
Warning: When you specify -r or -rational-rock this
causes UDF to be in -udf form as well.
-udf Rationalized UDF with user and group set to 0 and with
simplified permissions. See -r option for more infor-
mation.
-udf-symlinks
Support symlinks in UDF filesystems. This is the
default.
-no-udf-symlinks
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Do not support symlinks in UDF filesystems.
-uid uid
Overrides the uid read from the source files to the
value of uid. Specifying this option automatically
enables Rock Ridge extensions.
-use-fileversion
The option -use-fileversion allows mkisofs to use file
version numbers from the filesystem. If the option is
not specified, mkisofs creates a version number of 1
for all files. File versions are strings in the range
;1 to ;32767 This option is the default on VMS.
-U
-untranslated-filenames
Allows "Untranslated" filenames, completely violating
the ISO-9660 standards described above. Forces on the
-d, -l, -N, -allow-leading-dots, -relaxed-filenames,
-allow-lowercase, -allow-multidot and -no-iso-translate
flags. It allows more than one '.' character in the
filename, as well as mixed case filenames. This is
useful on HP-UX system, where the built-in CDFS
filesystem does not recognize ANY extensions. Use with
extreme caution.
-no-iso-translate
Do not translate the characters '#' and '~' which are
invalid for ISO-9660 filenames. These characters are
though invalid often used by Microsoft systems.
This violates the ISO-9660 standard, but it happens to
work on many systems. Use with caution.
-V volid
Specifies the volume ID (volume name or label) to be
written into the master block. There is space on the
disc for 32 characters of information. This parameter
can also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with VOLI=id.
If specified in both places, the command line version
is used. Note that if you assign a volume ID, this is
the name that will be used as the mount point used by
the Solaris volume management system and the name that
is assigned to the disc on a Microsoft Win32 or Apple
Mac platform.
-volset ID
Specifies the volset ID. There is space on the disc
for 128 characters of information. The related Joliet
entry is limited to 64 characters. This parameter can
also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with VOLS=volset_id.
If specified in both places, the command line version
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is used.
-volset-size #
Sets the volume set size to #. The volume set size is
the number of CD's that are in a CD volume set. A
volume set is a collection of one or more volumes, on
which a set of files is recorded.
Volume Sets are not intended to be used to create a set
numbered CD's that are part of e.g. a Operation System
installation set of CD's. Volume Sets are rather used
to record a big directory tree that would not fit on a
single volume. Each volume of a Volume Set contains a
description of all the directories and files that are
recorded on the volumes where the sequence numbers are
less than, or equal to, the assigned Volume Set Size of
the current volume.
Mkisofs currently does not support a -volset-size that
is larger than 1.
The option -volset-size must be specified before
-volset-seqno on each command line.
-volset-seqno #
Sets the volume set sequence number to #. The volume
set sequence number is the index number of the current
CD in a CD set. The option -volset-size must be speci-
fied before -volset-seqno on each command line.
-v
-verbose
Verbose execution. If given twice on the command line,
extra debug information will be printed.
-x path
Exclude path from being written to CDROM. path must be
the complete pathname that results from concatenating
the pathname given as command line argument and the
path relative to this directory. Multiple paths may be
excluded. Example:
mkisofs -o cd -x /local/dir1 -x /local/dir2 /local
NOTE: The -m and -x option description should both be
updated, they are wrong. Both now work identical and
use filename globbing. A file is excluded if either the
last component matches or the whole path matches.
-XA Generate XA iso-directory attributes with original
owner and mode information. This option is required to
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create conforming multi session CDs as used by the
Kodak Photo CD and the Kodak Picture CD. A conforming
XA CD uses CD-ROM XA mode 1 sectors, see the -sectype
xa1 option for more information.
-xa Generate XA iso-directory attributes with rationalized
owner and mode information. User ID and group ID are
set to 0. See -XA for more information.
-z Generate special RRIP records for transparently
compressed files. This is only of use and interest for
hosts that support transparent decompression, such as
Linux 2.4.14 or later. You must specify the -R or -r
options to enable RockRidge, and generate compressed
files using the mkzftree utility before running
mkisofs. Note that transparent compression is a non-
standard Rock Ridge extension. The resulting disks are
only transparently readable if used on Linux. On other
operating systems you will need to call mkzftree by
hand to decompress the files.
HFS OPTIONS
-hfs Create an ISO-9660/HFS hybrid CD. This option should be
used in conjunction with the -map, -magic and/or the
various double dash options given below.
-no-hfs
Do not create an ISO-9660/HFS hybrid CD even though
other options may imply to do so.
-apple
Create an ISO-9660 CD with Apple's extensions. Similar
to the -hfs option, except that the Apple Extensions to
ISO-9660 are added instead of creating an HFS hybrid
volume. Former mkisofs versions did include Rock Ridge
attributes by default if -apple was specified. This
versions of mkisofs does not do this anymore. If you
like to have Rock Ridge attributes, you need to specify
this separately.
-map mapping_file
Use the mapping_file to set the CREATOR and TYPE infor-
mation for a file based on the filename's extension. A
filename is mapped only if it is not one of the know
Apple/Unix file formats. See the HFS CREATOR/TYPE sec-
tion below.
-magic magic_file
The CREATOR and TYPE information is set by using a
file's magic number (usually the first few bytes of a
file). The magic_file is only used if a file is not one
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of the known Apple/Unix file formats, or the filename
extension has not been mapped using the -map option.
See the HFS CREATOR/TYPE section below for more
details.
-hfs-creator CREATOR
Set the default CREATOR for all files. Must be exactly
4 characters. See the HFS CREATOR/TYPE section below
for more details.
-hfs-type TYPE
Set the default TYPE for all files. Must be exactly 4
characters. See the HFS CREATOR/TYPE section below for
more details.
-probe
Search the contents of files for all the known
Apple/Unix file formats. See the HFS MACINTOSH FILE
FORMATS section below for more about these formats.
However, the only way to check for MacBinary and
AppleSingle files is to open and read them. Therefore
this option may increase processing time. It is better
to use one or more double dash options given below if
the Apple/Unix formats in use are known.
-no-desktop
Do not create (empty) Desktop files. New HFS Desktop
files will be created when the CD is used on a Macin-
tosh (and stored in the System Folder). By default,
empty Desktop files are added to the HFS volume.
-mac-name
Use the HFS filename as the starting point for the
ISO-9660, Joliet and Rock Ridge file names. See the HFS
MACINTOSH FILE NAMES section below for more informa-
tion.
-boot-hfs-file driver_file
Installs the driver_file that may make the CD bootable
on a Macintosh. See the HFS BOOT DRIVER section below.
(Alpha).
-part
Generate an HFS partition table. By default, no parti-
tion table is generated, but some older Macintosh CDROM
drivers need an HFS partition table on the CDROM to be
able to recognize a hybrid CDROM.
-auto AutoStart_file
Make the HFS CD use the QuickTime 2.0 Autostart feature
to launch an application or document. The given
filename must be the name of a document or application
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located at the top level of the CD. The filename must
be less than 12 characters. (Alpha).
-cluster-size size
Set the size in bytes of the cluster or allocation
units of PC Exchange files. Implies the --exchange
option. See the HFS MACINTOSH FILE FORMATS section
below.
-hide-hfs glob
Hide glob from the HFS volume. The file or directory
will still exist in the ISO-9660 and/or Joliet direc-
tory. glob is a shell wild-card-style pattern that
must match any part of the filename Multiple globs may
be excluded. Example:
mkisofs -o rom -hfs -hide-hfs '*.o' -hide-hfs foobar
would exclude all files ending in ".o" or called
"foobar" from the HFS volume. Note that if you had a
directory called "foobar" it too (and of course all its
descendants) would be excluded. The glob can also be a
path name relative to the source directories given on
the command line. Example:
mkisofs -o rom -hfs -hide-hfs src/html src
would exclude just the file or directory called "html"
from the "src" directory. Any other file or directory
called "html" in the tree will not be excluded. Should
be used with the -hide and/or -hide-joliet options. In
order to match a directory name, make sure the pathname
does not include a trailing '/' character. See
README.hide for more details.
-hide-hfs-list file
A file containing a list of globs to be hidden as
above.
-hfs-volid hfs_volid
Volume name for the HFS partition. This is the name
that is assigned to the disc on a Macintosh and
replaces the volid used with the -V option
-icon-position
Use the icon position information, if it exists, from
the Apple/Unix file. The icons will appear in the same
position as they would on a Macintosh desktop. Folder
location and size on screen, its scroll positions,
folder View (view as Icons, Small Icons, etc.) are also
preserved. This option may become set by default in
the future. (Alpha).
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-root-info file
Set the location, size on screen, scroll positions,
folder View etc. for the root folder of an HFS volume.
See README.rootinfo for more information. (Alpha)
-prep-boot FILE
PReP boot image file. Up to 4 are allowed. See
README.prep_boot (Alpha)
-chrp-boot
Create a CHRP boot in boot partition 1. See -prep-boot
for further information.
-input-hfs-charset charset
Input charset that defines the characters used in HFS
file names when used with the -mac-name option. The
default charset is cp10000 (Mac Roman) cp10000 (Mac
Roman) See CHARACTER SETS and HFS MACINTOSH FILE NAMES
sections below for more details.
-output-hfs-charset charset
Output charset that defines the characters that will be
used in the HFS file names. Defaults to the input char-
set. See CHARACTER SETS section below for more details.
-hfs-unlock
By default, mkisofs will create an HFS volume that is
locked. This option leaves the volume unlocked so that
other applications (e.g. hfsutils) can modify the
volume. See the HFS PROBLEMS/LIMITATIONS section below
for warnings about using this option.
-hfs-bless folder_name
"Bless" the given directory (folder). This is usually
the System Folder and is used in creating HFS bootable
CDs. The name of the directory must be the whole path
name as mkisofs sees it. e.g. if the given pathspec is
./cddata and the required folder is called System
Folder, then the whole path name is "./cddata/System
Folder" (remember to use quotes if the name contains
spaces).
-hfs-parms PARAMETERS
Override certain parameters used to create the HFS file
system. Unlikely to be used in normal circumstances.
See the libhfs_iso/hybrid.h source file for details.
--cap
Look for AUFS CAP Macintosh files. Search for CAP
Apple/Unix file formats only. Searching for the other
possible Apple/Unix file formats is disabled, unless
other double dash options are given.
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--netatalk
Look for NETATALK Macintosh files
--double
Look for AppleDouble Macintosh files
--ethershare
Look for Helios EtherShare Macintosh files
--ushare
Look for IPT UShare Macintosh files
--exchange
Look for PC Exchange Macintosh files
--sgi
Look for SGI Macintosh files
--xinet
Look for XINET Macintosh files
--macbin
Look for MacBinary Macintosh files
--single
Look for AppleSingle Macintosh files
--dave
Look for Thursby Software Systems DAVE Macintosh files
--sfm
Look for Microsoft's Services for Macintosh files (NT
only) (Alpha)
--osx-double
Look for MacOS X AppleDouble Macintosh files
--osx-hfs
Look for MacOS X HFS Macintosh files
CHARACTER SETS
mkisofs processes file names in a POSIX compliant way as
strings of 8-bit characters. To represent all codings for
all languages, 8-bit characters are not sufficient. Unicode
or ISO-10646 define character codings that need at least 21
bits to represent all known languages. They may be
represented with UTF-32, UTF-16 or UTF-8 coding. UTF-32
uses a plain 32-bit coding but seems to be uncommon. UCS-2
is used by Microsoft with Win32. This coding is similar to
UTF-16 with the disadvantage that it only supports a 16 bit
subset (except when surrogates are used) of all codes and
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that 16-bit characters are not compliant with the POSIX
filesystem interface.
Modern UNIX operating systems may use UTF-8 coding for
filenames. This coding allows to use the complete Unicode
code set. Each 32-bit character is represented by one or
more 8-bit characters. If a character is coded in ISO-
8859-1 (used in Central Europe and North America) it maps
1:1 to a UTF-32 or UTF-16 coded Unicode character. If a
character is coded in 7-Bit ASCII (used in USA and other
countries with limited character set) it maps 1:1 to a UTF-
32, UTF-16 or UTF-8 coded Unicode character. Character
codes that cannot be represented as a single byte in UTF-8
(typically if the value is > 0x7F) use escape sequences that
map to more than one 8-bit character.
If all operating systems would use UTF-8 coding, mkisofs
would not need to recode characters in file names. Unfor-
tunately, Apple uses completely nonstandard codings and
Microsoft uses a Unicode coding that is not compatible with
the POSIX filename interface.
For all non UTF-8 coded operating systems, the actual char-
acter that each byte represents, depends on the character
set or codepage (which is the name used by Microsoft) used
by the local operating system in use - the characters in a
character set will reflect the region or natural language
used by the user.
Usually character codes 0x00-0x1f are control characters,
codes 0x20-0x7f are the 7 bit ASCII characters and (on PC's
and Mac's) 0x80-0xff are used for other characters. Unfor-
tunately even this does not follow ISO standards that
reserve the range 0x80-0x9f for control characters and only
allow 0xa0-0xff for other characters.
As there is a lot more than 256 characters/symbols in use,
only a small subset are represented in a character set.
Therefore the same character code may represent a different
character in different character sets. So a file name gen-
erated, say in central Europe, may not display the same
character when viewed on a machine in, say eastern Europe.
To make matters more complicated, different operating sys-
tems use different character sets for the region or
language. For example the character code for "small e with
acute accent" may be character code 0x82 on a PC, code 0x8e
on a Macintosh and code 0xe9 on a UNIX system. Note while
the codings used on a PC or Mac are nonstandard, Unicode
codes this character as 0x00000000e9 which is basically the
same value as the value used by most UNIX systems.
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As long as not all operating systems and applications will
use the Unicode character set as the basis for file names in
a unique way, it may be necessary to specify which character
set your file names use in and which character set the file
names should appear on the CD.
There are four options to specify the character sets you
want to use:
-input-charset
Defines the local character set you are using on your
host machine. Any character set conversions that take
place will use this character set as the staring point.
The default input character sets are cp437 on DOS based
systems and iso8859-1 on all other systems.
If the -J option is given, then the Unicode equivalents
of the input character set will be used in the Joliet
directory. Using the -jcharset option is the same as
using the -input-charset and -J options.
-output-charset
Defines the character set that will be used with for
the Rock Ridge names on the CD. Defaults to the input
character set. Only likely to be useful if used on a
non-Unix platform. e.g. using mkisofs on a Microsoft
Win32 machine to create Rock Ridge CDs. If you are
using mkisofs on a Unix machine, it is likely that the
output character set will be the same as the input
character set.
-input-hfs-charset
Defines the HFS character set used for HFS file names
decoded from any of the various Apple/Unix file for-
mats. Only useful when used with -mac-name option. See
the HFS MACINTOSH FILE NAMES for more information.
Defaults to cp10000 (Mac Roman).
-output-hfs-charset
Defines the HFS character set used to create HFS file
names from the input character set in use. In most
cases this will be from the character set given with
the -input-charset option. Defaults to the input HFS
character set.
The default character set is built into mkisofs. A number
of further character sets are read in from the filesystem by
mkisofs from a directory relatively to the install path. To
get a listing, use mkisofs -input-charset help.
Additional character sets from iconv(1) may be used on sys-
tems, that support iconv(1). In this case, call iconv -l to
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get a list of valid character sets from this coding method.
To force an iconv(1) based coding, use iconv:name instead of
name for the character set.
If using non iconv(1) based character sets, additional char-
acter sets can be read from file for any of the character
set options by giving a filename as the argument to the
options. A given character set will be read from a file
whenever the supplied name contains a '/'.
The format of the character set files is the same as the
mapping files available from
http://www.unicode.org/Public/MAPPINGS The format of these
files is:
Column #1 is the input byte code (in hex as 0xXX)
Column #2 is the Unicode (in hex as 0xXXXX)
Rest of the line is ignored.
Any blank line, line without two (or more) columns in the
above format or comments lines (starting with the # charac-
ter) are ignored without any warnings. Any missing input
code is mapped to Unicode character 0x0000.
Note that there is no support for 16 bit UNICODE (UTF-16) or
32 bit UNICODE (UTF-32) coding because this coding is not
POSIX compliant. There should be support for UTF-8 UNICODE
coding which is compatible to POSIX filenames and supported
by moder UNIX implementations such as Solaris.
A 1:1 character set mapping can be defined by using the key-
word default as the argument to any of the character set
options. This is the behaviour of older (v1.12) versions of
mkisofs.
The ISO-9660 file names generated from the input filenames
are not converted from the input character set. The ISO-9660
character set is a very limited subset of the ASCII charac-
ters, so any conversion would be pointless.
Any character that mkisofs can not convert will be replaced
with a '_' character.
HFS CREATOR/TYPE
A Macintosh file has two properties associated with it which
define which application created the file, the CREATOR and
what data the file contains, the TYPE. Both are (exactly) 4
letter strings. Usually this allows a Macintosh user to
double-click on a file and launch the correct application
etc. The CREATOR and TYPE of a particular file can be found
by using something like ResEdit (or similar) on a Macintosh.
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The CREATOR and TYPE information is stored in all the vari-
ous Apple/Unix encoded files. For other files it is possi-
ble to base the CREATOR and TYPE on the filename's extension
using a mapping file (the -map option) and/or using the
magic number (usually a signature in the first few bytes) of
a file (the -magic option). If both these options are given,
then their order on the command line is important. If the
-map option is given first, then a filename extension match
is attempted before a magic number match. However, if the
-magic option is given first, then a magic number match is
attempted before a filename extension match.
If a mapping or magic file is not used, or no match is found
then the default CREATOR and TYPE for all regular files can
be set by using entries in the .mkisofsrc file or using the
-hfs-creator and/or -hfs-type options, otherwise the default
CREATOR and TYPE are 'unix' and 'TEXT'.
The format of the mapping file is the same afpfile format as
used by aufs. This file has five columns for the extension,
file translation, CREATOR, TYPE and Comment. Lines starting
with the '#' character are comment lines and are ignored. An
example file would be like:
# Example filename mapping file
#
# EXTN XLate CREATOR TYPE Comment
.tif Raw '8BIM' 'TIFF' "Photoshop TIFF image"
.hqx Ascii 'BnHq' 'TEXT' "BinHex file"
.doc Raw 'MSWD' 'WDBN' "Word file"
.mov Raw 'TVOD' 'MooV' "QuickTime Movie"
* Ascii 'ttxt' 'TEXT' "Text file"
Where:
The first column EXTN defines the Unix filename exten-
sion to be mapped. The default mapping for any filename
extension that doesn't match is defined with the "*"
character.
The Xlate column defines the type of text translation
between the Unix and Macintosh file it is ignored by
mkisofs, but is kept to be compatible with aufs(1).
Although mkisofs does not alter the contents of a file,
if a binary file has its TYPE set as 'TEXT', it may be
read incorrectly on a Macintosh. Therefore a better
choice for the default TYPE may be '????'
The CREATOR and TYPE keywords must be 4 characters long
and enclosed in single quotes.
The comment field is enclosed in double quotes - it is
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ignored by mkisofs, but is kept to be compatible with
aufs.
The format of the magic file is almost identical to the
magic(4) file used by the Linux file(1) command - the rou-
tines for reading and decoding the magic file are based on
the Linux file(1) command.
This file has four tab separated columns for the byte
offset, type, test and message. Lines starting with the '#'
character are comment lines and are ignored. An example file
would be like:
# Example magic file
#
# off type test message
0 string GIF8 8BIM GIFf GIF image
0 beshort 0xffd8 8BIM JPEG image data
0 string SIT! SIT! SIT! StuffIt Archive
0 string \037\235 LZIV ZIVU standard unix compress
0 string \037\213 GNUz ZIVU gzip compressed data
0 string %! ASPS TEXT Postscript
0 string \004%! ASPS TEXT PC Postscript with a ^D to start
4 string moov txtt MooV QuickTime movie file (moov)
4 string mdat txtt MooV QuickTime movie file (mdat)
The format of the file is described in the magic(4) man
page. The only difference here is that for each entry in the
magic file, the message for the initial offset must be 4
characters for the CREATOR followed by 4 characters for the
TYPE - white space is optional between them. Any other char-
acters on this line are ignored. Continuation lines (start-
ing with a '>') are also ignored i.e. only the initial
offset lines are used.
Using the -magic option may significantly increase process-
ing time as each file has to opened and read to find its
magic number.
In summary, for all files, the default CREATOR is 'unix' and
the default TYPE is 'TEXT'. These can be changed by using
entries in the .mkisofsrc file or by using the -hfs-creator
and/or -hfs-type options.
If the a file is in one of the known Apple/Unix formats (and
the format has been selected), then the CREATOR and TYPE are
taken from the values stored in the Apple/Unix file.
Other files can have their CREATOR and TYPE set from their
file name extension (the -map option), or their magic number
(the -magic option). If the default match is used in the
mapping file, then these values override the default CREATOR
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and TYPE.
A full CREATOR/TYPE database can be found at
http://www.angelfire.com/il/szekely/index.html
HFS MACINTOSH FILE FORMATS
Macintosh files have two parts called the Data and Resource
fork. Either may be empty. Unix (and many other OSs) can
only cope with files having one part (or fork). To add to
this, Macintosh files have a number of attributes associated
with them - probably the most important are the TYPE and
CREATOR. Again Unix has no concept of these types of attri-
butes.
e.g. a Macintosh file may be a JPEG image where the image is
stored in the Data fork and a desktop thumbnail stored in
the Resource fork. It is usually the information in the data
fork that is useful across platforms.
Therefore to store a Macintosh file on a Unix filesystem, a
way has to be found to cope with the two forks and the extra
attributes (which are referred to as the finder info).
Unfortunately, it seems that every software package that
stores Macintosh files on Unix has chosen a completely dif-
ferent storage method.
The Apple/Unix formats that mkisofs (partially) supports
are:
CAP AUFS format
Data fork stored in a file. Resource fork in subdirec-
tory .resource with same filename as data fork. Finder
info in .finderinfo subdirectory with same filename.
AppleDouble/Netatalk
Data fork stored in a file. Resource fork stored in a
file with same name prefixed with "%". Finder info also
stored in same "%" file. Netatalk uses the same format,
but the resource fork/finderinfo stored in subdirectory
.AppleDouble with same name as data fork.
AppleSingle
Data structures similar to above, except both forks and
finder info are stored in one file.
Helios EtherShare
Data fork stored in a file. Resource fork and finder
info together in subdirectory .rsrc with same filename
as data fork.
IPT UShare
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Very similar to the EtherShare format, but the finder
info is stored slightly differently.
MacBinary
Both forks and finder info stored in one file.
Apple PC Exchange
Used by Macintoshes to store Apple files on DOS (FAT)
disks. Data fork stored in a file. Resource fork in
subdirectory resource.frk (or RESOURCE.FRK). Finder
info as one record in file finder.dat (or FINDER.DAT).
Separate finder.dat for each data fork directory.
Note: mkisofs needs to know the native FAT cluster size
of the disk that the PC Exchange files are on (or have
been copied from). This size is given by the
-cluster-size option. The cluster or allocation size
can be found by using the DOS utility CHKDSK.
May not work with PC Exchange v2.2 or higher files
(available with MacOS 8.1). DOS media containing PC
Exchange files should be mounted as type msdos (not
vfat) when using Linux.
SGI/XINET
Used by SGI machines when they mount HFS disks. Data
fork stored in a file. Resource fork in subdirectory
.HSResource with same name. Finder info as one record
in file .HSancillary. Separate .HSancillary for each
data fork directory.
Thursby Software Systems DAVE
Allows Macintoshes to store Apple files on SMB servers.
Data fork stored in a file. Resource fork in subdirec-
tory resource.frk. Uses the AppleDouble format to store
resource fork.
Services for Macintosh
Format of files stored by NT Servers on NTFS filesys-
tems. Data fork is stored as "filename". Resource fork
stored as a NTFS stream called "filename:AFP_Resource".
The finder info is stored as a NTFS stream called
"filename:Afp_AfpInfo". These streams are normally
invisible to the user.
Warning: mkisofs only partially supports the SFM for-
mat. If an HFS file or folder stored on the NT server
contains an illegal NT character in its name, then NT
converts these characters to Private Use Unicode char-
acters. The characters are: " * / < > ? | also a space
or period if it is the last character of the file name,
character codes 0x01 to 0x1f (control characters) and
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Apple' apple logo.
Unfortunately, these private Unicode characters are not
readable by the mkisofs NT executable. Therefore any
file or directory name containing these characters will
be ignored - including the contents of any such direc-
tory.
MacOS X AppleDouble
When HFS/HFS+ files are copied or saved by MacOS X on
to a non-HFS file system (e.g. UFS, NFS etc.), the
files are stored in AppleDouble format. Data fork
stored in a file. Resource fork stored in a file with
same name prefixed with "._". Finder info also stored
in same "._" file.
MacOS X HFS (Alpha)
Not really an Apple/Unix encoding, but actual HFS/HFS+
files on a MacOS X system. Data fork stored in a file.
Resource fork stored in a pseudo file with the same
name with the suffix '/rsrc'. The finderinfo is only
available via a MacOS X library call.
Notes: (also see README.macosx)
Only works when used on MacOS X.
If a file is found with a zero length resource fork and
empty finderinfo, it is assumed not to have any
Apple/Unix encoding - therefore a TYPE and CREATOR can
be set using other methods.
mkisofs will attempt to set the CREATOR, TYPE, date and pos-
sibly other flags from the finder info. Additionally, if it
exists, the Macintosh filename is set from the finder info,
otherwise the Macintosh name is based on the Unix filename -
see the HFS MACINTOSH FILE NAMES section below.
When using the -apple option, the TYPE and CREATOR are
stored in the optional System Use or SUSP field in the ISO-
9660 Directory Record - in much the same way as the Rock
Ridge attributes are. In fact to make life easy, the Apple
extensions are added at the beginning of the existing Rock
Ridge attributes (i.e. to get the Apple extensions you get
the Rock Ridge extensions as well).
The Apple extensions require the resource fork to be stored
as an ISO-9660 associated file. This is just like any normal
file stored in the ISO-9660 filesystem except that the asso-
ciated file flag is set in the Directory Record (bit 2).
This file has the same name as the data fork (the file seen
by non-Apple machines). Associated files are normally
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ignored by other OSs
When using the -hfs option, the TYPE and CREATOR plus other
finder info, are stored in a separate HFS directory, not
visible on the ISO-9660 volume. The HFS directory references
the same data and resource fork files described above.
In most cases, it is better to use the -hfs option instead
of the -apple option, as the latter imposes the limited
ISO-9660 characters allowed in filenames. However, the Apple
extensions do give the advantage that the files are packed
on the disk more efficiently and it may be possible to fit
more files on a CD - important when the total size of the
source files is approaching 650MB.
HFS MACINTOSH FILE NAMES
Where possible, the HFS filename that is stored with an
Apple/Unix file is used for the HFS part of the CD. However,
not all the Apple/Unix encodings store the HFS filename with
the finderinfo. In these cases, the Unix filename is used -
with escaped special characters. Special characters include
'/' and characters with codes over 127.
Aufs escapes these characters by using ":" followed by the
character code as two hex digits. Netatalk and EtherShare
have a similar scheme, but uses "%" instead of a ":".
If mkisofs can't find an HFS filename, then it uses the Unix
name, with any %xx or :xx characters (xx == two hex digits)
converted to a single character code. If "xx" are not hex
digits ([0-9a-fA-F]), then they are left alone - although
any remaining ":" is converted to "%" as colon is the HFS
directory separator. Care must be taken, as an ordinary Unix
file with %xx or :xx will also be converted. e.g.
This:2fFile converted to This/File
This:File converted to This%File
This:t7File converted to This%t7File
Although HFS filenames appear to support upper and lower
case letters, the filesystem is case insensitive. i.e. the
filenames "aBc" and "AbC" are the same. If a file is found
in a directory with the same HFS name, then mkisofs will
attempt, where possible, to make a unique name by adding '_'
characters to one of the filenames.
If an HFS filename exists for a file, then mkisofs can use
this name as the starting point for the ISO-9660, Joliet and
Rock Ridge filenames using the -mac-name option. Normal Unix
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files without an HFS name will still use their Unix name.
e.g.
If a MacBinary (or PC Exchange) file is stored as
someimage.gif.bin on the Unix filesystem, but contains a HFS
file called someimage.gif, then this is the name that would
appear on the HFS part of the CD. However, as mkisofs uses
the Unix name as the starting point for the other names,
then the ISO-9660 name generated will probably be
SOMEIMAG.BIN and the Joliet/Rock Ridge would be
someimage.gif.bin. Although the actual data (in this case)
is a GIF image. This option will use the HFS filename as the
starting point and the ISO-9660 name will probably be
SOMEIMAG.GIF and the Joliet/Rock Ridge would be
someimage.gif.
Using the -mac-name option will not currently work with the
-T option - the Unix name will be used in the TRANS.TBL
file, not the Macintosh name.
The character set used to convert any HFS file name to a
Joliet/Rock Ridge file name defaults to cp10000 (Mac Roman).
The character set used can be specified using the
-input-hfs-charset option. Other built in HFS character sets
are: cp10006 (MacGreek), cp10007 (MacCyrillic), cp10029
(MacLatin2), cp10079 (MacIcelandic) and cp10081 (MacTurk-
ish).
Note: the character codes used by HFS file names taken from
the various Apple/Unix formats will not be converted as they
are assumed to be in the correct Apple character set. Only
the Joliet/Rock Ridge names derived from the HFS file names
will be converted.
The existing mkisofs code will filter out any illegal char-
acters for the ISO-9660 and Joliet filenames, but as mkisofs
expects to be dealing directly with Unix names, it leaves
the Rock Ridge names as is. But as '/' is a legal HFS
filename character, the -mac-name option converts '/' to a
'_' in Rock Ridge filenames.
If the Apple extensions are used, then only the ISO-9660
filenames will appear on the Macintosh. However, as the
Macintosh ISO-9660 drivers can use Level 2 filenames, then
you can use options like -allow-multidot without problems on
a Macintosh - still take care over the names, for example
this.file.name will be converted to THIS.FILE i.e. only have
one '.', also filename abcdefgh will be seen as ABCDEFGH but
abcdefghi will be seen as ABCDEFGHI. i.e. with a '.' at the
end - don't know if this is a Macintosh problem or
mkisofs/mkhybrid problem. All filenames will be in upper
case when viewed on a Macintosh. Of course, DOS/Win3.X
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machines will not be able to see Level 2 filenames...
HFS CUSTOM VOLUME/FOLDER ICONS
To give a HFS CD a custom icon, make sure the root (top
level) folder includes a standard Macintosh volume icon
file. To give a volume a custom icon on a Macintosh, an icon
has to be pasted over the volume's icon in the "Get Info"
box of the volume. This creates an invisible file called
'Icon\r' ('\r' is the 'carriage return' character) in the
root folder.
A custom folder icon is very similar - an invisible file
called 'Icon\r' exits in the folder itself.
Probably the easiest way to create a custom icon that
mkisofs can use, is to format a blank HFS floppy disk on a
Mac, paste an icon to its "Get Info" box. If using Linux
with the HFS module installed, mount the floppy using some-
thing like:
mount -t hfs /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
The floppy will be mounted as a CAP file system by default.
Then run mkisofs using something like:
mkisofs --cap -o output source_dir /mnt/floppy
If you are not using Linux, then you can use the hfsutils to
copy the icon file from the floppy. However, care has to be
taken, as the icon file contains a control character. e.g.
hmount /dev/fd0
hdir -a
hcopy -m Icon^V^M icon_dir/icon
Where '^V^M' is control-V followed by control-M. Then run
mkisofs by using something like:
mkisofs --macbin -o output source_dir icon_dir
The procedure for creating/using custom folder icons is very
similar - paste an icon to folder's "Get Info" box and
transfer the resulting 'Icon\r' file to the relevant direc-
tory in the mkisofs source tree.
You may want to hide the icon files from the ISO-9660 and
Joliet trees.
To give a custom icon to a Joliet CD, follow the instruc-
tions found at:
http://www.fadden.com/cdrfaq/faq03.html#[3-21]
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HFS BOOT DRIVER
It may be possible to make the hybrid CD bootable on a
Macintosh.
A bootable HFS CD requires an Apple CD-ROM (or compatible)
driver, a bootable HFS partition and the necessary System,
Finder, etc. files.
A driver can be obtained from any other Macintosh bootable
CD-ROM using the apple_driver utility. This file can then be
used with the -boot-hfs-file option.
The HFS partition (i.e. the hybrid disk in our case) must
contain a suitable System Folder, again from another CD-ROM
or disk.
For a partition to be bootable, it must have its boot block
set. The boot block is in the first two blocks of a parti-
tion. For a non-bootable partition the boot block is full of
zeros. Normally, when a System file is copied to partition
on a Macintosh disk, the boot block is filled with a number
of required settings - unfortunately I don't know the full
spec for the boot block, so I'm guessing that the following
will work OK.
Therefore, the utility apple_driver also extracts the boot
block from the first HFS partition it finds on the given
CD-ROM and this is used for the HFS partition created by
mkisofs.
PLEASE NOTE
By using a driver from an Apple CD and copying Apple
software to your CD, you become liable to obey Apple
Computer, Inc. Software License Agreements.
EL TORITO BOOT INFORMATION TABLE
When the -boot-info-table option is given, mkisofs will
modify the boot file specified by the -b option by inserting
a 56-byte "boot information table" at offset 8 in the file.
This modification is done in the source filesystem, so make
sure you use a copy if this file is not easily recreated!
This file contains pointers which may not be easily or reli-
ably obtained at boot time.
The format of this table is as follows; all integers are in
section 7.3.1 ("little endian") format.
Offset Name Size Meaning
8 bi_pvd 4 bytes LBA of primary volume descriptor
12 bi_file 4 bytes LBA of boot file
16 bi_length 4 bytes Boot file length in bytes
20 bi_csum 4 bytes 32-bit checksum
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24 bi_reserved 40 bytes Reserved
The 32-bit checksum is the sum of all the 32-bit words in
the boot file starting at byte offset 64. All linear block
addresses (LBAs) are given in CD sectors (normally 2048
bytes).
CONFIGURATION
mkisofs looks for the .mkisofsrc file, first in the current
working directory, then in the user's home directory, and
then in the directory in which the mkisofs binary is stored.
This file is assumed to contain a series of lines of the
form TAG=value , and in this way you can specify certain
options. The case of the tag is not significant. Some
fields in the volume header are not settable on the command
line, but can be altered through this facility. Comments
may be placed in this file, using lines which start with a
hash (#) character.
APPI The application identifier should describe the applica-
tion that will be on the disc. There is space on the
disc for 128 characters of information. The related
Joliet entry is limited to 64 characters. May be over-
ridden using the -A command line option.
COPY The copyright information, often the name of a file on
the disc containing the copyright notice. There is
space in the disc for 37 characters of information.
The related Joliet entry is limited to 18 characters.
May be overridden using the -copyright command line
option.
ABST The abstract information, often the name of a file on
the disc containing an abstract. There is space in the
disc for 37 characters of information. The related
Joliet entry is limited to 18 characters. May be over-
ridden using the -abstract command line option.
BIBL The bibliographic information, often the name of a file
on the disc containing a bibliography. There is space
in the disc for 37 characters of information. The
related Joliet entry is limited to 18 characters. May
be overridden using the -bilio command line option.
PREP This should describe the preparer of the CDROM, usually
with a mailing address and phone number. There is
space on the disc for 128 characters of information.
The related Joliet entry is limited to 64 characters.
May be overridden using the -p command line option.
PUBL This should describe the publisher of the CDROM, usu-
ally with a mailing address and phone number. There is
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space on the disc for 128 characters of information.
The related Joliet entry is limited to 64 characters.
May be overridden using the -publisher command line
option.
SYSI The System Identifier. There is space on the disc for
32 characters of information. May be overridden using
the -sysid command line option.
VOLI The Volume Identifier. There is space on the disc for
32 characters of information. May be overridden using
the -V command line option.
VOLS The Volume Set Name. There is space on the disc for
128 characters of information. The related Joliet
entry is limited to 64 characters. May be overridden
using the -volset command line option.
HFS_TYPE
The default TYPE for Macintosh files. Must be exactly 4
characters. May be overridden using the -hfs-type com-
mand line option.
HFS_CREATOR
The default CREATOR for Macintosh files. Must be
exactly 4 characters. May be overridden using the
-hfs-creator command line option.
mkisofs can also be configured at compile time with defaults
for many of these fields. See the file defaults.h.
EXAMPLES
To create a vanilla ISO-9660 filesystem image in the file
cd.iso, where the directory cd_dir will become the root
directory of the CD ISO image, call:
% mkisofs -o cd.iso cd_dir
To create a CD with Rock Ridge extensions of the source
directory cd_dir:
% mkisofs -o cd.iso -R cd_dir
To create a CD with Rock Ridge extensions of the source
directory cd_dir where all files have at least read permis-
sion and all files are owned by root, call:
% mkisofs -o cd.iso -r cd_dir
To write a tar archive directly to a CD that will later con-
tain a simple ISO-9660 filesystem with the tar archive call:
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% star -c . | mkisofs -stream-media-size 333000 | \
cdrecord dev=b,t,l -dao tsize=333000s -
To create a HFS hybrid CD with the Joliet and Rock Ridge
extensions of the source directory cd_dir:
% mkisofs -o cd.iso -R -J -hfs cd_dir
To create a HFS hybrid CD from the source directory cd_dir
that contains Netatalk Apple/Unix files:
% mkisofs -o cd.iso --netatalk cd_dir
To create a HFS hybrid CD from the source directory cd_dir,
giving all files CREATOR and TYPES based on just their
filename extensions listed in the file "mapping".:
% mkisofs -o cd.iso -map mapping cd_dir
To create a CD with the 'Apple Extensions to ISO-9660', from
the source directories cd_dir and another_dir. Files in all
the known Apple/Unix format are decoded and any other files
are given CREATOR and TYPE based on their magic number given
in the file "magic":
% mkisofs -o cd.iso -apple -magic magic -probe \
cd_dir another_dir
The following example puts different files on the CD that
all have the name README, but have different contents when
seen as a ISO-9660/RockRidge, Joliet or HFS CD.
Current directory contains:
% ls -F
README.hfs README.joliet README.unix cd_dir/
The following command puts the contents of the directory
cd_dir on the CD along with the three README files - but
only one will be seen from each of the three filesystems:
% mkisofs -o cd.iso -hfs -J -r -graft-points \
-hide README.hfs -hide README.joliet \
-hide-joliet README.hfs -hide-joliet README.unix \
-hide-hfs README.joliet -hide-hfs README.unix \
README=README.hfs README=README.joliet \
README=README.unix cd_dir
i.e. the file README.hfs will be seen as README on the HFS
CD and the other two README files will be hidden. Similarly
for the Joliet and ISO-9660/RockRidge CD.
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There are probably all sorts of strange results possible
with combinations of the hide options ...
To create a DVD-Audio of the DVD-Audio compliant source
directory DVD:
% mkisofs -o dvda.iso -dvd-audio DVD
NOTES
Mkisofs may safely be installed suid root. This may be
needed to allow mkisofs to read the previous session when
creating a multi session image.
mkisofs is not based on the standard mk*fs tools for unix,
because we must generate a complete copy of an existing
filesystem on a disk in the ISO-9660 filesystem. The name
mkisofs is probably a bit of a misnomer, since it not only
creates the filesystem, but it also populates it as well.
However, the appropriate tool name for a UNIX tool that
creates populated filesystems - mkproto - is not well known.
If mkisofs is creating a filesystem image with Rock Ridge
attributes and the directory nesting level of the source
directory tree is too much for ISO-9660, mkisofs will do
deep directory relocation. This results in a directory
called RR_MOVED in the root directory of the CD. You cannot
avoid this directory in the directory tree that is visible
with ISO-9660 but it it automatically hidden in the Rock
Ridge tree.
The sparc boot support that is implemented with the
-sparc-boot options completely follows the official Sparc CD
boot requirements from the Boot prom in Sun Sparc systems.
Some Linux distributions for Sparc systems use a boot loader
called SILO that unfortunately is not Sparc CD boot compli-
ant. It is annoyingly to see that the Authors of SILO don't
fix SILO but instead provide a completely unneeded "patch"
to mkisofs that incorporates far more source than the fix
for SILO would need.
BUGS
o Does not properly read relocated directories in multi-
session mode when adding data.
Any relocated deep directory is lost if the new session
does not include the deep directory.
Repeat by: create first session with deep directory
relocation then add new session with a single dir that
differs from the old deep path.
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o Does not re-use RR_MOVED when doing multi-session from
TRANS.TBL
There may be some other ones. Please, report them to the
author.
HFS PROBLEMS/LIMITATIONS
I have had to make several assumptions on how I expect the
modified libhfs routines to work, however there may be
situations that either I haven't thought of, or come across
when these assumptions fail. Therefore I can't guarantee
that mkisofs will work as expected (although I haven't had a
major problem yet). Most of the HFS features work fine, how-
ever, some are not fully tested. These are marked as Alpha
above.
Although HFS filenames appear to support upper and lower
case letters, the filesystem is case insensitive. i.e. the
filenames "aBc" and "AbC" are the same. If a file is found
in a directory with the same HFS name, then mkisofs will
attempt, where possible, to make a unique name by adding '_'
characters to one of the filenames.
HFS file/directory names that share the first 31 characters
have _N' (N == decimal number) substituted for the last few
characters to generate unique names.
Care must be taken when "grafting" Apple/Unix files or
directories (see above for the method and syntax involved).
It is not possible to use a new name for an Apple/Unix
encoded file/directory. e.g. If a Apple/Unix encoded file
called "oldname" is to added to the CD, then you can not use
the command line:
mkisofs -o output.raw -hfs -graft-points
newname=oldname cd_dir
mkisofs will be unable to decode "oldname". However, you can
graft Apple/Unix encoded files or directories as long as you
do not attempt to give them new names as above.
When creating an HFS volume with the multisession options,
-M and -C, only files in the last session will be in the HFS
volume. i.e. mkisofs can not add existing files from previ-
ous sessions to the HFS volume.
However, if each session is created with the -part option,
then each session will appear as separate volumes when
mounted on a Mac. In this case, it is worth using the -V or
-hfs-volid option to give each session a unique volume name,
otherwise each "volume" will appear on the Desktop with the
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same name.
Symbolic links (as with all other non-regular files) are not
added to the HFS directory.
Hybrid volumes may be larger than pure ISO-9660 volumes con-
taining the same data. In some cases (e.g. DVD sized
volumes) the hybrid volume may be significantly larger. As
an HFS volume gets bigger, so does the allocation block size
(the smallest amount of space a file can occupy). For a
650Mb CD, the allocation block is 10Kb, for a 4.7Gb DVD it
will be about 70Kb.
The maximum number of files in an HFS volume is about 65500
- although the real limit will be somewhat less than this.
The resulting hybrid volume can be accessed on a Unix
machine by using the hfsutils routines. However, no changes
can be made to the volume as it is set as locked. The option
-hfs-unlock will create an output image that is unlocked -
however no changes should be made to the contents of the
volume (unless you really know what you are doing) as it's
not a "real" HFS volume.
Using the -mac-name option will not currently work with the
-T option - the Unix name will be used in the TRANS.TBL
file, not the Macintosh name.
Although mkisofs does not alter the contents of a file, if a
binary file has its TYPE set as 'TEXT', it may be read
incorrectly on a Macintosh. Therefore a better choice for
the default TYPE may be '????'
The -mac-boot-file option may not work at all...
May not work with PC Exchange v2.2 or higher files (avail-
able with MacOS 8.1). DOS media containing PC Exchange
files should be mounted as type msdos (not vfat) when using
Linux.
The SFM format is only partially supported - see HFS MACIN-
TOSH FILE FORMATS section above.
It is not possible to use the the -sparc-boot or
-generic-boot options with the -boot-hfs-file the -prep-boot
or -chrp-boot options.
mkisofs should be able to create HFS hybrid images over 4Gb,
although this has not been fully tested.
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Maintenance Procedures MKISOFS(8)
SEE ALSO
cdrecord(1), mkzftree(1), sfind(1), magic(5),
apple_driver(8).
FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS
Some sort of gui interface.
AVAILABILITY
mkisofs is available as part of the cdrecord package from
https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdrtools/files/
hfsutils from ftp://ftp.mars.org/pub/hfs
mkzftree is available as part of the zisofs-tools package
from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/fs/zisofs/
MAILING LISTS
If you want to actively take part on the development of
mkisofs, you may join the developer mailing list via this
URL:
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/cdrtools-
developers
AUTHOR
Eric Youngdale <ericy@gnu.ai.mit.edu> or <eric@andante.org>
wrote the first versions (1993 ... 1998) of the mkisofs
utility. The copyright for old versions of the mkisofs
utility is held by Yggdrasil Computing, Incorporated.
Joerg Schilling wrote the SCSI transport library and its
adaptation layer to mkisofs and newer parts (starting from
1997) of the utility.
Joerg Schilling is the primary author and maintainer since
1999, this makes mkisofs Copyright (C) 1997-2018 Joerg
Schilling.
HFS hybrid code Copyright (C) James Pearson 1997 ... 2001.
libhfs code Copyright (C) 1996, 1997 Robert Leslie.
libfile code Copyright (C) Ian F. Darwin 1986, 1987, 1989,
1990, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1995.
MAINTAINER
Joerg Schilling
D-13353 Berlin
Germany
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Maintenance Procedures MKISOFS(8)
HFS MKHYBRID MAINTAINER
James Pearson
j.pearson@ge.ucl.ac.uk
If you have support questions, send them to:
cdrtools-support@lists.sourceforge.net
If you definitely found a bug, send a mail to:
cdrtools-developers@lists.sourceforge.net
or joerg@schily.net
To subscribe, use:
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/cdrtools-
developers
or https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/cdrtools-
support
SOURCE DOWNLOAD
A frequently updated source code for the cdrtools is
included in the schilytools project and may be retrieved
from the schilytools project at Sourceforge at:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/schilytools/
The download directory is:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/schilytools/files/
Check for the schily-*.tar.bz2 archives.
Less frequently updated source code for the cdrtools is at:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/cdrtools/files/
and
http://sourceforge.net/projects/cdrtools/files/alpha
Separate project informations for the cdrtools project may
be retrieved from:
http://cdrecord.org
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Maintenance Procedures MKISOFS(8)
INTERFACE STABILITY
The interfaces provided by mkisofs are designed for long
term stability. As mkisofs depends on interfaces provided
by the underlying operating system, the stability of the
interfaces offered by mkisofs depends on the interface sta-
bility of the OS interfaces. Modified interfaces in the OS
may enforce modified interfaces in mkisofs.
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