NAME
mkisofs - create a ISO9660 filesystem with optional Rock
Ridge attributes and Joliet hybrid data.
SYNOPSIS
mkisofs [ -abstract FILE ] [ -allow-lowercase ] [ - allow-
multidot ] [ -biblio FILE ] [ -b eltorito_boot_image ] [ -B
sparc_boot_image_list ] [ -G generic_boot_image ] [ -gui ] [
-C #,# ] [ -hard-disk-boot ] [ -no-emul-boot ] [ -no-boot ]
[ -boot-load-seg ] [ -boot-load-size ] [ -boot-info-table ]
[ -c boot_catalog ] [ -check-oldnames ] [ -copyright FILE ]
[ -A application_id ] [ -f ] [ -d ] [ -D ] [ -hide glob ] [
-hide-list file ] [ -hidden glob ] [ -hidden-list file ] [ -
hide-joliet glob ] [ -hide-joliet-list file ] [ - hide-
joliet-trans-tbl ] [ -hide-rr-moved ] [ -iso-level level ] [
-J ] [ -jcharset charset ] [ -l ] [ - L ] [ - log-file
log_file ] [ -max-iso9660-filenames ] [ -M path | device ] [
-nobak ] [ -no-bak ] [ -no-split-symlink-components ] [ -
no-split-symlink-fields ] [ -pad ] [ -path-list file ] [ -p
preparer ] [ -print-size ] [ -P publisher ] [ -quiet ] [ - r
] [ -R ] [ -relaxed-filenames ] [ -sort sort file ] [ -sysid
ID ] [ -T | -table-name TABLE_NAME ] [ -ucs-level level ] [
- use-fileversion ] [ -U ] [ -no-iso-translate ] [ -v ] [ -V
volid ] [ -volset ID ] [ -volset-size # ] [ -volset-seqno #
] [ -x path ] [ -exclude-list file ] [ -z ] [ -m glob ] -o
filename pathspec [pathspec]
DESCRIPTION
mkisofs is effectively a pre-mastering program to generate
the iso9660 filesystem - it takes a snapshot of a given
directory tree, and generates a binary image which will
correspond to an iso9660 filesystem when written to a block
device.
mkisofs is also capable of generating the System Use Sharing
Protocol records specified by the Rock Ridge Interchange
Protocol. This is used to further describe the files in the
iso9660 filesystem to a unix host, and provides information
such as longer filenames, uid/gid, posix permissions, and
block and character devices.
Each file written to the iso9660 filesystem must have a
filename in the 8.3 format (8 characters, period, 3 charac-
ters, all upper case), even if Rock Ridge is 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 trun-
cated names are not all unique. mkisofs assigns weightings
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 FOO.000;1 and the file foo.bar would be
written as FOO.BAR;1
Note that mkisofs is not designed to communicate with the
writer directly. Most writers have proprietary command sets
which vary from one manufacturer to another, and you need a
specialized tool to actually burn the disk. The cdwrite
utility is one such tool that runs under Linux and performs
this task. The latest version of cdwrite is capable of com-
municating with the Phillips/IMS/Kodak, HP and Yamaha drives
that have been manufactured before 1997. Most writers come
with some version of DOS software that allows a direct image
copy of an iso9660 image to the writer. The current version
of cdwrite is available from
ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/utils/disk-management/cdwrite-
2.0.tar.gz Note that cdwrite has not been actively main-
tained since 1995.
The cdrecord utility is another utility capable of burning
an actual disc. The latest version of cdrecord is available
from ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/cdrecord Cdrecord is
under constant development.
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.
pathspec is the path of the directory tree to be copied into
the iso9660 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.
It is possible to graft the paths at points other than the
root directory, and it is possible to graft files or direc-
tories onto the cdrom image with names different than what
they have in the source filesystem. This is easiest to
illustrate 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.
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, the easiest solution is to
create real directories in the path such that mkisofs
doesn't have to invent them.
mkisofs will also run on Win9X/NT4 machines when compiled
with Cygnus' cygwin (available from
http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cygwin/). Therefore most refer-
ences in this man page to Unix can be replaced with Win32.
OPTIONS
-abstract FILE
Specifies the abstract file name. This parameter can
also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with ABST=filename.
If specified in both places, the command line version
is used.
-A 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. This parameter can
also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with APPI=id. If
specified in both places, the command line version is
used.
-allow-lowercase
This options allows lower case characters to appear in
iso9660 filenames.
This violates the ISO9660 standard, but it happens to
work on some systems. Use with caution.
-allow-multidot
This options allows more than one dot to appear in
iso9660 filenames. A leading dot is not affected by
this option, it may be allowed separately using the - L
option.
This violates the ISO9660 standard, but it happens to
work on many systems. Use with caution.
-biblio FILE
Specifies the bibliographic file name. This parameter
can also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with
BIBLO=filename. If specified in both places, the com-
mand line version is used.
-b 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 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 1.2, 1.44, or a 2.88 meg floppy, and
mkisofs will use this size when creating the output
iso9660 filesystem. It is assumed that the first 512
byte sector should be read from the boot image (it is
essentially emulating a normal floppy drive). This
will work, for example, if the boot image is a LILO
based boot floppy.
-B 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.
There may be empty fields in the comma separated list.
This option is required to make a bootable CD for Sun
sparc systems. If the -B or - sparc-boot option has
been specified, the first sector of the resulting image
will contain a Sun disk label. This disk label speci-
fies slice 0 for the iso9660 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
filesystem 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.
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 iso9660 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
sectors of the CD. The first 16 sectors are the sectors
that are located before the iso9660 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.
-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 BOOT INFO TABLE section for a description of this
table.
-C last_sess_start,next_sess_start
This option is needed when mkisofs is used to create
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 ... the -C option may only
be uses in conjunction with the -M option.
-c 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.
-check-oldnames
Check all filenames imported from old session for com-
pliance with actual mkisofs iso9660 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 iso9660 standard.
-copyright FILE
Specifies the Copyright file name. This parameter can
also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with COPY=filename.
If specified in both places, the command line version
is used.
-d Omit trailing period from files that do not have a
period.
This violates the ISO9660 standard, but it happens to
work on many systems. Use with caution.
-D Do not use deep directory relocation, and instead just
pack them in the way we see them.
This violates the ISO9660 standard, but it happens to
work on many systems. Use with caution.
-f Follow symbolic links when generating the filesystem.
When this option is not in use, symbolic links will be
entered using Rock Ridge if enabled, otherwise the file
will be ignored.
-gui Switch the behaviour for a GUI. This currently makes
the output more verbose but may have other effects in
future.
-hide glob
Hide glob from being seen on the ISO9660 or Rock Ridge
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 direc-
tory, then the contents of that directory will be hid-
den. All the hidden files will still be written to the
output CD image file. Should be used with the - hide-
joliet option.
-hide-list file
A file containing a list of globs to be hidden as
above.
-hidden glob
Add the hidden (existence) ISO9660 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.
Multiple 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. All the hidden
files will still be written to the output CD image
file. Should be used with the -hide option.
-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 ISO9660 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. It seems to be impossible to completely
hide the RR_MOVED directory from the Rock Ridge tree.
This option only makes the visible tree better to
understand for people who don't know what this direc-
tory is for. If you need to have no RR_MOVED directory
at all, you should use the -D option. Note that in case
that the -D option has been specified, the resulting
filesystem is not ISO9660 level-1 compliant and will
not be readable on MS-DOS.
-l Allow full 31 character filenames. Normally the
ISO9660 filename will be in an 8.3 format which is com-
patible with MS-DOS, even though the ISO9660 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.
-iso-level level
Set the iso9660 conformance level. Valid numbers are
1..3.
With level 1, no associated files are allowed and
filenames are restricted to 8.3 characters.
With level 2, no associated files are allowed.
With level 3, no restrictions apply.
With all iso9660 levels all filenames are restricted to
upper case letters, numbers and the underscore (_). The
maximum filename length is restricted to 31 characters,
the directory nesting level is restricted to 8 and the
maximum path length is limited to 255 characters.
-J Generate Joliet directory records in addition to regu-
lar iso9660 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.
-jcharset charset
Local charset that should be used for translating local
file names into Joliet Unicode directory records. To
get a list of valid charset names, call mkisofs -jchar-
set help. To get a 1:1 mapping, you may use default as
charset name. The default initial values are cp437 on
DOS based systems and iso8859-1 on all other systems.
If the -jcharset option is specified, the -J option is
implied.
-L Allow ISO9660 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 ISO9660 standard, but it happens to
work on many systems. Use with caution.
-log-file log_file
Redirect all error, warning and informational messages
to log_file instead of the standard error.
-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
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 exclude as
above.
-max-iso9660-filenames
Allow 37 chars in iso9660 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 ISO9660 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
Specifies path to existing iso9660 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.
-N Omit version numbers from ISO9660 file names.
This violates the ISO9660 standard, but no one really
uses the version numbers anyway. Use with caution.
-nobak
-no-bak
Do not include backup files files on the iso9660
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-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).
-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).
-o filename
is the name of the file to which the iso9660 filesystem
image should be written. This can be a disk file, a
tape drive, or it can correspond directly to the device
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 ISO9660 by 16 sectors (32kB). If
the total size then is not a multiple of 16 sectors,
the needed number of sectors is added. If the option -
B is used, then there is a second padding at the end of
the boot partitions.
The padding is neded 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.
-path-list file
A file containing a list of pathspec directories and
filenames to be added to the ISO9660 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. There must be at
least one pathspec given on the command line as well.
-P 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. 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
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. This parameter can also be set in the
file .mkisofsrc with PREP=. If specified in both
places, the command line version is used.
-print-size
Print estimated filesystem size 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.
-quiet
This makes mkisofs even less verbose. No progress out-
put will be provided.
-R Generate SUSP and RR records using the Rock Ridge pro-
tocol to further describe the files on the iso9660
filesystem.
-r 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
directory, set all of the search bits, so that direc-
tories are globally searchable on the client. All
write bits 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 desirable for uid 0 or gid 0. When used on
Win32, the execute bit is set on all files. This is a
result of the lack of file permissions on Win32 and the
Cygwin POSIX emulation layer.
-relaxed-filenames
The option -relaxed-filenames allows ISO9660 filenames
to include digits, uppercase characters and all other 7
bit ASCII characters (resp. anything except lowercase
characters).
This violates the ISO9660 standard, but it happens to
work on many systems. Use with caution.
-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.
-sysid ID
Specifies the system ID. 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 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.
-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 if 1 for all
files. File versions are strings in the range ;1 to
;32767 This option is the default on VMS.
-U Allows "Untranslated" filenames, completely violating
the iso9660 standards described above. Forces on the -
d, -l, -L, -N and - no-iso-translate flags, and also
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 iso9660 filenames. These characters are
though invalid often used by Microsoft systems.
This violates the ISO9660 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. This parameter can also
be set in the file .mkisofsrc with VOLI=id. If speci-
fied 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 Windows or Mac platform.
-volset ID
Specifies the volset ID. This parameter can also be
set in the file .mkisofsrc with VOLS=volset_id. If
specified in both places, the command line version 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 set. The -volset-
size option may be used to create CD's that are part of
e.g. a Operation System installation set of CD's. 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 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.
- z Generate special SUSP records for transparently
compressed files. This is only of use and interest for
hosts that support transparent decompression. This is
an experimental feature, and no hosts yet support this,
but there are ALPHA patches for Linux that can make use
of this feature.
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
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. 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.
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. May be overrid-
den 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. 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.
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
space on the disc for 128 characters of information.
May be overridden using the -P 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. May be overridden using
the -volset command line option.
mkisofs can also be configured at compile time with defaults
for many of these fields. See the file defaults.h.
AUTHOR
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 iso9660 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.
Eric Youngdale <ericy@gnu.ai.mit.edu> or <eric@andante.org>
wrote both the Linux isofs9660 filesystem and the mkisofs
utility. The copyright for the mkisofs utility is held by
Yggdrasil Computing, Incorporated.
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.
BUGS
o Any files that have hard links to files not in the
tree being copied to the iso9660 filesystem will have
an incorrect file reference count.
o Does not check for SUSP record(s) in "." entry of the
root directory to verify the existence of Rock Ridge
enhancements.
This problem is present when reading old sessions while
adding data in multi-session mode.
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.
o Does not re-use RR_MOVED when doing multi-session from
TRANS.TBL
o Does not create whole_name entry for RR_MOVED in
multi-session mode.
There may be some other ones. Please, report them to the
author.
FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS
Some sort of gui interface.
AVAILABILITY
mkisofs is available as part of the cdrecord package from
ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/cdrecord/
MAILING LISTS
If you want to actively take part on the development of
mkisofs, you may join the cdwriting mailing list by sending
mail to:
other-cdwrite-request@lists.debian.org
and include the word subscribe in the body. The mail
address of the list is:
cdwrite@lists.debian.org
MAINTAINER
Joerg Schilling
Seestr. 110
D-13353 Berlin
Germany
Mail bugs and suggestions to:
schilling@fokus.gmd.de or js@cs.tu-berlin.de or
joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de
Man(1) output converted with
man2html
GMD Homepage
FOKUS Homepage
Schily's Homepage
