NAME
mkisofs - create a iso9660 filesystem with optional Rock Ridge
attributes.
SYNOPSIS
mkisofs [ -a ] [ -b boot_image ] [ -c boot_catalog ] [ -A
application_id ] [ -f ] [ -d ] [ -D ] [ -i include-list ] [ -l ] [ -L ]
[ -L ] [ -p preparer ] [ -P publisher ] [ -r ] [ -R ] [ -T ] [ -v ] [
-V ] [ -V volid ] [ -x path ] [ -z ] [ -m glob ] -o filename path
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 characters, 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 truncated 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 communicating with Phillips/IMS/Kodak, HP and
Yamaha drives. 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 sunsite.unc.edu:
/utils/disk-management/cdwrite-2.0.tar.gz
Also you should know that most cd writers are very particular 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.
path is the path of the directory tree to be copied into the iso9660
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filesystem.
OPTIONS
-a Include all files on the iso9660 filesystem. Normally files that
contain the characters '~' or '#' will not be included (these are
typically backup files for editors under unix).
-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.
-b boot_image
Specifies the path and filename of the boot image 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. 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.
-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 created by
mkisofs in the source filesystem, so be sure the specified
filename does not conflict with an existing file, as it will be
quietly overwritten! Usually a name like "boot.catalog" is
chosen.
-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 works 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.
-i include-list
Use the specified file as a list of files to add to the directory
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tree. This is useful for quickly repacking a CD while adding
files to it. The format of this file is path1/file=path2 where
path1 is the directory in the ISO9660 file system where file
should appear and path2 is the where to find the file. NOTE:
This option doesn't work well, and needs to be compltely redone
so that integration with the rest of mkisofs is handled in a
cleaner fashion.
-l Allow full 32 character filenames. Normally the ISO9660 filename
will be in an 8.3 format which is compatible with MS-DOS, even
though the ISO9660 standard allows filenames of up to 32
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
systems (such as the Amiga). Use with caution.
-L Allow filenames to begin with a period. Usually, a leading dot
is replaced with an underscore in order to maintain MS-DOS
compatibility.
-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). Technically glob is matched against the
d->d_name part of the directory entry. Multiple globs may be
excluded (up to 1000). 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.
-M path
Specifies path to existing iso9660 image to be merged. 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 attempting to write this image to. Support for this is
not yet 100% complete, because some handshaking is required
between mkisofs and cdwrite in order to determine the next
writable address on the cdrom.
-N Omit version numbers from ISO9660 file names. This may violate
the ISO9660 standard, but no one really uses the version numbers
anyway. Use with caution.
-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
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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.
-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.
-R Generate SUSP and RR records using the Rock Ridge protocol 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 execute
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 directories 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.
-T Generate a file TRANS.TBL in each directory on the CDROM, which
can be used on non-Rock Ridge capable systems 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.
-V volid
Specifies the volume ID to be written into the master block.
This parameter can also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with
VOLI=id. If specified in both places, the command line version
is used.
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-v Verbose execution.
-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 (up to 1000).
Example:
mkisofs -o cd -x /local/dir1 -x /local/dir2 /local
-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.
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 application that
will be on the disc. There is space on the disc for 128
characters of information. May be overridden 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.
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.
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.
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.
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PUBL 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. May be overridden using the -P
command line option.
SYSI The System Identifier. There is space on the disc for 32
characters of information.
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 278
characters of information.
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 <<A HREF=mailto:ericy@gnu.ai.mit.edu>ericy@gnu.ai.mit.edu</A>> or <<A HREF=mailto:eric@andante.jic.com>eric@andante.jic.com</A>> wrote
both the Linux isofs9660 filesystem and the mkisofs utility, and is
currently maintaining them. The copyright for the mkisofs utility is
held by Yggdrasil Computing, Incorporated.
BUGS
Any files that have hard links to files not in the tree being copied
to the iso9660 filessytem will have an incorrect file reference count.
There may be some other ones. Please, report them to the author.
FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS
Allow specification of multiple paths on the command line to be
included in iso9660 filesystem. Can be tricky - directory entries in
the root directory need to be properly sorted.
AVAILABILITY
mkisofs is available for anonymous ftp from tsx-11.mit.edu in
/pub/linux/packages/mkisofs and many other mirror sites.