mkisofs(8)
MKISOFS(8) MAINTENANCE COMMANDS MKISOFS(8)
NAME
mkisofs - create an hybrid ISO9660/JOLIET/HFS filesystem
with optional Rock Ridge attributes.
SYNOPSIS
mkisofs [ options ] [ -o filename ] pathspec [pathspec ...]
DESCRIPTION
mkisofs is effectively a pre-mastering program to generate
an ISO9660/JOLIET/HFS hybrid filesystem.
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
iso9660 filesystem to a unix host, and provides information
such as longer filenames, uid/gid, posix permissions, sym-
bolic links, block and character devices.
If Joliet or HFS hybrid command line options are specified,
mkisofs will create additional filesystem meta data for
Joliet or HFS. The file content in this case refers to the
same data blocks on the media. It will generate a pure
ISO9660 filesystem unless the Joliet or HFS 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 ISO9660 files when accessed from other
machines. HFS stands for Hierarchical File System and is the
native file system used on Macintosh computers.
As an alternative, mkisofs can generate the Apple Extensions
to ISO9660 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 FORMATS section
below.
mkisofs takes a snapshot of a given directory tree, and gen-
erates a binary image which will correspond to an ISO9660 or
HFS filesystem when written to a block device.
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
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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 options, mkisofs will attempt to
recognise files stored in a number of Apple/Unix file for-
mats and will copy the data and resource forks as well as
any relevant finder information. See the HFS MACINTOSH FILE
FORMATS section below for more about formats mkisofs sup-
ports.
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 cdrecord utility is a utility capable of burning an
actual disc. The latest version of cdrecord is available
from ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/cdrecord
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.
If the option -graft-points has been specified, it is possi-
ble to graft the paths at points other than the root direc-
tory, 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 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
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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/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. There is space on
the disc for 37 characters of information. This param-
eter can also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with
ABST=filename. If specified in both places, the com-
mand 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-leading-dots
-ldots
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.
-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
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this option, it may be allowed separately using the
-allow-leading-dots option.
This violates the ISO9660 standard, but it happens to
work on many systems. Use with caution.
-biblio FILE
Specifies the bibliographic file name. There is space
on the disc for 37 characters of information. 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.
-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
files containing the wrong content on CD.
-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 Cygwin. As the Microsoft
operating system that runs below Cygwin is not POSIX
compliant, it does not have unique inode numbers.
Cygwin creates fake inode numbers from a hash algorithm
that is not 100% correct. If mkisofs would cache
inodes on Cygwin, 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 sig-
nificant 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 mkisofs cannot detect hardlinks anymore
and the resulting CD image may be larger than expected.
-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 1200, 1440, or a 2880 kB 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.
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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.
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 on a
CD. A maximum of 63 El Torito boot entries may be put
on a single CD.
-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 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.
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 iso9660 filesystem image and the generic
boot image that is located in the first 16 sectors of
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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 EL TORITO 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 a
CDextra or the image of a second session or a higher
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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 ISO9660 filesystem in the second session.
-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.
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 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.
-check-session FILE
Check all old sessions for compliance with actual
mkisofs iso9660 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. There is space on
the disc for 37 characters of information. This param-
eter can also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with
COPY=filename. If specified in both places, the com-
mand line version is used.
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-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.
If ISO9660:1999 has not been selected, this violates
the ISO9660 standard, but it happens to work on many
systems. Use with caution.
-dir-mode mode
Overrides the mode of directories used to create the
image to mode. Specifying this option automatically
enables Rock Ridge extensions.
-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. Note that the sorting only works if
the DVD-Video filenames include upper case characters
only.
-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.
-file-mode mode
Overrides the mode of regular files used to create the
image to mode. Specifying this option automatically
enables Rock Ridge extensions.
-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
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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. Mul-
tiple globs may be hidden. If glob matches a direc-
tory, then the contents of that directory will be hid-
den. 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) 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.
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 ISO9660 name which may
both be different from the Joliet name.
-hide-rr-moved
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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. See also NOTES section for
more information on the RR_MOVED directory.
-input-charset charset
Input charset that defines the characters used in local
file names. To get a list of valid charset names, call
mkisofs -input-charset 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. See CHARACTER SETS section below
for more details.
-output-charset charset
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.
-iso-level level
Set the iso9660 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.
With all iso9660 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
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directory nesting, there is no need for a file to con-
tain 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 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. 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 charac-
ters 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 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.
-L Outdated option reserved by POSIX.1-2001, use
-allow-leading-dots instead. This option will get
POSIX.1-2001 semantics with mkisofs-2.02.
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-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
or
-dev 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
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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.
-new-dir-mode mode
Mode to use when creating new directories in the iso fs
image. The default mode is 0555.
-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).
-force-rr
Do not use the automatic Rock Ridge attributes recogni-
tion for previous sessions. This helps to show rotten
iso9660 extension records as e.g. created by NERO burn-
ing 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).
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).
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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.
-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 whole image by 150 sectors (300 kB).
If the option -B is used, then there is a padding at
the end of the iso9660 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
sectors.
-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.
-P Outdated option reserved by POSIX.1-2001, use -pub-
lisher instead. This option will get POSIX.1-2001
semantics with mkisofs-2.02.
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MKISOFS(8) MAINTENANCE COMMANDS MKISOFS(8)
-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. 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 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 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
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MKISOFS(8) MAINTENANCE COMMANDS MKISOFS(8)
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
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 ISO9660 filenames
to include digits, upper case 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.
-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.
-old-root dir
This option is necessary when writing a multisession
image and the previous (or even older) session was
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.
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MKISOFS(8) MAINTENANCE COMMANDS MKISOFS(8)
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.
-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 ISO9660 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.
-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 iso9660
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 outout 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 iso9660 filesystem
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. The
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MKISOFS(8) MAINTENANCE COMMANDS MKISOFS(8)
maximum size of the file (with padding) is 200 sectors
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 iso9660
filesystems only and may not used together with multi-
session or hybrid filesystem options.
-stream-file-name name
Reserved for future use.
-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 iso9660
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.
-sunx86-label label
Set the SVr4 disk label name for the SVr4 disk label
that is created with the -sunx86-boot option.
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MKISOFS(8) MAINTENANCE COMMANDS MKISOFS(8)
-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 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 UDF support in the generated filesystem image.
UDF support is currently in alpha status and for this
reason, it is not possible to create UDF only images.
UDF data structures are currently coupled to the Joliet
structures, so there are many pitfalls with the current
implementation. There is no UID/GID support, there is
no POSIX permission support, there is no support for
symlinks. Note that UDF wastes the space from sector
~20 to sector 256 at the beginning of the disk in addi-
tion to the spcae needed for real UDF data structures.
-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 Allows "Untranslated" filenames, completely violating
the iso9660 standards described above. Forces on the
-d, -l, -N, -allow-leading-dots, -relaxed-filenames,
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MKISOFS(8) MAINTENANCE COMMANDS MKISOFS(8)
-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 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. 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. 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 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.
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MKISOFS(8) MAINTENANCE COMMANDS MKISOFS(8)
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 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 ISO9660/HFS hybrid CD. This option should be
used in conjunction with the -map, -magic and/or the
various double dash options given below.
-apple
Create an ISO9660 CD with Apple's extensions. Similar
to the -hfs option, except that the Apple Extensions to
ISO9660 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
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MKISOFS(8) MAINTENANCE COMMANDS MKISOFS(8)
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
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
ISO9660, 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
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MKISOFS(8) MAINTENANCE COMMANDS MKISOFS(8)
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
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 ISO9660 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.
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MKISOFS(8) MAINTENANCE COMMANDS MKISOFS(8)
-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).
-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)
-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).
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MKISOFS(8) MAINTENANCE COMMANDS MKISOFS(8)
-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.
--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
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MKISOFS(8) MAINTENANCE COMMANDS MKISOFS(8)
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. UTF-16
is used by Microsoft with Win32 with the disadvantage that
it only supports a subset of all codes and that 16-bit char-
acters are not compliant with the POSIX filesystem inter-
face.
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) is 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 limted character set) is 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.
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MKISOFS(8) MAINTENANCE COMMANDS MKISOFS(8)
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.
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
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MKISOFS(8) MAINTENANCE COMMANDS MKISOFS(8)
character set.
There are a number of character sets built in to mkisofs.
To get a listing, use mkisofs -input-charset help.
Additional character sets can be read from file for any of
the character set options by giving a filename as the argu-
ment to the options. The given file will only be read if its
name does not match one of the built in character sets.
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 ISO9660 file names generated from the input filenames
are not converted from the input character set. The ISO9660
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 it's 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.
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The comment field is enclosed in double quotes - it is
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 37235 LZIV ZIVU standard unix compress
0 string 37213 GNUz ZIVU gzip compressed data
0 string %! ASPS TEXT Postscript
0 string 04%! 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 it's
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
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MKISOFS(8) MAINTENANCE COMMANDS MKISOFS(8)
(the -magic option). If the default match is used in the
mapping file, then these values override the default CREATOR
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.
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IPT UShare
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,
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character codes 0x01 to 0x1f (control characters) and
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
ISO9660 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 ISO9660 associated file. This is just like any normal
file stored in the ISO9660 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
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MKISOFS(8) MAINTENANCE COMMANDS MKISOFS(8)
by non-Apple machines). Associated files are normally
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 ISO9660 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
ISO9660 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.
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If an HFS filename exists for a file, then mkisofs can use
this name as the starting point for the ISO9660, Joliet and
Rock Ridge filenames using the -mac-name option. Normal Unix
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 ISO9660 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 ISO9660 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 (MacIcelandandic) 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 ISO9660 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 ISO9660
filenames will appear on the Macintosh. However, as the
Macintosh ISO9660 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
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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
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 ISO9660 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 it's 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. 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 -publisher command line
option.
SYSI The System Identifier. There is space on the disc for
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MKISOFS(8) MAINTENANCE COMMANDS MKISOFS(8)
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.
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 if the CD, 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 iso9660 filesystem with the tar archive call:
% 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:
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MKISOFS(8) MAINTENANCE COMMANDS MKISOFS(8)
% 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 ISO9660', 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 ISO9660/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 ISO9660/RockRidge CD.
There are probably all sorts of strange results possible
with combinations of the hide options ...
AUTHOR
mkisofs is not based on the standard mk*fs tools for unix,
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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.
However, the appropriate tool name for a UNIX tool that
creates populated filesystems - mkproto - is not well known.
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 it's adapta-
tion layer to mkisofs and newer parts (starting from 1999)
of the utility, this makes mkisofs Copyright (C) 1999, 2000,
2001 Joerg Schilling.
HFS hybrid code Copyright (C) James Pearson 1997, 1998,
1999, 2000, 2001
libhfs code Copyright (C) 1996, 1997 Robert Leslie
libfile code Copyright (C) Ian F. Darwin 1986, 1987, 1989,
1990, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1995.
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.
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.
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 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.
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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.
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
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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
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 ISO9660 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 it's 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...
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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 or -prep-boot
options.
mkisofs should be able to create HFS hybrid images over 4Gb,
although this has not been fully tested.
SEE ALSO
cdrecord(1), mkzftree(1), magic(5), apple_driver(8).
FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS
Some sort of gui interface.
AVAILABILITY
mkisofs is available as part of the cdrecord package from
ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/cdrecord/
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, and/or mkhybrid, 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
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HFS MKHYBRID MAINTAINER
James Pearson
j.pearson@ge.ucl.ac.uk
If you have support questions, send them to:
cdrecord-support@berlios.de
or other-cdwrite@lists.debian.org
If you definitly found a bug, send a mail to:
cdrecord-developers@berlios.de
or schilling@fokus.fhg.de
To subscribe, use:
http://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/cdrecord-developers
or http://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/cdrecord-support
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