MKISOFS
NAME
mkisofs - create a iso9660 filesystem with optional Rock
Ridge attributes.
SYNOPSIS
mkisofs [ -a ] [ -abstract FILE ] [ -biblio FILE ] [ -b
boot_image ] [ -c boot_catalog ] [ -copyright FILE ] [ -A
application_id ] [ -f ] [ -d ] [ -D ] [ -hide glob ] [
-hide-joliet glob ] [ -J ] [ -l ] [ -L ] [ -log-file
log_file ] [ -no-split-symlink-components ] [ -no-split-
symlink-fields ] [ -p preparer ] [ -print-size ] [ -P pub-
lisher ] [ -quiet ] [ -r ] [ -R ] [ -sysid ID ] [ -T ] [
-v ] [ -V volid ] [ -volset ID ] [ -volset-size # ] [
-volset-seqno # ] [ -x path ] [ -z ] [ -m glob ] -o file-
name pathspec [pathspec]
DESCRIPTION
mkisofs is effectively a pre-mastering program to generate
the iso9660 filesystem - it takes a snapshot of a given
directory tree, and generates a binary image which will
correspond to an iso9660 filesystem when written to a
block device.
mkisofs is also capable of generating the System Use Shar-
ing Protocol records specified by the Rock Ridge Inter-
change Protocol. This is used to further describe the
files in the iso9660 filesystem to a unix host, and pro-
vides 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 char-
acters, 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 exten-
sion (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 the Phillips/IMS/Kodak, HP
and Yamaha drives that have been manufactured before 1997.
Most writers come with some version of DOS software that
allows a direct image copy of an iso9660 image to the
writer. The current version of cdwrite is available from
sunsite.unc.edu: /utils/disk-management/cdwrite-2.0.tar.gz
Note that cdwrite has not been actively maintained since
1995.
The cdrecord utility is another utility capable of burning
an actual disc. The latest version of cdrecord is avail-
able from ftp://ftp.fokus.gmd.de/pub/unix/cdrecord
Cdrecord is under constant development.
Also you should know that most cd writers are very partic-
ular 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 filesystem. Multiple paths can be specified,
and mkisofs will merge the files found in all of the spec-
ified path components to form the cdrom image.
It is possible to graft the paths at points other than the
root directory, and it is possible to graft files or
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
will include the file old.lis in the cdrom image at
/foo/bar/xxx. The same sort of syntax can be used with
directories as well. mkisofs will create any directories
required such that the graft points exist on the cdrom
image - the directories do not need to appear in one of
the paths. Any directories that are created on the fly
like this will have permissions 0555 and appear to be
owned by the person running mkisofs. If you wish other
permissions or owners of the intermediate directories, the
easiest solution is to create real directories in the path
such that mkisofs doesn't have to invent them.
OPTIONS
-a Include all files on the iso9660 filesystem. Nor-
mally files that contain the characters '~' or '#'
will not be included (these are typically backup
files for editors under unix).
-abstract FILE
Specifies the abstract file name. This parameter
can also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with
ABST=filename. If specified in both places, the
command line version is used.
-A application_id
Specifies a text string that will be written into
the volume header. This should describe the appli-
cation 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.
-biblio FILE
Specifies the bibliographic file name. This param-
eter can also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with
BIBLO=filename. 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 creat-
ing 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 nor-
mal floppy drive). This will work, for example, if
the boot image is a LILO based boot floppy.
-C last_sess_start,next_sess_start
This option is needed when mkisofs is used to cre-
ate the image of a second session or a higher level
session for a multi session disk. The option -C
takes a pair of two numbers separated by a comma.
The first number is the sector number of the first
sector in the last session of the disk that should
be appended to. The second number is the starting
sector number of the new session. The expected
pair of numbers may be retrieved by calling
cdrecord -msinfo ... the -C option may only be
uses in conjunction with the -M option.
-c boot_catalog
Specifies the path and filename of the boot catalog
to be used when making an "El Torito" bootable CD.
The pathname must be relative to the source path
specified to mkisofs. This option is required to
make a bootable CD. This file will be created by
mkisofs in the source filesystem, so be sure the
specified filename does not conflict with an exist-
ing file, as it will be quietly overwritten! Usu-
ally a name like "boot.catalog" is chosen.
-copyright FILE
Specifies the Copyright file name. This parameter
can also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with
COPY=filename. If specified in both places, the
command line version is used.
-d Omit trailing period from files that do not have a
period. This violates the ISO9660 standard, but it
happens to work on many systems. Use with caution.
-D Do not use deep directory relocation, and instead
just pack them in the way we see them. This vio-
lates the ISO9660 standard, but it works on many
systems. Use with caution.
-f Follow symbolic links when generating the filesys-
tem. When this option is not in use, symbolic
links will be entered using Rock Ridge if enabled,
otherwise the file will be ignored.
-hide glob
Hide glob from being seen on the ISO9660 or Rock
Ridge directory. glob is a shell wild-card-style
pattern that must match any part of the filename or
path. Multiple globs may be hidden (up to 1000).
If glob matches a directory, then the contents of
that directory will be hidden. All the hidden
files will still be written to the output CD image
file. Should be used with the -hide-joliet option.
-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 (up to 1000). If glob matches
a directory, then the contents of that directory
will be hidden. All the hidden files will still be
written to the output CD image file. Should be
used with the -hide option.
-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.
-J Generate Joliet directory records in addition to
regular iso9660 file names. This is primarily use-
ful 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.
-L Allow filenames to begin with a period. Usually, a
leading dot is replaced with an underscore in order
to maintain MS-DOS compatibility.
-log-file log_file
Redirect all error, warning and informational mes-
sages 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). 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.
NOTE: The -m and -x option description should both
be updated, they are wrong. Both now work identi-
cal and use filename globbing. A file is exluded if
either the last component matches or the whole path
matches.
-M path
or
-M device
Specifies path to existing iso9660 image to be
merged. The alternate form takes a SCSI device
specifier that uses the same syntax as the dev=
parameter of cdrecord. The output of mkisofs will
be a new session which should get written to the
end of the image specified in -M. Typically this
requires multi-session capability for the recorder
and cdrom drive that you are attempting 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
may violate the ISO9660 standard, but no one really
uses the version numbers anyway. Use with caution.
-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 = compo-
nent_size instead of link_size += component_size).
-no-split-symlink-fields
Don't split the SL fields, but begin a new Continu-
ation Area (CE) instead. This may waste some space,
but the SunOS 4.1.4 and Solaris 2.5.1 cdrom driver
have a bug in reading split SL fields (a `/' can be
dropped).
-o filename
is the name of the file to which the iso9660
filesystem image should be written. This can be a
disk file, a tape drive, or it can correspond
directly to the device name of the optical disc
writer. If not specified, stdout is used. Note
that the output can also be a block special device
for a regular disk drive, in which case the disk
partition can be mounted and examined to ensure
that the premastering was done correctly.
-P publisher_id
Specifies a text string that will be written into
the volume header. This should describe the pub-
lisher 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 pre-
parer of the CDROM, usually with a mailing address
and phone number. There is space on the disc for
128 characters of information. This parameter can
also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with PREP=. If
specified in both places, the command line version
is used.
-print-size
Print estimated filesystem size and exit. This
option is needed for Disk At Once mode and with
some CD-R drives when piping directly into
cdrecord. In this case it is needed to know the
size of the filesustem before the actual CD-cre-
ation is done. The option -print-size allows to
get this size from a "dry-run" before the CD is
actually written.
-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 executa-
bles 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.
-sysid ID
Specifies the system ID. This parameter can also
be set in the file .mkisofsrc with SYSI=system_id.
If specified in both places, the command line ver-
sion is used.
-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 mas-
ter 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. Note
that if you assign a volume ID, this is the name
that will be used as the mount point used by the
Solaris volume management system and the name that
is assigned to the disc on a Windows or Mac plat-
form.
-volset ID
Specifies the volset ID. This parameter can also
be set in the file .mkisofsrc with VOLS=volset_id.
If specified in both places, the command line ver-
sion is used.
-volset-size #
Sets the volume set size to #. The volume set size
is the number of CD's that are in a CD set. The
-volset-size option may be used to create CD's that
are part of e.g. a Operation System installation
set of CD's. The option -volset-size must be spec-
ified before -volset-seqno on each command line.
-volset-seqno #
Sets the volume set sequence number to #. The vol-
ume set sequence number is the index number of the
current CD in a CD set. The option -volset-size
must be specified before -volset-seqno on each com-
mand line.
-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). Exam-
ple:
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 identi-
cal and use filename globbing. A file is exluded if
either the last component matches or the whole path
matches.
-z Generate special SUSP records for transparently
compressed files. This is only of use and interest
for hosts that support transparent decompression.
This is an experimental feature, and no hosts yet
support this, but there are ALPHA patches for Linux
that can make use of this feature.
CONFIGURATION
mkisofs looks for the .mkisofsrc file, first in the cur-
rent 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 informa-
tion. 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 informa-
tion. May be overridden using the -copyright com-
mand 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 overridden 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 informa-
tion. 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 com-
mand line option.
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 com-
mand line option.
SYSI The System Identifier. There is space on the disc
for 32 characters of information. May be overrid-
den using the -sysid command line option.
VOLI The Volume Identifier. There is space on the disc
for 32 characters of information. May be overrid-
den using the -V command line option.
VOLS The Volume Set Name. There is space on the disc
for 128 characters of information. May be overrid-
den using the -volset command line option.
mkisofs can also be configured at compile time with
defaults for many of these fields. See the file
defaults.h.
AUTHOR
mkisofs is not based on the standard mk*fs tools for unix,
because we must generate a complete copy of an existing
filesystem on a disk in the iso9660 filesystem. The name
mkisofs is probably a bit of a misnomer, since it not only
creates the filesystem, but it also populates it as well.
Eric Youngdale <ericy@gnu.ai.mit.edu> or
<eric@andante.jic.com> wrote both the Linux isofs9660
filesystem and the mkisofs utility, and is currently main-
taining 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 incor-
rect file reference count.
There may be some other ones. Please, report them to the
author.
FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS
Some sort of gui interface.
AVAILABILITY
mkisofs is available for anonymous ftp from tsx-11.mit.edu
in /pub/linux/packages/mkisofs and many other mirror
sites.