Man Pages - Manpage for mkisofs
Posted May 26th, 2004 in Man Pages (Updated May 24th, 2007)
man page for the unix linux bsd command mkisofs
MKISOFS(8) 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 a pre-mastering program to generate ISO9660/JOLIET/HFS
hybrid filesystems.
mkisofs is capable of generating the System Use Sharing Protocol
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 long filenames, UID/GID,
POSIX permissions, symbolic links, block and character devices.
If Joliet or HFS hybrid command line options are specified, mkisofs
will create the additional filesystem metadata needed for Joliet or
HFS. If no Joliet or HFS hybrid command line options are given,
mkisofs will generate a pure ISO9660 filesystem.
mkisofs can generate a true (or shared) HFS hybrid filesystem. 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 Hierar‐
chical File System and is the native file system used on Macintosh com‐
puters.
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 generates 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 characters, all upper case), even
if Rock Ridge is in use. This filename is used on systems that are not
able to make use of the Rock Ridge extensions (such as MS-DOS), and
each filename in each directory must be different from the other file‐
names 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 other‐
wise 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 formats 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 supports.
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 wodim utility is a utility capable of burning an actual disc. The
latest version of wodim is available from
http://alioth.debian.org/projects/debburn/
Also you should know that most cd writers are very particular about
timing. Once you start to burn a disc, you cannot let their buffer
empty before you are done, or you will end up with a corrupt disc.
Thus it is critical that you be able to maintain an uninterrupted data
stream to the writer for the entire time that the disc is being writ‐
ten.
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 specified path components to form
the cdrom image.
If the option -graft-points has been specified, 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. 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 inter‐
mediate 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 references 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 parameter can also be
set in the file .mkisofsrc with ABST=filename. If specified in
both places, the command line version is used.
-A application_id
Specifies a text string that will be written into the volume
header. This should describe the application that will be on
the disc. There is space on the disc for 128 characters of
information. This parameter can also be set in the file
.mkisofsrc with APPI=id. If specified in both places, the com‐
mand line version is used.
-allow-leading-dots
-ldots Allow ISO9660 filenames to begin with a period. Usually, 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
file names.
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 file‐
names. A leading dot is not affected by 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 command 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 multiple 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 systems. Be careful when using this option on a
filesystem 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 significant amount of different
files (> ~5000) is in inside the tree that is to be archived.
This does not happen when the -no-cache-inodes is used, but the
disadvantage is that mkisofs cannot detect hardlinks anymore and
the resulting CD image may be larger than expected.
-alpha-boot alpha_boot_image
Specifies the path and filename of the boot image to be used
when making an Alpha/SRM bootable CD. The pathname must be rela‐
tive to the source path specified to mkisofs.
-hppa-bootloader hppa_bootloader_image
Specifies the path and filename of the boot image to be used
when making an HPPA bootable CD. The pathname must be relative
to the source path specified to mkisofs. Other options are
required, at the very least a kernel file name and the boot com‐
mand line. See the HPPA NOTES section below for more informa‐
tion.
-hppa-cmdline hppa_boot_command_line
Specifies the command line to be passed to the hppa boot loader
when making a bootable CD. Separate the parameters with spaces
or commas. More options must be passed to mkisofs, at the very
least a kernel file name and the boot loader file name. See the
HPPA NOTES section below for more information.
-hppa-kernel-32 hppa_kernel_32
Specifies the path and filename of the 32-bit kernel image to be
used when making an HPPA bootable CD. The pathname must be
relative to the source path specified to mkisofs. Other options
are required, at the very least the boot loader file name and
the boot command line. See the HPPA NOTES section below for more
information.
-hppa-kernel-64 hppa_kernel_64
Specifies the path and filename of the 64-bit kernel image to be
used when making an HPPA bootable CD. The pathname must be rela‐
tive to the source path specified to mkisofs. Other options are
required, at the very least the boot loader file name and the
boot command line. See the HPPA NOTES section below for more
information.
-hppa-ramdisk hppa_ramdisk_image
Specifies the path and filename of the ramdisk image to be used
when making an HPPA bootable CD. The pathname must be relative
to the source path specified to mkisofs. This parameter is
optional. Other options are required, at the very least a ker‐
nel file name and the boot command line. See the HPPA NOTES sec‐
tion below for more information.
-mips-boot mips_boot_image
Specifies the path and filename of the boot image to be used
when making an SGI/big-endian MIPS bootable CD. The pathname
must be relative to the source path specified to mkisofs. This
option may be specified several times to allow the addition of
multiple boot images, up to a maximum of 15.
-mipsel-boot mipsel_boot_image
Specifies the path and filename of the boot image to be used
when making an DEC/little-endian MIPS bootable CD. The pathname
must be relative to the source path specified to mkisofs.
-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 ISO9660 image, the first image file is mapped to parti‐
tion 1. There may be empty fields in the comma separated list.
The maximum number of possible partitions is 8 so it is impossi‐
ble to specify more than 7 partition images. This option is
required to make a bootable CD for Sun sparc systems. If the -B
or -sparc-boot option has been specified, the first sector of
the resulting image will contain a Sun disk label. This disk
label 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 inter‐
nals but only on properties of the Open Boot prom. For this rea‐
son, it should be usable for any OS that boots off a sparc sys‐
tem.
For more information also see the NOTES section below.
If the special filename ... is used, the actual and all follow‐
ing boot partitions are mapped to the previous partition. If
mkisofs is called with -G image -B ... all boot partitions are
mapped to the partition that contains the ISO9660 filesystem
image and the generic boot image that is located in the first 16
sectors of the disk is used for all architectures.
-b eltorito_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 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.
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 beginning 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 ISO9660 image, the first image file is mapped to parti‐
tion 1. There may be empty fields in the comma separated list.
The maximum number of possible partitions is 8 so it is impossi‐
ble to specify more than 7 partition images. This option is
required to make a bootable CD for Sun sparc systems. If the -B
or -sparc-boot option has been specified, the first sector of
the resulting image will contain a Sun disk label. This disk
label 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 inter‐
nals but only on properties of the Open Boot prom. For this rea‐
son, it should be usable for any OS that boots off a sparc sys‐
tem.
For more information also see the NOTES section below.
If the special filename ... is used, the actual and all follow‐
ing boot partitions are mapped to the previous partition. If
mkisofs is called with -G image -B ... all boot partitions are
mapped to the partition that contains the ISO9660 filesystem
image and the generic boot image that is located in the first 16
sectors of the disk is used for all architectures.
-G generic_boot_image
Specifies the path and filename of the generic boot image to be
used when making a generic bootable CD. The generic_boot_image
will be placed on the first 16 sectors of the CD. The first 16
sectors are the sectors that are located before the ISO9660 pri‐
mary 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 Torito"
bootable CDs is a hard disk image. The hard disk image must
begin with a master boot record that contains a single
partition.
-no-emul-boot
Specifies that the boot image used to create "El Torito"
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 emulated 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-emu‐
lation "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 CD Extra
or the image of a second session or a higher level session for a
multi session disk. The option -C takes a pair of two numbers
separated by a comma. The first number is the sector number of
the first sector in the last session of the disk that should be
appended to. The second number is the starting sector number of
the new session. The expected pair of numbers may be retrieved
by calling wodim -msinfo ... If the -C option is used in con‐
junction with the -M option, mkisofs will create a filesystem
image that is intended to be a continuation of the previous ses‐
sion. 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 CD Extra. This is a multi session 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
existing 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 compliance
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 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.
If ISO9660:1999 has not been selected, this violates the ISO9660
standard, but it happens to work on many systems. Use with cau‐
tion.
-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 a 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 sort‐
ing only works if the DVD-Video filenames include upper case
characters only.
Note that in order to get a DVD-Video compliant filesystem
image, you need to prepare a DVD-Video compliant directory tree.
This means you need to have a directory VIDEO_TS (all caps) in
the root directory of the resulting DVD and you should have a
directory AUDIO_TS. The directory VIDEO_TS needs to include all
needed files (file names must be all caps) for a compliant DVD-
Video filesystem.
-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 specified.
-hide glob
Hide glob from being seen on the ISO9660 or Rock Ridge direc‐
tory. glob is a shell wild-card-style pattern that must match
any part of the filename or path. Multiple globs may be hidden.
If glob matches a directory, then the contents of that directory
will be hidden. In order to match a directory name, make sure
the pathname does not include a trailing '/' character. All the
hidden files will still be written to the output CD image file.
Should be used with the -hide-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 pattern that must match any part of the
filename or path. In order to match a directory name, make sure
the pathname 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 contents of that directory will be
hidden. In order to match a directory name, make sure the path‐
name 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 usu‐
ally don't make sense in the Joliet World as they list the real
name and the ISO9660 name which may both be different from the
Joliet name.
-hide-rr-moved
Rename the directory RR_MOVED to .rr_moved in the Rock Ridge
tree. It seems to be impossible to completely hide the RR_MOVED
directory from the Rock Ridge tree. This option only makes the
visible tree better to understand for people who don't know what
this directory is for. If you need to have no RR_MOVED direc‐
tory 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 CHAR‐
ACTER 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 file‐
names 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 maxi‐
mum filename length is restricted to 31 characters, the direc‐
tory nesting level is restricted to 8 and the maximum path
length is limited to 255 characters.
Level 4 officially does not exists but mkisofs maps it to
ISO-9660:1999 which is ISO9660 version 2.
With level 4, an enhanced volume descriptor with version number
and file structure version number set to 2 is emitted. There
may be more than 8 levels of directory nesting, there is no need
for a file to contain a dot and the dot has no more special
meaning, file names do not have version numbers, the maximum
length for files and directory is raised to 207. If Rock Ridge
is used, the maximum ISO9660 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 ISO9660 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 regular ISO9660
file names. This is primarily useful when the discs are to be
used on Windows machines. The Joliet filenames are specified in
Unicode and each path component can be up to 64 Unicode charac‐
ters long. Note that Joliet is not a standard - CDs 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 characters
causes interoperability problems.
-joliet-long
Allow Joliet filenames to be up to 103 Unicode characters. 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 CHARAC‐
TER SETS section below for more details.
-l Allow full 31 character filenames. Normally the ISO9660 file‐
name will be in an 8.3 format which is compatible 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
systems (such as the Amiga). Use with caution.
-L Outdated option reserved by POSIX.1-2001, use -allow-lead‐
ing-dots instead. This option will get POSIX.1-2001 semantics
with mkisofs-2.02.
-jigdo-jigdo jigdo_file
Produce a jigdo .jigdo file as well as the .iso. See the JIGDO
NOTES section below for more information.
-jigdo-template template_file
Produce a jigdo .template file as well as the .iso. See the
JIGDO NOTES section below for more information.
-jigdo-min-file-size size
Specify the minimum size for a file to be listed in the .jigdo
file. Default (and minimum allowed) is 1KB. See the JIGDO NOTES
section below for more information.
-jigdo-force-md5 path
Specify a file pattern where files MUST be contained in the
externally-suplied MD5 list as supplied by -md5-list. See the
JIGDO NOTES section below for more information.
-jigdo-exclude path
Specify a file pattern where files will not be listed in the
.jigdo file. See the JIGDO NOTES section below for more informa‐
tion.
-jigdo-map path
Specify a pattern mapping for the jigdo file (e.g. Debian=/mir‐
ror/debian). See the JIGDO NOTES section below for more informa‐
tion.
-md5-list md5_file
Specify a file containing the MD5sums, sizes and pathnames of
the files to be included in the .jigdo file. See the JIGDO NOTES
section below for more information.
-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 CD-ROM. 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. Example:
mkisofs -o rom -m '*.o' -m core -m foobar
would exclude all files ending in ".o", called "core" or "foo‐
bar" to be copied to CD-ROM. 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 glob‐
bing. 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 ISO9660 version numbers.
This violates the ISO9660 standard, but it happens to work on
many systems. Although a conforming application needs to pro‐
vide 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 wodim. 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 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 filesystem
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 charac‐
ters '~' 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 recognition for
previous sessions. This helps to show rotten ISO9660 extension
records as e.g. created by NERO burning ROM.
-no-rr Do not use the Rock Ridge attributes from previous sessions.
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 Continuation 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 signatures if a symlink contained `/../'.
This CE signature bug in mkisofs has been fixed in May 2003.
-no-split-symlink-fields
Don't split the SL fields, but begin a new Continuation Area
(CE) instead. This may waste some space, but the SunOS 4.1.4 and
Solaris 2.5.1 cdrom driver have a bug in reading split SL fields
(a `/' can be dropped).
Note that this option has been introduced by Eric Youngdale in
1997. It is questionable whether it makes sense at all. When
it has been introduced, mkisofs did have a serious bug that did
create defective CE signatures 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 beginning of the boot parti‐
tions. 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 -publisher
instead. This option will get POSIX.1-2001 semantics with
mkisofs-2.02.
-publisher publisher_id
Specifies a text string that will be written into the volume
header. This should describe the publisher of the CD-ROM, usu‐
ally 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 CD-ROM, usu‐
ally 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 wodim.
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 actu‐
ally written. Old versions of mkisofs did write this informa‐
tion (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 ... | wodim ... tsize=${cdblocks}s -
-quiet This makes mkisofs even less verbose. No progress output will
be provided.
-R Generate SUSP and RR records using the Rock Ridge protocol to
further describe the files on the ISO9660 filesystem.
-r This is like the -R option, but file ownership and modes are set
to more useful values. The uid and gid are set to zero, because
they are usually only useful on the author's system, and not
useful to the client. All the file read bits are set true, so
that files and directories are globally readable on the client.
If any execute bit is set for a file, set all of the execute
bits, so that executables are globally executable on the client.
If any search bit is set for a directory, set all of the search
bits, so that directories are globally searchable on the client.
All write bits are cleared, because the filesystem will be
mounted read-only in any case. If any of the special mode bits
are set, clear them, because file locks are not useful on a
read-only file system, and set-id bits are not desirable for uid
0 or gid 0. When used on Win32, the execute bit is set on all
files. This is a result of the lack of file permissions on Win32
and the Cygwin POSIX emulation layer. 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 unmodi‐
fied 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 incre‐
mental backups. The initial session would e.g. use: mkisofs
-root backup_1 dirs. The next incremental 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 session.
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
sessions 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 weight‐
ing. 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 characters up to,
but not including the last space or tab character on a line.
This is to allow for space characters 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 cre‐
ated with the -sparc-boot option.
-split-output
Split the output image into several files of approximately 1 GB.
This helps to create DVD sized ISO9660 images on operating
systems without large file support. Wodim 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,file‐
name_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 spec‐
ified, mkisofs reads from stdin and creates a file with the name
STREAM.IMG. The 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 ISO9660 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 sepa‐
rated list, and list entries for partition 1 and 2 must be
empty. The maximum number of supported partitions is 8
(although the Solaris x86 partition table could support up to 16
partitions), so it is impossible to specify more than 6 parti‐
tion 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.
-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 CD-ROM, 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.
-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 previous 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 sup‐
port 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 sup‐
port for symlinks. Note that UDF wastes the space from sector
~20 to sector 256 at the beginning of the disk in addition to
the space needed for real UDF data structures.
-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 ver‐
sions 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, -allow-lowercase,
-allow-multidot and -no-iso-translate flags. It allows more than
one '.' character in the filename, as well as mixed case file‐
names. 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 char‐
acters 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 num‐
ber of CDs that are in a CD volume set. A volume set is a col‐
lection 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
CDs that are part of e.g. a Operation System installation set of
CDs. Volume Sets are rather used to record a big directory tree
that would not fit on a single volume. Each volume of a Volume
Set contains a description of all the directories and files that
are recorded on the volumes where the sequence numbers are less
than, or equal to, the assigned Volume Set Size of the current
volume.
mkisofs currently does not support a -volset-size that is larger
than 1.
The option -volset-size must be specified before -volset-seqno
on each command line.
-volset-seqno #
Sets the volume set sequence number to #. The volume set
sequence number is the index number of the current CD in a CD
set. The option -volset-size must be specified 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 CD-ROM. 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 glob‐
bing. 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 Rock Ridge, and gen‐
erate compressed files using the mkzftree utility before running
mkisofs. Note that transparent compression is a nonstandard
Rock Ridge extension. The resulting disks are only transpar‐
ently 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 any‐
more. If you like to have Rock Ridge attributes, you need to
specify this separately.
-map mapping_file
Use the mapping_file to set the CREATOR and TYPE information 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 section 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 charac‐
ters. See the HFS CREATOR/TYPE section below for more details.
-hfs-type TYPE
Set the default TYPE for all files. Must be exactly 4 charac‐
ters. 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. There‐
fore 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 Macintosh (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 information.
-boot-hfs-file driver_file
Installs the driver_file that may make the CD bootable on a Mac‐
intosh. See the HFS BOOT DRIVER section below. (Alpha).
-part Generate an HFS partition table. By default, no partition table
is generated, but some older Macintosh CD-ROM drivers need an
HFS partition table on the CD-ROM to be able to recognize a
hybrid CD-ROM.
-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 MAC‐
INTOSH 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 directory. 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 directo‐
ries given on the command line. Example:
mkisofs -o rom -hfs -hide-hfs src/html src
would exclude just the file or directory called "html" from the
"src" directory. Any other file or directory called "html" in
the tree will not be excluded. Should be used with the -hide
and/or -hide-joliet options. In order to match a directory
name, make sure the pathname does not include a trailing '/'
character. See README.hide for more details.
-hide-hfs-list file
A file containing a list of globs to be hidden as above.
-hfs-volid hfs_volid
Volume name for the HFS partition. This is the name that is
assigned to the disc on a Macintosh and replaces the volid used
with the -V option
-icon-position
Use the icon position information, if it exists, from the
Apple/Unix file. The icons will appear in the same position as
they would on a Macintosh desktop. Folder location and size on
screen, its scroll positions, folder View (view as Icons, Small
Icons, etc.) are also preserved. This option may become set by
default in the future. (Alpha).
-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 charset. 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 applica‐
tions (e.g. hfsutils) can modify the volume. See the HFS PROB‐
LEMS/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/Sys‐
tem Folder" (remember to use quotes if the name contains
spaces).
-hfs-parms PARAMETERS
Override certain parameters used to create the HFS file system.
Unlikely to be used in normal circumstances. See the lib‐
hfs_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
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 sub‐
set of all codes and that 16-bit characters are not compliant with the
POSIX filesystem interface.
Modern Unix operating systems may use UTF-8 coding for filenames. This
coding allows to use the complete Unicode code set. Each 32-bit char‐
acter 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 limited
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. Unfortunately, Apple uses com‐
pletely 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 character 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. Unfortunately 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 generated, say in central Europe, may not display the
same character when viewed on a machine in, say eastern Europe.
To make matters more complicated, different operating systems use dif‐
ferent character sets for the region or language. For example the char‐
acter 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 Uni‐
code 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 char‐
acter 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 formats. Only useful
when used with -mac-name option. See the HFS MACINTOSH FILE
NAMES for more information. Defaults to cp10000 (Mac Roman).
-output-hfs-charset
Defines the HFS character set used to create HFS file names from
the input character set in use. In most cases this will be from
the character set given with the -input-charset option. Defaults
to the input HFS character set.
There are a number of character sets built in to mkisofs. To get a
listing, use mkisofs -input-charset help. This list doesn't include
the charset derived from the current locale, if mkisofs is built with
iconv support.
Additional character sets can be read from file for any of the charac‐
ter set options by giving a filename as the argument 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 # character) 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 keyword 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 con‐
verted from the input character set. The ISO9660 character set is a
very limited subset of the ASCII characters, 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 cor‐
rect application etc. The CREATOR and TYPE of a particular file can be
found by using something like ResEdit (or similar) on a Macintosh.
The CREATOR and TYPE information is stored in all the various
Apple/Unix encoded files. For other files it is possible 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 extension 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.
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(5) file
used by the Linux file(1) command - the routines for reading and decod‐
ing the magic file are based on the Linux file(1) command.
This file has four tab separated columns for the byte offset, type,
test and message. Lines starting with the '#' character are comment
lines and are ignored. An example file would be like:
# Example magic file
#
# off type test message
0 string GIF8 8BIM GIFf GIF image
0 beshort 0xffd8 8BIM JPEG image data
0 string SIT! SIT! SIT! StuffIt Archive
0 string \037\235 LZIV ZIVU standard Unix compress
0 string \037\213 GNUz ZIVU gzip compressed data
0 string %! ASPS TEXT Postscript
0 string \004%! ASPS TEXT PC Postscript with a ^D to start
4 string moov txtt MooV QuickTime movie file (moov)
4 string mdat txtt MooV QuickTime movie file (mdat)
The format of the file is described in the magic(4) man page. The only
difference here is that for each entry in the magic file, the message
for the initial offset must be 4 characters for the CREATOR followed by
4 characters for the TYPE - white space is optional between them. Any
other characters 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 processing 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 (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 num‐
ber of attributes associated with them - probably the most important
are the TYPE and CREATOR. Again Unix has no concept of these types of
attributes.
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 plat‐
forms.
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 com‐
pletely different storage method.
The Apple/Unix formats that mkisofs (partially) supports are:
CAP AUFS format
Data fork stored in a file. Resource fork in subdirectory
.resource with same filename as data fork. Finder info in .find‐
erinfo 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/find‐
erinfo stored in subdirectory .AppleDouble with same name as
data fork.
AppleSingle
Data structures similar to above, except both forks and finder
info are stored in one file.
Helios EtherShare
Data fork stored in a file. Resource fork and finder info
together in subdirectory .rsrc with same filename as data fork.
IPT UShare
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 subdirectory
resource.frk. Uses the AppleDouble format to store resource
fork.
Services for Macintosh
Format of files stored by NT Servers on NTFS filesystems. 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 format. 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 characters. The characters are: " * / < > ?
| also a space or period if it is the last character of the
file name, character codes 0x01 to 0x1f (control characters) and
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 directory.
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 possibly 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 associated file flag is set in
the Directory Record (bit 2). This file has the same name as the data
fork (the file seen by non-Apple machines). Associated files are nor‐
mally 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 advan‐
tage 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 not find an HFS filename, it uses the Unix name, with
any %xx or :xx characters (xx == two hex digits) converted to a single
character code. If "xx" are not hex digits ([0-9a-fA-F]), then they are
left alone - although any remaining ":" is converted to "%" as colon is
the HFS directory separator. Care must be taken, as an ordinary Unix
file with %xx or :xx will also be converted. e.g.
This:2fFile converted to This/File
This:File converted to This%File
This:t7File converted to This%t7File
Although HFS filenames appear to support upper and lower case letters,
the filesystem is case insensitive. i.e. the filenames "aBc" and "AbC"
are the same. If a file is found in a directory with the same HFS name,
then mkisofs will attempt, where possible, to make a unique name by
adding '_' characters to one of the filenames.
If an HFS filename exists for a file, then mkisofs can use this name as
the starting point for the 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 characters 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 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 cus‐
tom 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 something 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 directory 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 instructions found at:
http://www.fadden.com/cdrfaq/faq03.html#[3-21]
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 partition. 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 follow‐
ing 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 informa‐
tion 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 eas‐
ily recreated! This file contains pointers which may not be easily or
reliably obtained at boot time.
The format of this table is as follows; all integers are in section
7.3.1 ("little endian") format.
Offset Name Size Meaning
8 bi_pvd 4 bytes LBA of primary volume descriptor
12 bi_file 4 bytes LBA of boot file
16 bi_length 4 bytes Boot file length in bytes
20 bi_csum 4 bytes 32-bit checksum
24 bi_reserved 40 bytes Reserved
The 32-bit checksum is the sum of all the 32-bit words in the boot file
starting at byte offset 64. All linear block addresses (LBAs) are
given in CD sectors (normally 2048 bytes).
HPPA NOTES
To make a bootable CD for HPPA, at the very least a boot loader file (
-hppa-bootloader ), a kernel image file (32- or 64-bit or both, depend‐
ing on hardware) and a boot command line ( -hppa-cmdline ) must be
specified. Some systems can boot either a 32- or a 64-bit kernel, and
the choice of which one to use will be made by the firmware. Option‐
ally, a ramdisk can be used for the root filesystem using -hppa-cmd‐
line.
JIGDO NOTES
Jigdo is a useful tool to help in the distribution of large files like
CD and DVD images. See Richard Atterer's site for more details. Debian
CDs and DVD ISO images are published on the web in jigdo format to
allow end users to download them more efficiently.
To create jigdo and template files alongside the ISO image from
mkisofs, you must first generate a list of the files that will be used,
in the following format:
MD5sum File size Path
32 chars 12 chars to end of line
The MD5sum should be written in jigdo's pseudo-base64 format. The file
size should be in decimal, and the path to the file must be absolute.
Once you have this file, call mkisofs with all of your normal command
line parameters. Specify the output filenames for the jigdo and tem‐
plate files using -jigdo-jigdo and -jigdo-template, and pass in the
location of your MD5 list with the -md5-list option.
If there are files that you do NOT want to be added into the jigdo file
(e.g. if they are likely to change often), specify them using
-jigdo-ignore. If you want to verify some of the files as they are
written into the image, specify them using -jigdo-force-md5. If any
files don't match, mkisofs will then abort. Both of these options take
regular expressions as input. It is possible to restrict the set of
files that will be used further based on size - use the
-jigdo-min-file-size option.
Finally, the jigdo code needs to know how to map the files it is given
onto a mirror-style configuration. Specify how to map paths using the
-jigdo-map option. Using "Debian=/mirror/debian" will cause all paths
starting with "/mirror/debian" to be mapped to "Debian:" in the
output jigdo file.
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 spec‐
ify 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 charac‐
ters of information. May be overridden using the -A command
line option.
COPY The copyright information, often the name of a file on the disc
containing the copyright notice. There is space in the disc for
37 characters of information. 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 char‐
acters 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 information. May be overridden using the
-bilio command line option.
PREP This should describe the preparer of the CD-ROM, 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 CD-ROM, usually 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 32 char‐
acters of information. May be overridden using the -sysid com‐
mand line option.
VOLI The Volume Identifier. There is space on the disc for 32 char‐
acters of information. May be overridden using the -V command
line option.
VOLS The Volume Set Name. There is space on the disc for 128 charac‐
ters of information. May be overridden using the -volset com‐
mand line option.
HFS_TYPE
The default TYPE for Macintosh files. Must be exactly 4 charac‐
ters. May be overridden using the -hfs-type command line
option.
HFS_CREATOR
The default CREATOR for Macintosh files. Must be exactly 4 char‐
acters. 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 ISO9660 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 permission 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 contain a sim‐
ple ISO9660 filesystem with the tar archive call:
% star -c . | mkisofs -stream-media-size 333000 | \
wodim dev=b,t,l -dao tsize=333000s -
To create a HFS hybrid CD with the Joliet and Rock Ridge extensions of
the source directory cd_dir:
% mkisofs -o cd.iso -R -J -hfs cd_dir
To create a HFS hybrid CD from the source directory cd_dir that con‐
tains 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/Rock
Ridge, 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/Rock Ridge CD.
There are probably all sorts of strange results possible with combina‐
tions of the hide options ...
AUTHOR
Eric Youngdale or 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.
Major additional parts were written or contributed by the following
authors. Also see the MAINTAINER section below for recent information.
Joerg Schilling wrote the SCSI transport library and its adaptation
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
libunls code, Copyright (C) James Pearson 2000, (C) Joerg Schilling
2001-2006, (C) Jungshik Shin 2002
iconv code, Copyright (C) 2003 Jungshik Shin, (C) 2003 Jaakko Heinonen
See MAINTAINER section for contact information.
NOTES
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 mis‐
nomer, since it not only creates the filesystem, but it also populates
it. However, the appropriate tool name for a Unix tool that creates
populated filesystems - mkproto - is not well known.
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 ISO9660, 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 sys‐
tems use a boot loader called SILO that unfortunately is not Sparc CD
boot compliant. 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
· 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.
· Does not check for SUSP record(s) in "." entry of the root
directory to verify the existence of Rock Ridge enhancements.
This problem is present when reading old sessions while adding
data in multi-session mode.
· 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.
· Does not re-use RR_MOVED when doing multi-session from TRANS.TBL
· 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. There‐
fore 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,
however, some are not fully tested. These are marked as Alpha above.
Although HFS filenames appear to support upper and lower case letters,
the filesystem is case insensitive. i.e. the filenames "aBc" and "AbC"
are the same. If a file is found in a directory with the same HFS name,
then mkisofs will attempt, where possible, to make a unique name by
adding '_' characters to one of the filenames.
HFS file/directory names that share the first 31 characters have _N' (N
== decimal number) substituted for the last few characters to generate
unique names.
Care must be taken when "grafting" Apple/Unix files or directories (see
above for the method and syntax involved). It is not possible to use a
new name for an Apple/Unix encoded file/directory. e.g. If a Apple/Unix
encoded file called "oldname" is to added to the CD, then you can not
use the command line:
mkisofs -o output.raw -hfs -graft-points newname=oldname cd_dir
mkisofs will be unable to decode "oldname". However, you can graft
Apple/Unix encoded files or directories as long as you do not attempt
to give them new names as above.
When creating an HFS volume with the multisession options, -M and -C,
only files in the last session will be in the HFS volume. i.e. mkisofs
can not add existing files from previous 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 ses‐
sion 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 containing 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 con‐
tents 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 Mac‐
intosh. Therefore a better choice for the default TYPE may be '????'
The -mac-boot-file option may not work at all...
May not work with PC Exchange v2.2 or higher files (available 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 MACINTOSH 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
wodim(1), mkzftree(8), magic(5), apple_driver(8).
FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS
Some sort of gui interface.
AVAILABILITY
mkisofs is available as part of the cdrkit package from
http://alioth.debian.org/projects/debburn/. There are multiple other
versions of mkisofs available, look at their homepages for more infor‐
mation.
mkisofs as part of the cdrtools package from Joerg Schilling, see
ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/cdrecord/alpha/
hfsutils from ftp://ftp.mars.org/pub/hfs
MAILING LISTS
If you want to actively take part on the development of mkisofs, you
may join the Cdrkit developers mailing list by following the instruc‐
tions on:
https://alioth.debian.org/mail/?group_id=31006
and include the word subscribe in the body. The mail address of the
list is:
debburn-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org
MAINTAINER
This is the Cdrkit spinoff of the original mkisofs application. Main‐
tained by:
Joerg Jaspert
Eduard Bloch
Steve McIntyre
Ben Hutchings
and other contributors
Cdrkit implementation of mkisofs is derived from the Cdrtools package [1] (however
now developed independently), having previous maintainers:
Joerg Schilling
Seestr. 110
D-13353 Berlin
Germany
James Pearson (HFS MKHYBRID MAINTAINER)
j.pearson@ge.ucl.ac.uk
If you have support questions, send them to:
debburn-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org
Note that Cdrkit is not affiliated to Cdrtools and vice versa.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the US and other
countries.
SOURCES
[1] Cdrtools 2.01.01a08 from May 2006, http://cdrecord.berlios.de
Version 2.01 24 Aug 2006 MKISOFS(8)
This manual page for mkisofs was generated by Chris Hope using openSUSE 10.2 on May 24th, 2007
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