MKISOFS(8)MKISOFS(8)NAMEmkisofs - create an hybrid ISO9660/JOLIET/HFS filesystem
with optional Rock Ridge attributes.
SYNOPSISmkisofs [ -abstract FILE ] [ -allow-lowercase ] [ -allow-
multidot ] [ -biblio FILE ] [ -cache-inodes ] [ -no-cache-
inodes ] [ -b eltorito_boot_image ] [ -eltorito-alt-boot ]
[ -B sparc_boot_image_list ] [ -G generic_boot_image ] [
-gui ] [ -C #,# ] [ -hard-disk-boot ] [ -no-emul-boot ] [
-no-boot ] [ -boot-load-seg ] [ -boot-load-size ] [ -boot-
info-table ] [ -c boot_catalog ] [ -check-oldnames ] [
-check-session FILE ] [ -copyright FILE ] [ -A applica-
tion_id ] [ -f ] [ -d ] [ -D ] [ -dir-mode mode ] [ -file-
mode mode ] [ -gid gid ] [ -hide glob ] [ -hide-list file
] [ -hidden glob ] [ -hidden-list file ] [ -hide-joliet
glob ] [ -hide-joliet-list file ] [ -hide-joliet-trans-tbl
] [ -hide-rr-moved ] [ -iso-level level ] [ -input-charset
charset ] [ -output-charset charset ] [ -J ] [ -jcharset
charset ] [ -l ] [ -L ] [ -log-file log_file ] [ -max-
iso9660-filenames ] [ -M path | device ] [ -new-dir-mode
mode ] [ -nobak ] [ -no-bak ] [ -no-split-symlink-compo-
nents ] [ -no-split-symlink-fields ] [ -pad ] [ -no-pad ]
[ -path-list file ] [ -p preparer ] [ -print-size ] [ -P
publisher ] [ -quiet ] [ -r ] [ -R ] [ -relaxed-filenames
] [ -sort sort file ] [ -sysid ID ] [ -T | -table-name
TABLE_NAME ] [ -ucs-level level ] [ -uid uid ] [ -use-
fileversion ] [ -U ] [ -no-iso-translate ] [ -v ] [ -V
volid ] [ -volset ID ] [ -volset-size # ] [ -volset-seqno
# ] [ -x path ] [ -exclude-list file ] [ -z ] [ -m glob ]
[ -hfs | -apple ] [ -map mapping_file ] [ -magic
magic_file ] [ -probe ] [ -no-desktop ] [ -mac-name ] [
-boot-hfs-file driver_file [ -part ] [ -auto
AutoStart_file ] [ -cluster-size size ] [ -hide-hfs glob ]
[ -hide-hfs-list file ] [ -hfs-volid hfs_volid ] [ -icon-
position ] [ -root-info FILE [ -prep-boot FILE ] [ -hfs-
creator CREATOR ] [ -hfs-type TYPE ] [ -input-hfs-charset
charset ] [ -output-hfs-charset charset ] [ -hfs-unlock ]
[ -hfs-bless folder_name ] [ --cap ] [ --netatalk ] [
--double ] [ --ethershare ] [ --ushare ] [ --exchange ] [
--sgi ] [ --xinet ] [ --macbin ] [ --single ] [ --dave ] [
--sfm ] -o filename pathspec [pathspec]
DESCRIPTIONmkisofs is effectively a pre-mastering program to generate
an ISO9660/JOLIET/HFS hybrid filesystem.
mkisofs is capable of generating the System Use Sharing
Protocol records (SUSP) specified by the Rock Ridge Inter-
change Protocol. This is used to further describe the
files in the iso9660 filesystem to a unix host, and pro-
vides information such as longer filenames, uid/gid, posix
permissions, symbolic links, block and character devices.
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MKISOFS(8)MKISOFS(8)
If Joliet or HFS hybrid command line options are speci-
fied, mkisofs will create additional filesystem meta data
for Joliet or HFS. The file content in this case refers
to the same data blocks on the media. It will generate a
pure ISO9660 filesystem unless the Joliet or HFS hybrid
command line options are given.
mkisofs can generate a true (or shared) HFS hybrid
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 Hierarchical
File System and is the native file system used on Macin-
tosh computers.
As an alternative, mkisofs can generate the Apple Enten-
sions 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 FOR-
MATS 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 char-
acters, all upper case), even if Rock Ridge is in use.
This filename is used on systems that are not able to make
use of the Rock Ridge extensions (such as MS-DOS), and
each filename in each directory must be different from the
other filenames in the same directory. mkisofs generally
tries to form correct names by forcing the unix filename
to upper case and truncating as required, but often times
this yields unsatisfactory results when there are cases
where the truncated names are not all unique. mkisofs
assigns weightings to each filename, and if two names that
are otherwise the same are found the name with the lower
priority is renamed to have a 3 digit number as an exten-
sion (where the number is guaranteed to be unique). An
example of this would be the files foo.bar and foo.bar.~1~
- the file foo.bar.~1~ would be written as 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.
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The cdrecord utility is a utility capable of burning an
actual disc. The latest version of cdrecord is available
from ftp://ftp.fokus.gmd.de/pub/unix/cdrecord
Also you should know that most cd writers are very partic-
ular about timing. Once you start to burn a disc, you
cannot let their buffer empty before you are done, or you
will end up with a corrupt disc. Thus it is critical that
you be able to maintain an uninterrupted data stream to
the writer for the entire time that the disc is being
written.
pathspec is the path of the directory tree to be copied
into the iso9660 filesystem. Multiple paths can be speci-
fied, 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 pos-
sible to graft the paths at points other than the root
directory, and it is possible to graft files or directo-
ries 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 intermediate directo-
ries, 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://source-
ware.cygnus.com/cygwin/). Therefore most references in
this man page to Unix can be replaced with Win32.
OPTIONSVersion 1.14 21 Jan 2001 3
MKISOFS(8)MKISOFS(8)-abstract FILE
Specifies the abstract file name. This parameter
can also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with
ABST=filename. If specified in both places, the
command line version is used.
-A application_id
Specifies a text string that will be written into
the volume header. This should describe the appli-
cation that will be on the disc. There is space on
the disc for 128 characters of information. This
parameter can also be set in the file .mkisofsrc
with APPI=id. If specified in both places, the
command line version is used.
-allow-lowercase
This options allows lower case characters to appear
in iso9660 filenames.
This violates the ISO9660 standard, but it happens
to work on some systems. Use with caution.
-allow-multidot
This options allows more than one dot to appear in
iso9660 filenames. A leading dot is not affected
by this option, it may be allowed separately using
the -L option.
This violates the ISO9660 standard, but it happens
to work on many systems. Use with caution.
-biblio FILE
Specifies the bibliographic file name. This param-
eter 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%
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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 signifi-
cant 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.
-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 1.2, 1.44, or
a 2.88 meg floppy, and mkisofs will use this size
when creating the output iso9660 filesystem. It is
assumed that the first 512 byte sector should be
read from the boot image (it is essentially emulat-
ing a normal floppy drive). This will work, for
example, if the boot image is a LILO based boot
floppy.
-eltorito-alt-boot
Start with a new set of "El Torito" boot parame-
ters. 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
Specifies a comma separated list of boot images
that are needed to make a bootable CD for sparc
systems. There may be empty fields in the comma
separated list. This option is required to make a
bootable CD for Sun sparc systems. If the -B or
-sparc-boot option has been specified, the first
sector of the resulting image will contain a Sun
disk label. This disk label specifies slice 0 for
the iso9660 image and slice 1 ... slice 7 for the
boot images that have been specified with this
option. Byte offset 512 ... 8191 within each of the
additional boot images must contain a primary boot
that works for the appropriate sparc architecture.
The rest of each of the images usually contains an
ufs filesystem that is used primary kernel boot
stage.
The implemented boot method is the boot method
found with SunOS 4.x and SunOS 5.x. However, it
does not depend on SunOS internals but only on
properties of the Open Boot prom. For this reason,
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it should be usable for any OS that boots off a
sparc system.
If the special filename ... is used, the actual
and all following boot partitions are mapped to the
previous partition. If mkisofs is called with -G
image -B ... all boot partitions are mapped to the
partition that contains the iso9660 filesystem
image and the generic boot image that is located in
the first 16 sectors of the disk is used for all
architectures.
-G generic_boot_image
Specifies the path and filename of the generic boot
image to be used when making a generic bootable CD.
The generic_boot_image will be placed on the first
16 sectors of the CD. The first 16 sectors are the
sectors that are located before the iso9660 primary
volume descriptor. If this option is used together
with the -sparc-boot option, the Sun disk label
will overlay the first 512 bytes of the generic
boot image.
-hard-disk-boot
Specifies that the boot image used to create "El
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-emulation "El Torito" CDs.
-boot-load-size load_sectors
Specifies the number of "virtual" (512-byte) sec-
tors 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
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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 cre-
ate a CDextra 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 call-
ing cdrecord -msinfo ... If the -C option is used
in conjunction with the -M option, mkisofs will
create a filesystem image that is intended to be a
continuation of the previous session. If the -C
option is used without the -M option, mkisofs will
create a filesystem image that is intended to be
used for a second session on a CDextra. This is a
multi session CD that holds audio data in the first
session and a ISO9660 filesystem in the second ses-
sion.
-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.
-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 desciption of -M option.
Version 1.14 21 Jan 2001 7
MKISOFS(8)MKISOFS(8)-copyright FILE
Specifies the Copyright file name. This parameter
can also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with
COPY=filename. If specified in both places, the
command line version is used.
-d Omit trailing period from files that do not have a
period.
This violates the ISO9660 standard, but it happens
to work on many systems. Use with caution.
-D Do not use deep directory relocation, and instead
just pack them in the way we see them.
This violates the ISO9660 standard, but it happens
to work on many systems. Use with caution.
-dir-mode mode
Overrides the mode of directories used to create
the image to mode. Specifying this option automat-
ically enables Rock Ridge extensions.
-f Follow symbolic links when generating the filesys-
tem. When this option is not in use, symbolic
links will be entered using Rock Ridge if enabled,
otherwise the file will be ignored.
-file-mode mode
Overrides the mode of regular files used to create
the image to mode. Specifying this option automat-
ically 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 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
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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.
-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. Multiple globs
may be hidden.
-hidden-list file
A file containing a list of globs to get the hidden
attribute as above.
-hide-joliet glob
Hide glob from being seen on the Joliet directory.
glob is a shell wild-card-style pattern that must
match any part of the filename or path. Multiple
globs may be hidden. If glob matches a directory,
then the 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 option.
-hide-joliet-list file
A file containing a list of globs to be hidden as
above.
-hide-joliet-trans-tbl
Hide the TRANS.TBL files from the Joliet tree.
These files usually don't make sense in the Joliet
World as they list the real name and the ISO9660
name which may both be different from the Joliet
name.
-hide-rr-moved
Rename the directory RR_MOVED to .rr_moved in the
Rock Ridge tree. It seems to be impossible to com-
pletely 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
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what this directory is for. If you need to have no
RR_MOVED directory at all, you should use the -D
option. Note that in case that the -D option has
been specified, the resulting filesystem is not
ISO9660 level-1 compliant and will not be readable
on MS-DOS. See also NOTES section for more infor-
mation on the RR_MOVED directory.
-l Allow full 31 character filenames. Normally the
ISO9660 filename will be in an 8.3 format which is
compatible with MS-DOS, even though the ISO9660
standard allows filenames of up to 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.
-input-charset charset
Input charset that defines the characters used in
local file names. To get a list of valid charset
names, call mkisofs-input-charset help. To get a
1:1 mapping, you may use default as charset name.
The default initial values are cp437 on DOS based
systems and iso8859-1 on all other systems. See
CHARACTER SETS section below for more details.
-output-charset charset
Output charset that defines the characters that
will be used in Rock Ridge file names. Defaults to
the input charset. See CHARACTER SETS section below
for more details.
-iso-level level
Set the iso9660 conformance level. Valid numbers
are 1..3.
With level 1, files may only consist of one section
and filenames are restricted to 8.3 characters.
With level 2, files may only consist of one sec-
tion.
With level 3, no restrictions apply.
With all iso9660 levels all filenames are
restricted to upper case letters, numbers and the
underscore (_). The maximum filename length is
restricted to 31 characters, the directory nesting
level is restricted to 8 and the maximum path
length is limited to 255 characters.
-J Generate Joliet directory records in addition to
regular iso9660 file names. This is primarily use-
ful when the discs are to be used on Windows-NT or
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Windows-95 machines. The Joliet filenames are
specified in Unicode and each path component can be
up to 64 Unicode characters long. Note that Joliet
is no standard - CD's that use only Joliet exten-
sions but no standard Rock Ridge extensions may
usually only be used on Microsoft Win32 systems.
Furthermore, the fact that the filenames are lim-
ited to 64 characters and the fact that Joliet uses
the UTF-16 coding for Unicode characters causes
interoperability problems.
-jcharset charset
Same as using -input-charset charset and -J
options. See CHARACTER SETS section below for more
details.
-L Allow ISO9660 filenames to begin with a period.
Usually, a leading dot is replaced with an under-
score in order to maintain MS-DOS compatibility.
This violates the ISO9660 standard, but it happens
to work on many systems. Use with caution.
-log-file log_file
Redirect all error, warning and informational mes-
sages to log_file instead of the standard error.
-m glob
Exclude glob from being written to CDROM. glob is
a shell wild-card-style pattern that must match
part of the filename (not the path as with option
-x). Technically glob is matched against the
d->d_name part of the directory entry. Multiple
globs may be excluded. Example:
mkisofs-o rom -m '*.o' -m core -m foobar
would exclude all files ending in ".o", called
"core" or "foobar" to be copied to CDROM. Note that
if you had a directory called "foobar" it too (and
of course all its descendants) would be excluded.
NOTE: The -m and -x option description should both
be updated, they are wrong. Both now work identi-
cal and use filename globbing. A file is 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
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taken from the space reserved for ISO-9660 version
numbers.
This violates the ISO9660 standard, but it happens
to work on many systems. Although a conforming
application needs to provide a buffer space of at
least 37 characters, disks created with this option
may cause a buffer overflow in the reading operat-
ing system. Use with extreme care.
-M path
or
-M device
Specifies path to existing iso9660 image to be
merged. The alternate form takes a SCSI device
specifier that uses the same syntax as the dev=
parameter of cdrecord. The output of mkisofs will
be a new session which should get written to the
end of the image specified in -M. Typically this
requires multi-session capability for the recorder
and cdrom drive that you are 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
iso fs image. The default mode is 0555.
-nobak
-no-bak
Do not include backup files files on the iso9660
filesystem. If the -no-bak option is specified,
files that contain the characters '~' or '#' or end
in '.bak' will not be included (these are typically
backup files for editors under unix).
-force-rr
Do not use the automatic Rock Ridge attributes
recognition for previous sessions. This helps to
show rotten iso9660 extension records as e.g. cre-
ated 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 sig-
natures on an old session.
Version 1.14 21 Jan 2001 12
MKISOFS(8)MKISOFS(8)-no-split-symlink-components
Don't split the SL components, but begin a new Con-
tinuation Area (CE) instead. This may waste some
space, but the SunOS 4.1.4 cdrom driver has a bug
in reading split SL components (link_size = compo-
nent_size instead of link_size += component_size).
-no-split-symlink-fields
Don't split the SL fields, but begin a new Continu-
ation Area (CE) instead. This may waste some space,
but the SunOS 4.1.4 and Solaris 2.5.1 cdrom driver
have a bug in reading split SL fields (a `/' can be
dropped).
-o filename
is the name of the file to which the iso9660
filesystem image should be written. This can be a
disk file, a tape drive, or it can correspond
directly to the device name of the optical disc
writer. If not specified, stdout is used. Note
that the output can also be a block special device
for a regular disk drive, in which case the disk
partition can be mounted and examined to ensure
that the premastering was done correctly.
-pad Pad the end of the ISO9660 by 16 sectors (32kB). If
the total size then is not a multiple of 16 sec-
tors, the needed number of sectors is added. If
the option -B is used, then there is a second
padding at the end of the boot partitions.
The padding is 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 fol-
lows 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 of the ISO9660 by 16 sectors
(32kB).
-path-list file
A file containing a list of pathspec directories
and filenames to be added to the ISO9660 filesys-
tem. 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.
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There must be at least one pathspec given on the
command line as well.
-P publisher_id
Specifies a text string that will be written into
the volume header. This should describe the pub-
lisher of the CDROM, usually with a mailing address
and phone number. There is space on the disc for
128 characters of information. This parameter can
also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with PUBL=. If
specified in both places, the command line version
is used.
-p preparer_id
Specifies a text string that will be written into
the volume header. This should describe the pre-
parer of the CDROM, usually with a mailing address
and phone number. There is space on the disc for
128 characters of information. This parameter can
also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with PREP=. If
specified in both places, the command line version
is used.
-print-size
Print estimated filesystem size and exit. This
option is needed for Disk At Once mode and with
some CD-R drives when piping directly into
cdrecord. In this case it is needed to know the
size of the filesystem before the actual CD-cre-
ation is done. The option -print-size allows to
get this size from a "dry-run" before the CD is
actually written. Old versions of mkisofs did
write this information (among other information) to
stderr. As this turns out to be hard to parse, the
number without any other information is now printed
on stdout too. If you like to write a simple shell
script, redirect stderr and catch the number from
stdout. This may be done with:
cdblocks=` mkisofs-print-size -quiet ... `
mkisofs ... | cdrecord ... tsize=${cdblocks}s -
-quiet This makes mkisofs even less verbose. No progress
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
Version 1.14 21 Jan 2001 14
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the client. All the file read bits are set true,
so that files and directories are globally readable
on the client. If any execute bit is set for a
file, set all of the execute bits, so that executa-
bles are globally executable on the client. If any
search bit is set for a directory, set all of the
search bits, so that directories are globally
searchable on the client. All write bits are
cleared, because the CD-Rom will be mounted read-
only in any case. If any of the special mode bits
are set, clear them, because file locks are not
useful on a read-only file system, and set-id bits
are not desirable for uid 0 or gid 0. 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 file-
names to include digits, uppercase characters and
all other 7 bit ASCII characters (resp. anything
except lowercase characters).
This violates the ISO9660 standard, but it happens
to work on many systems. Use with caution.
-sort sort file
Sort file locations on the media. Sorting is con-
trolled by a file that contains pairs of filenames
and sorting offset weighting. If the weighting is
higher, the file will be located closer to the
beginning of the media, if the weighting is lower,
the file will be located closer to the end of the
media. There must be only one space or tabs charac-
ter 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 charac-
ter on a line. This is to allow for space charac-
ters to be in, or at the end of a filename. See
README.sort for more details.
-sysid ID
Specifies the system ID. This parameter can also
be set in the file .mkisofsrc with SYSI=system_id.
If specified in both places, the command line ver-
sion is used.
-T Generate a file TRANS.TBL in each directory on the
CDROM, which can be used on non-Rock Ridge capable
systems to help establish the correct file names.
There is also information present in the file that
indicates the major and minor numbers for block and
character devices, and each symlink has the name of
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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.
-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
if 1 for all files. File versions are strings in
the range ;1 to ;32767 This option is the default
on VMS.
-U Allows "Untranslated" filenames, completely violat-
ing the iso9660 standards described above. Forces
on the -d, -l, -L, -N, -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 filenames. This is
useful on HP-UX system, where the built-in CDFS
filesystem does not recognize ANY extensions. Use
with extreme caution.
-no-iso-translate
Do not translate the characters '#' and '~' which
are invalid for iso9660 filenames. These charac-
ters are though invalid often used by Microsoft
systems.
This violates the ISO9660 standard, but it happens
to work on many systems. Use with caution.
-V volid
Specifies the volume ID (volume name or label) to
be written into the master block. This parameter
can also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with
VOLI=id. If 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 manage-
ment system and the name that is assigned to the
disc on a Microsoft Win32 or Apple Mac platform.
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MKISOFS(8)MKISOFS(8)-volset ID
Specifies the volset ID. This parameter can also
be set in the file .mkisofsrc with VOLS=volset_id.
If specified in both places, the command line ver-
sion is used.
-volset-size #
Sets the volume set size to #. The volume set size
is the number of CD's that are in a CD set. The
-volset-size option may be used to create CD's that
are part of e.g. a Operation System installation
set of CD's. The option -volset-size must be spec-
ified before -volset-seqno on each command line.
-volset-seqno #
Sets the volume set sequence number to #. The vol-
ume set sequence number is the index number of the
current CD in a CD set. The option -volset-size
must be specified before -volset-seqno on each com-
mand line.
-v Verbose execution. If given twice on the command
line, extra debug information will be printed.
-x path
Exclude path from being written to CDROM. path
must be the complete pathname that results from
concatenating the pathname given as command line
argument and the path relative to this directory.
Multiple paths may be excluded. Example:
mkisofs-o cd -x /local/dir1 -x /local/dir2 /local
NOTE: The -m and -x option description should both
be updated, they are wrong. Both now work identi-
cal and use filename globbing. A file is excluded
if either the last component matches or the whole
path matches.
-z Generate special SUSP records for transparently
compressed files. This is only of use and interest
for hosts that support transparent decompression.
This is an experimental feature, and no hosts yet
support this, but there are ALPHA patches for Linux
that can make use of this feature.
HFS OPTIONS-hfs Create an ISO9660/HFS hybrid CD. This option should
be used in conjunction with the -map, (R)and/or the
various double dash options given below.
-apple Create an ISO9660 CD with Apple's extensions. Simi-
lar to the -hfs option, except that the Apple
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MKISOFS(8)MKISOFS(8)
Extensions to ISO9660 are added instead of creating
an HFS hybrid volume.
-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 characters. See the HFS CREATOR/TYPE sec-
tion below for more details.
-hfs-type TYPE
Set the default TYPE for all files. Must be exactly
4 characters. See the HFS CREATOR/TYPE section
below for more details.
-probe Search the contents of files for all the known
Apple/Unix file formats. See the HFS MACINTOSH
FILE FORMATS section below for more about these
formats. However, the only way to check for MacBi-
nary and AppleSingle files is to open and read
them. Therefore this option may increase processing
time. It is better to use one or more double dash
options given below if the Apple/Unix formats in
use are known.
-no-desktop
Do not create (empty) Desktop files. New HFS Desk-
top 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
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bootable on a Macintosh. See the HFS BOOT DRIVER
section below. (Alpha).
-part Generate an HFS partition table. By default, no
partition table is generated, but some older Macin-
tosh CDROM drivers need an HFS partition table on
the CDROM to be able to recognize a hybrid CDROM.
-auto AutoStart_file
Make the HFS CD use the QuickTime 2.0 Autostart
feature to launch an application or document. The
given filename must be the name of a document or
application located at the top level of the CD. The
filename must be less than 12 characters. (Alpha).
-cluster-size size
Set the size in bytes of the cluster or allocation
units of PC Exchange files. Implies the --exchange
option. See the HFS MACINTOSH FILE FORMATS section
below.
-hide-hfs glob
Hide glob from the HFS volume. The file or direc-
tory 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 foo-
bar
would exclude all files ending in ".o" or called
"foobar" from the HFS volume. Note that if you had
a directory called "foobar" it too (and of course
all its descendants) would be excluded. The glob
can also be a path name relative to the source
directories given on the command line. Example:
mkisofs-o rom -hfs -hide-hfs src/html src
would exclude just the file or directory called
"html" from the "src" directory. Any other file or
directory called "html" in the tree will not be
excluded. Should be used with the -hide and/or
-hide-joliet options. In order to match a direc-
tory name, make sure the pathname does not include
a trailing '/' character.
-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
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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 vol-
ume. 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 applications (e.g. hfsutils) can
modify the volume. See the HFS PROBLEMS/LIMITATIONS
section below for warnings about using this option.
-hfs-bless folder_name
"Bless" the given directory (folder). This is usu-
ally the System Folder and is used in creating HFS
bootable CDs. The name of the directory must be the
whole path name as mkisofs sees it. e.g. if the
given pathspec is ./cddata and the required folder
is called System Folder, then the whole path name
is "./cddata/System Folder" (remember to use quotes
if the name contains spaces).
--cap Look for AUFS CAP Macintosh files. Search for CAP
Apple/Unix file formats only. Searching for the
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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)
CHARACTER SETSmkisofs 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. Uni-
code 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 uncom-
mon. UTF-16 is used by Microsoft with Win32 with the dis-
advantage that it only supports a subset of all codes and
that 16-bit characters are not compliant with the POSIX
filesystem interface.
Modern UNIX operating systems use UTF-8 coding for file-
names. This coding allows to use the complete Unicode code
set. Each 32-bit character is represented by one or more
8-bit characters. If a character is coded in ISO-8859-1
(used in Central Europe and North America) is maps 1:1 to
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a Unicode character. Character codes that cannot be rep-
resented as a single byte in UTF-8 (typically if the value
is > 0x7F) use escape sequences that map to more than one
8-bit character.
If all operating systems would use UTF-8 coding, mkisofs
would not need to recode characters in file names. Unfor-
tunately, Apple uses completely nonstandard codings and
Microsoft uses a Unicode coding that is not compatible
with the POSIX filename interface.
For all non UTF-8 coded operating systems, the actual
character that each byte represents depends on the charac-
ter 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 lan-
guage 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 differ-
ent 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 sys-
tems use different character sets for the region or lan-
guage. For example the character code for "small e with
acute accent" may be character code 0x82 on a PC, code
0x8e on a Macintosh and code 0xe9 on a UNIX system. Note
while the codings used on a PC or Mac are nonstandard,
Unicode codes this character as 0x00000000e9 which is
basically the same value as the value used by most UNIX
systems.
As long as not all operating systems and applications will
use the Unicode character set as the basis for file names
in a unique way, it may be necessary to specify which
character set your file names use in and which character
set the file names should appear on the CD.
There are four options to specify the character sets you
want to use:
-input-charset
Defines the local character set you are using on
your host machine. Any character set conversions
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that take place will use this character set as the
staring point. The default input character sets are
cp437 on DOS based systems and iso8859-1 on all
other systems.
If the -J option is given, then the Unicode equiva-
lents 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.
Additional character sets can be read from file for any of
the character 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/Pub-
lic/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 #
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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) ver-
sions of mkisofs.
The ISO9660 file names generated from the input filenames
are not converted from the input character set. The
ISO9660 character set is a very limited subset of the
ASCII 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 CRE-
ATOR and what data the file contains, the TYPE. Both are
(exactly) 4 letter strings. Usually this allows a Macin-
tosh user to double-click on a file and launch the correct
application etc. The CREATOR and TYPE of a particular file
can be found by using something like ResEdit (or similar)
on a Macintosh.
The CREATOR and TYPE information is stored in all the var-
ious Apple/Unix encoded files. For other files it is pos-
sible 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 file-
name 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 exten-
sion 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, other-
wise 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
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extension, file translation, CREATOR, TYPE and Comment.
Lines starting with the '#' character are comment lines
and are ignored. An example file would be like:
tab (/); l s s s s l s s s s l l l l l . # Example file-
name mapping file # # EXTN/XLate/CREATOR/TYPE/Comment
*/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 transla-
tion 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 Mac-
intosh. 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(4) file used by the Linux file(1) command - the rou-
tines for reading and decoding the magic file are based on
the Linux file(1) command.
This file has four tab separated columns for the byte off-
set, type, test and message. Lines starting with the '#'
character are comment lines and are ignored. An example
file would be like:
tab (/); l s s s l s s s l l l l . # 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 stan-
dard unix compress 0/string/\037\213/GNUz ZIVU gzip com-
pressed 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
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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
(starting with a '>') are also ignored i.e. only the ini-
tial offset lines are used.
Using the -magic option may significantly increase pro-
cessing 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 num-
ber (the -magic option). If the default match is used in
the mapping file, then these values override the default
CREATOR and TYPE.
A full CREATOR/TYPE database can be found at
http://www.angelfire.com/il/szekely/index.html
HFS MACINTOSH FILE FORMATS
Macintosh files have two parts called the Data and
Resource fork. Either may be empty. Unix (and many other
OSs) can only cope with files having one part (or fork).
To add to this, Macintosh files have a number of
attributes associated with them - probably the most impor-
tant 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 platforms.
Therefore to store a Macintosh file on a Unix filesystem,
a way has to be found to cope with the two forks and the
extra attributes (which are referred to as the finder
info). Unfortunately, it seems that every software pack-
age that stores Macintosh files on Unix has chosen a com-
pletely different storage method.
The Apple/Unix formats that mkisofs (partially) supports
are:
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CAP AUFS format
Data fork stored in a file. Resource fork in subdi-
rectory .resource with same filename as data fork.
Finder info in .finderinfo subdirectory with same
filename.
AppleDouble/Netatalk
Data fork stored in a file. Resource fork stored in
a file with same name prefixed with "%". Finder
info also stored in same "%" file. Netatalk uses
the same format, but the resource fork/finderinfo
stored in subdirectory .AppleDouble with same name
as data fork.
AppleSingle
Data structures similar to above, except both forks
and finder info are stored in one file.
Helios EtherShare
Data fork stored in a file. Resource fork and
finder info together in subdirectory .rsrc with
same filename as data fork.
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 alloca-
tion 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 subdi-
rectory .HSResource with same name. Finder info as
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MKISOFS(8)MKISOFS(8)
one record in file .HSancillary. Separate .HSancil-
lary 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 "file-
name: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. There-
fore any file or directory name containing these
characters will be ignored - including the contents
of any such directory.
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 exist-
ing Rock Ridge attributes (i.e. to get the Apple exten-
sions 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 normally ignored by other OSs
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MKISOFS(8)MKISOFS(8)
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 ref-
erences the same data and resource fork files described
above.
In most cases, it is better to use the -hfs option instead
of the -apple option, as the latter imposes the limited
ISO9660 characters allowed in filenames. However, the
Apple extensions do give the advantage that the files are
packed on the disk more efficiently and it may be possible
to fit more files on a CD - important when the total size
of the source files is approaching 650MB.
HFS MACINTOSH FILE NAMES
Where possible, the HFS filename that is stored with an
Apple/Unix file is used for the HFS part of the CD. How-
ever, not all the Apple/Unix encodings store the HFS file-
name with the finderinfo. In these cases, the Unix file-
name is used - with escaped special characters. Special
characters include '/' and characters with codes over 127.
Aufs escapes these characters by using ":" followed by the
character code as two hex digits. Netatalk and EtherShare
have a similar scheme, but uses "%" instead of a ":".
If mkisofs can't find an HFS filename, then it uses the
Unix name, with any %xx or :xx characters (xx == two hex
digits) converted to a single character code. If "xx" are
not hex digits ([0-9a-fA-F]), then they are left alone -
although any remaining ":" is converted to "%" as colon is
the HFS directory separator. Care must be taken, as an
ordinary Unix file with %xx or :xx will also be converted.
e.g.
l l l s l l l s l l . 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. Nor-
mal Unix files without an HFS name will still use their
Unix name. e.g.
If a MacBinary (or PC Exchange) file is stored as
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MKISOFS(8)MKISOFS(8)
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 someim-
age.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 someim-
age.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
(MacTurkish).
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 exam-
ple 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 uppercase when viewed on a Macintosh. Of course,
DOS/Win3.X machines will not be able to see Level 2 file-
names...
HFS CUSTOM VOLUME/FOLDER ICONS
To give a HFS CD a custom icon, make sure the root (top
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MKISOFS(8)MKISOFS(8)
level) folder includes a standard Macintosh volume icon
file. To give a volume a custom icon on a Macintosh, an
icon has to be pasted over the volume's icon in the "Get
Info" box of the volume. This creates an invisible file
called 'Icon\r' ('\r' is the 'carriage return' character)
in the root folder.
A custom folder icon is very similar - an invisible file
called 'Icon\r' exits in the folder itself.
Probably the easiest way to create a custom icon that
mkisofs can use, is to format a blank HFS floppy disk on a
Mac, paste an icon to its "Get Info" box. If using Linux
with the HFS module installed, mount the floppy using
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 charac-
ter. 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 instruc-
tions found at: http://www.fadden.com/cdr-
faq/faq03.html#[3-21]
HFS BOOT DRIVER
It may be possible to make the hybrid CD bootable on a
Macintosh.
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MKISOFS(8)MKISOFS(8)
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 following will work OK.
Therefore, the utility apple_driver also extracts the boot
block from the first HFS partition it finds on the given
CD-ROM and this is used for the HFS partition created by
mkisofs.
PLEASE NOTE
By using a driver from an Apple CD and copying
Apple software to your CD, you become liable to
obey Apple Computer, Inc. Software License Agree-
ments.
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 insert-
ing a 56-byte "boot information table" at offset 8 in the
file. This modification is done in the source filesystem,
so make sure you use a copy if this file is not easily
recreated! This file contains pointers which may not be
easily or 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
Version 1.14 21 Jan 2001 32
MKISOFS(8)MKISOFS(8)
2048 bytes).
CONFIGURATIONmkisofs looks for the .mkisofsrc file, first in the cur-
rent working directory, then in the user's home directory,
and then in the directory in which the mkisofs binary is
stored. This file is assumed to contain a series of lines
of the form TAG=value, and in this way you can specify
certain options. The case of the tag is not significant.
Some fields in the volume header are not settable on the
command line, but can be altered through this facility.
Comments may be placed in this file, using lines which
start with a hash (#) character.
APPI The application identifier should describe the
application that will be on the disc. There is
space on the disc for 128 characters of informa-
tion. May be overridden using the -A command line
option.
COPY The copyright information, often the name of a file
on the disc containing the copyright notice. There
is space in the disc for 37 characters of informa-
tion. May be overridden using the -copyright com-
mand line option.
ABST The abstract information, often the name of a file
on the disc containing an abstract. There is space
in the disc for 37 characters of information. May
be overridden using the -abstract command line
option.
BIBL The bibliographic information, often the name of a
file on the disc containing a bibliography. There
is space in the disc for 37 characters of informa-
tion. May be overridden using the -bilio command
line option.
PREP This should describe the preparer of the CDROM,
usually with a mailing address and phone number.
There is space on the disc for 128 characters of
information. May be overridden using the -p com-
mand line option.
PUBL This should describe the publisher of the CDROM,
usually with a mailing address and phone number.
There is space on the disc for 128 characters of
information. May be overridden using the -P com-
mand line option.
SYSI The System Identifier. There is space on the disc
for 32 characters of information. May be overrid-
den using the -sysid command line option.
Version 1.14 21 Jan 2001 33
MKISOFS(8)MKISOFS(8)
VOLI The Volume Identifier. There is space on the disc
for 32 characters of information. May be overrid-
den using the -V command line option.
VOLS The Volume Set Name. There is space on the disc
for 128 characters of information. May be overrid-
den using the -volset command line option.
HFS_TYPE
The default TYPE for Macintosh files. Must be
exactly 4 characters. May be overridden using the
-hfs-type command line option.
HFS_CREATOR
The default CREATOR for Macintosh files. Must be
exactly 4 characters. May be overridden using the
-hfs-creator command line option.
mkisofs can also be configured at compile time with
defaults for many of these fields. See the file
defaults.h.
EXAMPLES
To create a vanilla ISO-9660 filesystem image in the file
cd.iso, where the directory cd_dir will become the root
directory if the CD, call:
% mkisofs-o cd.iso cd_dir
To create a CD with Rock Ridge extensions of the source
directory cd_dir:
% mkisofs-o cd.iso -R cd_dir
To create a CD with Rock Ridge extensions of the source
directory cd_dir where all files have at least read per-
mission and all files are owned by root, call:
% mkisofs-o cd.iso -r cd_dir
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 contains Netatalk Apple/Unix files:
% mkisofs-o cd.iso --netatalk cd_dir
To create a HFS hybrid CD from the source directory
cd_dir, giving all files CREATOR and TYPES based on just
their filename extensions listed in the file "mapping".:
Version 1.14 21 Jan 2001 34
MKISOFS(8)MKISOFS(8)
% mkisofs-o cd.iso -map mapping cd_dir
To create a CD with the 'Apple Extensions to ISO9660',
from the source directories cd_dir and another_dir. Files
in all the known Apple/Unix format are decoded and any
other files are given CREATOR and TYPE based on their
magic number given in the file "magic":
% mkisofs-o cd.iso -apple -magic magic -probe \
cd_dir another_dir
The following example puts different files on the CD that
all have the name README, but have different contents when
seen as a ISO9660/RockRidge, Joliet or HFS CD.
Current directory contains:
% ls -F
README.hfs README.joliet README.unix cd_dir/
The following command puts the contents of the directory
cd_dir on the CD along with the three README files - but
only one will be seen from each of the three filesystems:
% mkisofs-o cd.iso -hfs -J -r -graft-points \
-hide README.hfs -hide README.joliet \
-hide-joliet README.hfs -hide-joliet README.unix \
-hide-hfs README.joliet -hide-hfs README.unix \
README=README.hfs README=README.joliet \
README=README.unix cd_dir
i.e. the file README.hfs will be seen as README on the HFS
CD and the other two README files will be hidden. Simi-
larly for the Joliet and ISO9660/RockRidge CD.
There are probably all sorts of strange results possible
with combinations of the hide options ...
AUTHORmkisofs is not based on the standard mk*fs tools for unix,
because we must generate a complete copy of an existing
filesystem on a disk in the iso9660 filesystem. The name
mkisofs is probably a bit of a misnomer, since it not only
creates the filesystem, but it also populates it as well.
However, the appropriate tool name for a UNIX tool that
creates populated filesystems - mkproto - is not well
known.
Eric Youngdale <ericy@gnu.ai.mit.edu> or
<eric@andante.org> wrote the first versions (1993 ...
1998) of the mkisofs utility. The copyright for old ver-
sions of the mkisofs utility is held by Yggdrasil Comput-
ing, Incorporated. Joerg Schilling wrote the SCSI
Version 1.14 21 Jan 2001 35
MKISOFS(8)MKISOFS(8)
transport library and it's 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
libfile code Copyright (C) Ian F. Darwin 1986, 1987, 1989,
1990, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1995.
NOTES
Mkisofs may safely be installed suid root. This may be
needed to allow mkisofs to read the previous session when
creating a multi session image.
If mkisofs is creating a filesystem image with Rock Ridge
attributes and the directory nesting level of the source
directory tree is too much for ISO-9660, mkisofs will do
deep directory relocation. This results in a directory
called RR_MOVED in the root directory of the CD. You can-
not avoid this directory.
BUGS
o Any files that have hard links to files not in the
tree being copied to the iso9660 filesystem will
have an incorrect file reference count.
o Does not check for SUSP record(s) in "." entry of
the root directory to verify the existence of Rock
Ridge enhancements.
This problem is present when reading old sessions
while adding data in multi-session mode.
o Does not properly read relocated directories in
multi-session mode when adding data.
Any relocated deep directory is lost if the new
session does not include the deep directory.
Repeat by: create first session with deep directory
relocation then add new session with a single dir
that differs from the old deep path.
o Does not re-use RR_MOVED when doing multi-session
from TRANS.TBL
o Does not create whole_name entry for RR_MOVED in
multi-session mode.
There may be some other ones. Please, report them to the
author.
Version 1.14 21 Jan 2001 36
MKISOFS(8)MKISOFS(8)HFS PROBLEMS/LIMITATIONS
I have had to make several assumptions on how I expect the
modified libhfs routines to work, however there may be
situations that either I haven't thought of, or come
across when these assumptions fail. Therefore I can't
guarantee that mkisofs will work as expected (although I
haven't had a major problem yet). Most of the HFS features
work fine, 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 charac-
ters 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 new-
name=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.
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.
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.
Version 1.14 21 Jan 2001 37
MKISOFS(8)MKISOFS(8)
Using the -mac-name option will not currently work with
the -T option - the Unix name will be used in the
TRANS.TBL file, not the Macintosh name.
Although mkisofs does not alter the contents of a file, if
a binary file has it's TYPE set as 'TEXT', it may be read
incorrectly on a Macintosh. Therefore a better choice for
the default TYPE may be '????'
The -mac-boot-file option may not work at all...
May not work with PC Exchange v2.2 or higher files (avail-
able with MacOS 8.1). DOS media containing PC Exchange
files should be mounted as type msdos (not vfat) when
using Linux.
The SFM format is only partially supported - see HFS MAC-
INTOSH 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.
SEE ALSOcdrecord(1)magic(5), apple_driver(8)FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS
Some sort of gui interface.
AVAILABILITYmkisofs is available as part of the cdrecord package from
ftp://ftp.fokus.gmd.de/pub/unix/cdrecord/ hfsutils from
ftp://ftp.mars.org/pub/hfs
MAILING LISTS
If you want to actively take part on the development of
mkisofs, and/or mkhybrid, you may join the cdwriting mail-
ing list by sending mail to:
other-cdwrite-request@lists.debian.org
and include the word subscribe in the body. The mail
address of the list is:
cdwrite@lists.debian.org
MAINTAINER
Joerg Schilling
Seestr. 110
D-13353 Berlin
Germany
Version 1.14 21 Jan 2001 38
MKISOFS(8)MKISOFS(8)HFS MKHYBRID MAINTAINER
James Pearson
j.pearson@ge.ucl.ac.uk
If you have support questions, send them to:
cdrecord-support@berlios.de
or other-cdwrite@lists.debian.org
Of you definitly found a bug, send a mail to:
cdrecord-developers@berlios.de
or schilling@fokus.gmd.de
To subscribe, use:
http://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/cdrecord-develop-
ers
or http://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/cdrecord-sup-
port
Version 1.14 21 Jan 2001 39
