mtools.conf man page on Debian

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mtools(5)			    MTOOLS			     mtools(5)

Name
       mtools.conf - mtools configuration files

Description
       This  manpage  describes	 the  configuration files for mtools. They are
       called `/etc/mtools.conf' and `~/.mtoolsrc'. If the environmental vari‐
       able  MTOOLSRC is set, its contents is used as the filename for a third
       configuration file. These configuration files  describe	the  following
       items:

       *  Global configuration flags and variables

       *  Per drive flags and variables

   Location of the configuration files
       `/etc/mtools.conf'   is	 the   system-wide   configuration  file,  and
       `~/.mtoolsrc' is the user's private configuration file.

       On  some	 systems,  the	system-wide  configuration  file   is	called
       `/etc/default/mtools.conf' instead.

     General configuration file syntax
       The  configuration  files  is  made up of sections. Each section starts
       with a keyword identifying the section followed by a colon.  Then  fol‐
       low  variable assignments and flags. Variable assignments take the fol‐
       lowing form:
       name=value

       Flags are lone keywords without an equal sign and value following them.
       A  section either ends at the end of the file or where the next section
       begins.

       Lines starting with a hash (#) are  comments.  Newline  characters  are
       equivalent  to whitespace (except where ending a comment). The configu‐
       ration file is case insensitive, except for  item  enclosed  in	quotes
       (such as filenames).

   Default values
       For most platforms, mtools contains reasonable compiled-in defaults for
       physical floppy drives.	Thus, you usually don't need  to  bother  with
       the  configuration file, if all you want to do with mtools is to access
       your floppy drives. On the other hand, the configuration file is needed
       if  you also want to use mtools to access your hard disk partitions and
       dosemu image files.

   Global variables
       Global flags may be set to 1 or to 0.

       The following global flags are recognized:

       MTOOLS_SKIP_CHECK
	      If this is set to 1, mtools skips most  of  its  sanity  checks.
	      This  is	needed	to  read some Atari disks which have been made
	      with the earlier ROMs, and which would not be recognized	other‐
	      wise.

       MTOOLS_FAT_COMPATIBILITY
	      If  this	is  set	 to  1, mtools skips the fat size checks. Some
	      disks have a bigger FAT than they	 really	 need  to.  These  are
	      rejected if this option is not set.

       MTOOLS_LOWER_CASE
	      If  this is set to 1, mtools displays all-upper-case short file‐
	      names as lowercase. This has been done to allow a behavior which
	      is  consistent  with  older versions of mtools which didn't know
	      about the case bits.

       MTOOLS_NO_VFAT
	      If this is set to 1, mtools  won't  generate  VFAT  entries  for
	      filenames	 which	are  mixed-case, but otherwise legal dos file‐
	      names.  This is useful when  working  with  DOS  versions	 which
	      can't grok VFAT longnames, such as FreeDos.

       MTOOLS_DOTTED_DIR
	      In a wide directory, prints the short name with a dot instead of
	      spaces separating the basename and the extension.

       MTOOLS_NAME_NUMERIC_TAIL
	      If this is set to one (default), generate numeric tails for  all
	      long names (~1).	If set to zero, only generate numeric tails if
	      otherwise a clash would have happened.

       MTOOLS_TWENTY_FOUR_HOUR_CLOCK
	      If 1, uses the European notation for  times  (twenty  four  hour
	      clock), else uses the UK/US notation (am/pm)

       Example:	 Inserting  the	 following  line  into your configuration file
       instructs mtools to skip the sanity checks:

	    MTOOLS_SKIP_CHECK=1

       Global variables may also be set via the environment:

	    export MTOOLS_SKIP_CHECK=1

       Global string variables may be set to any value:

       MTOOLS_DATE_STRING
	      The format used for printing dates of files.  By default, is dd-
	      mm-yyyy.

   Per drive flags and variables
     General information
       Per drive flags and values may be described in a drive section. A drive
       section starts with drive "driveletter" :

       Then follow variable-value pairs and flags.

       This is a sample drive description:

	    drive a:
	      file="/dev/fd0" use_xdf=1

     Location information
       For each drive, you need to  describe  where  its  data	is  physically
       stored (imag file, physical device, partition, offset).

       file   The  name	 of the file or device holding the disk image. This is
	      mandatory. The file name should be enclosed in quotes.

       partition
	      Tells mtools to treat the drive as a partitioned device, and  to
	      use  the given partition. Only primary partitions are accessible
	      using this method, and they are numbered from 1 to 4. For	 logi‐
	      cal partitions, use the more general offset variable. The parti‐
	      tion variable is intended for removable media such as  Syquests,
	      ZIP  drives, and magneto-optical disks. Although traditional DOS
	      sees Syquests and magneto-optical disks as `giant floppy	disks'
	      which  are  unpartitioned,  OS/2	and Windows NT treat them like
	      hard disks, i.e. partioned devices. The partition flag  is  also
	      useful DOSEMU hdimages. It is not recommended for hard disks for
	      which direct access to partitions is available through mounting.

       offset
	      Describes where in the file the MS-DOS filesystem	 starts.  This
	      is  useful  for  logical	partitions in DOSEMU hdimages, and for
	      ATARI ram disks. By default, this	 is  zero,  meaning  that  the
	      filesystem starts right at the beginning of the device or file.

     Disk Geometry Configuration
       Geometry	 information  describes the physical characteristics about the
       disk. Its has three purposes:

       formatting
	      The geometry information is written into the boot sector of  the
	      newly  made  disk.  However,  you may also describe the geometry
	      information on  the  command  line.  See	section	 mformat,  for
	      details.

       filtering
	      On  some	Unices	there  are device nodes which only support one
	      physical geometry. For instance, you might need a different node
	      to access a disk as high density or as low density. The geometry
	      is compared to the actual geometry stored on the boot sector  to
	      make  sure  that	this device node is able to correctly read the
	      disk. If the geometry doesn't match, this drive entry fails, and
	      the next drive entry bearing the same drive letter is tried. See
	      section multiple descriptions, for  more	details	 on  supplying
	      several descriptions for one drive letter.

	      If  no  geometry	information  is	 supplied in the configuration
	      file, all disks are accepted. On	Linux  (and  on	 Sparc)	 there
	      exist  device  nodes  with  configurable	geometry  (`/dev/fd0',
	      `/dev/fd1' etc), and thus filtering is not needed (and  ignored)
	      for disk drives.	(Mtools still does do filtering on plain files
	      (disk images) in Linux: this is mainly intended  for  test  pur‐
	      poses,  as  I  don't  have access to a Unix which would actually
	      need filtering).

	      If you do not need filtering, but want still a default  geometry
	      for  mformatting,	 you  may switch off filtering using the mfor‐
	      mat_only flag.

	      If you want filtering, you should supply the  filter  flag.   If
	      you supply a geometry, you must supply one of both flags.

       initial geometry
	      On  devices that support it (usually floppy devices), the geome‐
	      try information is also used to set the initial  geometry.  This
	      initial geometry is applied while reading the boot sector, which
	      contains the real geometry.  If no geometry information is  sup‐
	      plied  in the configuration file, or if the mformat_only flag is
	      supplied, no initial configuration is done.

	      On Linux, initial geometry is not really needed, as the  config‐
	      urable  devices are able to auto-detect the disk type accurately
	      enough (for most common formats) to read the boot sector.

       Wrong geometry information may lead to very bizarre errors. That's  why
       I  strongly  recommend that you add the mformat_only flag to your drive
       description, unless you really need filtering or initial geometry.

       The following geometry related variables are available:

       cylinders
       tracks The number of  cylinders.	 (cylinders  is	 the  preferred	 form,
	      tracks is considered obsolete)

       heads  The number of heads (sides).

       sectors
	      The number of sectors per track.

       Example: the following drive section describes a 1.44M drive:

	    drive a:
		file="/dev/fd0H1440"
		fat_bits=12
		cylinders=80 heads=2 sectors=18
		mformat_only

       The following shorthand geometry descriptions are available:

       1.44m  high density 3 1/2 disk. Equivalent to: fat_bits=12 cylinders=80
	      heads=2 sectors=18

       1.2m   high density 5 1/4 disk. Equivalent to: fat_bits=12 cylinders=80
	      heads=2 sectors=15

       720k   double  density  3  1/2  disk. Equivalent to: fat_bits=12 cylin‐
	      ders=80 heads=2 sectors=9

       360k   double density 5 1/4 disk.  Equivalent  to:  fat_bits=12	cylin‐
	      ders=40 heads=2 sectors=9

       The  shorthand  format  descriptions  may be amended. For example, 360k
       sectors=8 describes a 320k  disk	 and  is  equivalent  to:  fat_bits=12
       cylinders=40 heads=2 sectors=8

     Open Flags
       Moreover, the following flags are available:

       sync   All i/o operations are done synchronously

       nodelay
	      The  device  or  file  is opened with the O_NDELAY flag. This is
	      needed on some non-Linux architectures.

       exclusive
	      The device or file is opened with the  O_EXCL  flag.  On	Linux,
	      this ensures exclusive access to the floppy drive. On most other
	      architectures, and for plain files it has no effect at all.

     General Purpose Drive Variables
       The following general purpose drive variables are available.  Depending
       to  their  type,	 these variables can be set to a string (precmd) or an
       integer (all others)

       fat_bits
	      The number of FAT bits. This may be  12  or  16.	This  is  very
	      rarely  needed, as it can almost always be deduced from informa‐
	      tion in the boot sector. On the contrary, describing the	number
	      of  fat  bits  may  actually be harmful if you get it wrong. You
	      should only use it if mtools gets the autodetected number of fat
	      bits wrong, or if you want to mformat a disk with a weird number
	      of fat bits.

       codepage
	      Describes the DOS codepage used for short filenames. This	 is  a
	      number  between 1 and 999. By default, codepage 850 is used. The
	      reason for this is because this codepage contains	 most  of  the
	      characters  that are also available in ISO-Latin-1. You may also
	      specify a global codepage for all drives	by  using  the	global
	      default_codepage	parameter  (outside of any drive description).
	      This parameters exists starting at version 4.0.0

       precmd
	      On some variants of Solaris, it is necessary to  call  'volcheck
	      -v'  before  opening a floppy device, in order for the system to
	      notice  that  there   is	 indeed	  a   disk   in	  the	drive.
	      precmd="volcheck -v" in the drive clause establishes the desired
	      behavior.

       blocksize
	      This parameter represents a default block size to be always used
	      on  this	device.	  All I/O is done with multiples of this block
	      size,  independantly  of	the  sector  size  registered  in  the
	      filesystem's  boot sector.  This is useful for character devices
	      whose sector size is not 512, such as for example CD Rom	drives
	      on Solaris.

       Only  the  file variable is mandatory. The other parameters may be left
       out. In that case a default value or an autodetected value is used.

     General Purpose Drive Flags
       A flag can either be set to 1 (enabled) or 0 (disabled). If  the	 value
       is ommitted, it is enabled.  For example, scsi is equivalent to scsi=1

       nolock
	      Instruct	mtools	to  not	 use  locking  on this drive.  This is
	      needed  on  systems  with	 buggy	locking	 semantics.   However,
	      enabling	this  makes operation less safe in cases where several
	      users may access the same drive at the same time.

       scsi   When set to 1, this option tells mtools  to  use	raw  SCSI  I/O
	      instead  of  the standard read/write calls to access the device.
	      Currently, this is supported on HP/UX, Solaris and SunOs.	  This
	      is  needed  because  on  some  architectures,  such  as SunOs or
	      Solaris, PC media can't be accessed using	 the  read  and	 write
	      syscalls,	 because the OS expects them to contain a Sun specific
	      "disk label".

	      As raw Scsi access always uses the whole	device,	 you  need  to
	      specify the "partition" flag in addition

	      On some architectures, such as Solaris, mtools needs root privi‐
	      leges to be able to use the scsi option.	Thus mtools should  be
	      installed	 set uid root on Solaris if you want to access Zip/Jaz
	      drives.  Thus, if the scsi flag is given, privileged is automat‐
	      ically implied, unless explicitly disabled by privileged=0

	      Mtools uses its root privileges to open the device, and to issue
	      the actual SCSI I/O calls.  Moreover, root privileges  are  only
	      used  for	 drives	 described in a system-wide configuration file
	      such as `/etc/mtools.conf',  and	not  for  those	 described  in
	      `~/.mtoolsrc' or `$MTOOLSRC'.

       privileged
	      When set to 1, this instructs mtools to use its set-uid and set-
	      gid privileges for opening the given drive.  This option is only
	      valid  for  drives  described  in	 the system-wide configuration
	      files (such as `/etc/mtools.conf', not `~/.mtoolsrc' or `$MTOOL‐
	      SRC').   Obviously, this option is also a no op if mtools is not
	      installed setuid or setgid.  This option is implied by 'scsi=1',
	      but  again  only for drives defined in system-wide configuration
	      files.  Privileged may also be set explicitely to 0, in order to
	      tell  mtools not to use its privileges for a given drive even if
	      scsi=1 is set.

	      Mtools only needs to be installed setuid if you use  the	privi‐
	      leged or scsi drive variables.  If you do not use these options,
	      mtools works perfectly well even when not installed setuid root.

       vold

	      Instructs mtools to interpret the device name as a vold  identi‐
	      fier  rather  than as a filename.	 The vold identifier is trans‐
	      lated into  a  real  filename  using  the	 media_findname()  and
	      media_oldaliases()  functions  of the volmgt library.  This flag
	      is only available if you configured mtools  with	the  --enable-
	      new-vold option before compilation.

       swap

	      Consider the media as a word-swapped Atari disk.

       use_xdf
	      If  this is set to a non-zero value, mtools also tries to access
	      this disk as an XDF disk. XDF is a high capacity format used  by
	      OS/2. This is off by default. See section XDF, for more details.

       mformat_only
	      Tells  mtools  to use the geometry for this drive only for mfor‐
	      matting and not for filtering.

       filter
	      Tells mtools to use the geometry for this drive both  for	 mfor‐
	      matting and filtering.

       remote
	      Tells mtools to connect to floppyd (see section  floppyd).

     Supplying multiple descriptions for a drive
       It  is  possible	 to  supply multiple descriptions for a drive. In that
       case, the descriptions are tried in order until one is found that fits.
       Descriptions may fail for several reasons:

       1.     because the geometry is not appropriate,

       2.     because there is no disk in the drive,

       3.     or because of other problems.

       Multiple	 definitions  are useful when using physical devices which are
       only able to support one single disk geometry.  Example:

	    drive a: file="/dev/fd0H1440" 1.44m
	    drive a: file="/dev/fd0H720" 720k

       This instructs mtools to use /dev/fd0H1440  for	1.44m  (high  density)
       disks  and /dev/fd0H720 for 720k (double density) disks. On Linux, this
       feature is not really needed, as the /dev/fd0 device is able to	handle
       any geometry.

       You  may	 also  use  multiple drive descriptions to access both of your
       physical drives through one drive letter:

	    drive z: file="/dev/fd0"
	    drive z: file="/dev/fd1"

       With this description, mdir z: accesses your first physical drive if it
       contains	 a  disk.  If  the  first drive doesn't contain a disk, mtools
       checks the second drive.

       When using multiple configuration  files,  drive	 descriptions  in  the
       files  parsed  last override descriptions for the same drive in earlier
       files. In order to avoid	 this,	use  the  drive+  or  +drive  keywords
       instead	of  drive. The first adds a description to the end of the list
       (i.e. it will be tried last), and the first adds it to the start of the
       list.

   Location of configuration files and parsing order
       The configuration files are parsed in the following order:

       1.     compiled-in defaults

       2.     `/etc/mtools.conf'

       3.     `/etc/mtools'  This  is for backwards compatibility only, and is
	      only parsed if `mtools.conf' doesn't exist.

       4.     `~/.mtoolsrc'.

       5.     `$MTOOLSRC' (file pointed by the	MTOOLSRC  environmental	 vari‐
	      able)

       Options	described  in  the later files override those described in the
       earlier files. Drives defined in earlier files persist if they are  not
       overridden  in  the  later  files.  For instance, drives A and B may be
       defined in `/etc/mtools.conf' and drives C and  D  may  be  defined  in
       `~/.mtoolsrc'  However, if `~/.mtoolsrc' also defines drive A, this new
       description  would   override   the   description   of	drive	A   in
       `/etc/mtools.conf'  instead  of	adding to it. If you want to add a new
       description to a drive already described in an earlier file,  you  need
       to use either the +drive or drive+ keyword.

   Backwards compatibility with old configuration file syntax
       The  syntax  described  herein  is  new for version mtools-3.0. The old
       line-oriented syntax is still supported. Each  line  beginning  with  a
       single  letter  is  considered  to be a drive description using the old
       syntax. Old style and new style drive sections may be mixed within  the
       same configuration file, in order to make upgrading easier. Support for
       the old syntax will be phased out eventually, and in order to  discour‐
       age its use, I purposefully omit its description here.

See also
       mtools

MTOOLS				    03Nov09			     mtools(5)
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