From Linux Man Pages
mkisofs - create an hybrid ISO9660/JOLIET/HFS filesystem with optional Rock Ridge attributes.
mkisofs [ options ] [ -o filename ] pathspec [pathspec ...]
DESCRIPTION
mkisofs is a pre-mastering program to generate ISO9660/JOLIET/HFS hybrid filesystems.
mkisofs is capable of generating the System Use Sharing Protocol records (SUSP) specified by the Rock Ridge
Interchange Protocol. This is used to further describe the files in the ISO9660 filesystem to a Unix host, and
provides information such as long filenames, UID/GID, POSIX permissions, symbolic links, block and character
devices.
If Joliet or HFS hybrid command line options are specified, mkisofs will create the additional filesystem meta-
data needed for Joliet or HFS. If no Joliet or HFS hybrid command line options are given, mkisofs will generate
a pure ISO9660 filesystem.
mkisofs can generate a true (or shared) HFS hybrid filesystem. The same files are seen as HFS files when accessed
from a Macintosh and as ISO9660 files when accessed from other machines. HFS stands for Hierarchical File System
and is the native file system used on Macintosh computers.
As an alternative, mkisofs can generate the Apple Extensions to ISO9660 for each file. These extensions provide
each file with CREATOR, TYPE and certain Finder Flags when accessed from a Macintosh. See the HFS MACINTOSH FILE
FORMATS section below.
mkisofs takes a snapshot of a given directory tree, and 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 extension (where the number is guaranteed to be unique). An example of this would be the files
foo.bar and foo.bar.~1~ - the file foo.bar.~1~ would be written as FOO000.BAR;1 and the file foo.bar would be
written as FOO.BAR;1
When used with various HFS options, mkisofs will attempt to recognise files stored in a number of Apple/Unix file
formats and will copy the data and resource forks as well as any relevant finder information. See the HFS MACIN-
TOSH FILE FORMATS section below for more about formats mkisofs supports.
Note that mkisofs is not designed to communicate with the writer directly. Most writers have proprietary command
sets which vary from one manufacturer to another, and you need a specialized tool to actually burn the disk.
The wodim utility is a utility capable of burning an actual disc. The latest version of wodim is available from
http://alioth.debian.org/projects/debburn/
Also you should know that most cd writers are very particular about timing. Once you start to burn a disc, you
cannot let their buffer empty before you are done, or you will end up with a corrupt disc. Thus it is critical
that you be able to maintain an uninterrupted data stream to the writer for the entire time that the disc is
being written.
pathspec is the path of the directory tree to be copied into the ISO9660 filesystem. Multiple paths can be spec-
ified, and mkisofs will merge the files found in all of the specified path components to form the cdrom image.
If the option -graft-points has been specified, it is possible to graft the paths at points other than the root
directory, and it is possible to graft files or directories onto the cdrom image with names different than what
they have in the source filesystem. This is easiest to illustrate with a couple of examples. Let's start by
assuming that a local file ../old.lis exists, and you wish to include it in the cdrom image.
foo/bar/=../old.lis
will include the file old.lis in the cdrom image at /foo/bar/old.lis, while
foo/bar/xxx=../old.lis
will include the file old.lis in the cdrom image at /foo/bar/xxx. The same sort of syntax can be used with
directories as well. mkisofs will create any directories required such that the graft points exist on the cdrom
image - the directories do not need to appear in one of the paths. By default, any directories that are created
on the fly like this will have permissions 0555 and appear to be owned by the person running mkisofs. If you
wish other permissions or owners of the intermediate directories, see -uid, -gid, -dir-mode, -file-mode and
-new-dir-mode.
mkisofs will also run on Win9X/NT4 machines when compiled with Cygnus' cygwin (available from http://source-
ware.cygnus.com/cygwin/). Therefore most references in this man page to Unix can be replaced with Win32.
OPTIONS
-abstract FILE
Specifies the abstract file name. There is space on the disc for 37 characters of information. This
parameter can also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with ABST=filename. If specified in both places, the
command line version is used.
-A application_id
Specifies a text string that will be written into the volume header. This should describe the application
that will be on the disc. There is space on the disc for 128 characters of information. This parameter
can also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with APPI=id. If specified in both places, the command line ver-
sion is used.
-allow-leading-dots
-ldots Allow ISO9660 filenames to begin with a period. Usually, a leading dot is replaced with an underscore in
order to maintain MS-DOS compatibility.
This violates the ISO9660 standard, but it happens to work on many systems. Use with caution.
-allow-lowercase
This options allows lower case characters to appear in ISO9660 file names.
This violates the ISO9660 standard, but it happens to work on some systems. Use with caution.
-allow-multidot
This options allows more than one dot to appear in ISO9660 filenames. A leading dot is not affected by
this option, it may be allowed separately using the -allow-leading-dots option.
This violates the ISO9660 standard, but it happens to work on many systems. Use with caution.
-biblio FILE
Specifies the bibliographic file name. There is space on the disc for 37 characters of information. This
parameter can also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with BIBLO=filename. If specified in both places, the
command line version is used.
-cache-inodes
Cache inode and device numbers to find hard links to files. If mkisofs finds a hard link (a file with
multiple names), then the file will only appear once on the CD. This helps to save space on the CD. The
option -cache-inodes is default on Unix like operating systems. Be careful when using this option on a
filesystem without unique inode numbers as it may result in files containing the wrong content on CD.
-no-cache-inodes
Do not cache inode and device numbers. This option is needed whenever a filesystem does not have unique
inode numbers. It is the default on Cygwin. As the Microsoft operating system that runs below Cygwin is
not POSIX compliant, it does not have unique inode numbers. Cygwin creates fake inode numbers from a hash
algorithm that is not 100% correct. If mkisofs would cache inodes on Cygwin, it would believe that some
files are identical although they are not. The result in this case are files that contain the wrong con-
tent if a significant amount of different files (> ~5000) is in inside the tree that is to be archived.
This does not happen when the -no-cache-inodes is used, but the disadvantage is that mkisofs cannot detect
hardlinks anymore and the resulting CD image may be larger than expected.
-alpha-boot alpha_boot_image
Specifies the path and filename of the boot image to be used when making an Alpha/SRM bootable CD. The
pathname must be relative to the source path specified to mkisofs.
-hppa-bootloader hppa_bootloader_image
Specifies the path and filename of the boot image to be used when making an HPPA bootable CD. The pathname
must be relative to the source path specified to mkisofs. Other options are required, at the very least a
kernel file name and the boot command line. See the HPPA NOTES section below for more information.
-hppa-cmdline hppa_boot_command_line
Specifies the command line to be passed to the hppa boot loader when making a bootable CD. Separate the
parameters with spaces or commas. More options must be passed to mkisofs, at the very least a kernel file
name and the boot loader file name. See the HPPA NOTES section below for more information.
-hppa-kernel-32 hppa_kernel_32
Specifies the path and filename of the 32-bit kernel image to be used when making an HPPA bootable CD. The
pathname must be relative to the source path specified to mkisofs. Other options are required, at the
very least the boot loader file name and the boot command line. See the HPPA NOTES section below for more
information.
-hppa-kernel-64 hppa_kernel_64
Specifies the path and filename of the 64-bit kernel image to be used when making an HPPA bootable CD. The
pathname must be relative to the source path specified to mkisofs. Other options are required, at the
very least the boot loader file name and the boot command line. See the HPPA NOTES section below for more
information.
-hppa-ramdisk hppa_ramdisk_image
Specifies the path and filename of the ramdisk image to be used when making an HPPA bootable CD. The path-
name must be relative to the source path specified to mkisofs. This parameter is optional. Other options
are required, at the very least a kernel file name and the boot command line. See the HPPA NOTES section
below for more information.
-mips-boot mips_boot_image
Specifies the path and filename of the boot image to be used when making an SGI/big-endian MIPS bootable
CD. The pathname must be relative to the source path specified to mkisofs. This option may be specified
several times to allow the addition of multiple boot images, up to a maximum of 15.
-mipsel-boot mipsel_boot_image
Specifies the path and filename of the boot image to be used when making an DEC/little-endian MIPS
bootable CD. The pathname must be relative to the source path specified to mkisofs.
-sparc-boot img_sun4,img_sun4c,img_sun4m,img_sun4d,img_sun4e
Specifies a comma separated list of boot images that are needed to make a bootable CD for sparc systems.
Partition 0 is used for the ISO9660 image, the first image file is mapped to partition 1. There may be
empty fields in the comma separated list. The maximum number of possible partitions is 8 so it is impos-
sible to specify more than 7 partition images. This option is required to make a bootable CD for Sun
sparc systems. If the -B or -sparc-boot option has been specified, the first sector of the resulting
image will contain a Sun disk label. This disk label specifies slice 0 for the ISO9660 image and slice 1
... slice 7 for the boot images that have been specified with this option. Byte offset 512 ... 8191 within
each of the additional boot images must contain a primary boot that works for the appropriate sparc archi-
tecture. The rest of each of the images usually contains an ufs filesystem that is used primary kernel
boot stage.
The implemented boot method is the boot method found with SunOS 4.x and SunOS 5.x. However, it does not
depend on SunOS internals but only on properties of the Open Boot prom. For this reason, it should be
usable for any OS that boots off a sparc system.
For more information also see the NOTES section below.
If the special filename ... is used, the actual and all following boot partitions are mapped to the pre-
vious partition. If mkisofs is called with -G image -B ... all boot partitions are mapped to the parti-
tion that contains the ISO9660 filesystem image and the generic boot image that is located in the first 16
sectors of the disk is used for all architectures.
-b eltorito_boot_image
Specifies the path and filename of the boot image to be used when making an "El Torito" bootable CD. The
pathname must be relative to the source path specified to mkisofs. This option is required to make an "El
Torito" bootable CD. The boot image must be exactly the size of either a 1200, 1440, or a 2880 kB floppy,
and mkisofs will use this size when creating the output ISO9660 filesystem. It is assumed that the first
512 byte sector should be read from the boot image (it is essentially emulating a normal floppy drive).
This will work, for example, if the boot image is a LILO based boot floppy.
If the boot image is not an image of a floppy, you need to add one of the options: -hard-disk-boot or
-no-emul-boot. If the system should not boot off the emulated disk, use -no-boot.
If the -sort option has not been specified, the boot images are sorted with low priority (+2) to the
beginning of the medium. If you don't like this, you need to specify a sort weight of 0 for the boot
images.
-eltorito-alt-boot
Start with a new set of "El Torito" boot parameters. This allows to have more than one El Torito boot on
a CD. A maximum of 63 El Torito boot entries may be put on a single CD.
-B img_sun4,img_sun4c,img_sun4m,img_sun4d,img_sun4e
-sparc-boot img_sun4,img_sun4c,img_sun4m,img_sun4d,img_sun4e
Specifies a comma separated list of boot images that are needed to make a bootable CD for sparc systems.
Partition 0 is used for the ISO9660 image, the first image file is mapped to partition 1. There may be
empty fields in the comma separated list. The maximum number of possible partitions is 8 so it is impos-
sible to specify more than 7 partition images. This option is required to make a bootable CD for Sun
sparc systems. If the -B or -sparc-boot option has been specified, the first sector of the resulting
image will contain a Sun disk label. This disk label specifies slice 0 for the ISO9660 image and slice 1
... slice 7 for the boot images that have been specified with this option. Byte offset 512 ... 8191 within
each of the additional boot images must contain a primary boot that works for the appropriate sparc archi-
tecture. The rest of each of the images usually contains an ufs filesystem that is used primary kernel
boot stage.
The implemented boot method is the boot method found with SunOS 4.x and SunOS 5.x. However, it does not
depend on SunOS internals but only on properties of the Open Boot prom. For this reason, it should be
usable for any OS that boots off a sparc system.
For more information also see the NOTES section below.
If the special filename ... is used, the actual and all following boot partitions are mapped to the pre-
vious partition. If mkisofs is called with -G image -B ... all boot partitions are mapped to the parti-
tion 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 sec-
tors 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 sys-
tem 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) sectors to load in no-emulation mode. The default is to load
the entire boot file. Some BIOSes may have problems if this is not a multiple of 4.
-boot-info-table
Specifies that a 56-byte table with information of the CD-ROM layout will be patched in at offset 8 in the
boot file. If this option is given, the boot file is modified in the source filesystem, so make sure to
make a copy if this file cannot be easily regenerated! See the EL TORITO BOOT INFO TABLE section for a
description of this table.
-C last_sess_start,next_sess_start
This option is needed when mkisofs is used to create a CD Extra or the image of a second session or a
higher level session for a multi session disk. The option -C takes a pair of two numbers separated by a
comma. The first number is the sector number of the first sector in the last session of the disk that
should be appended to. The second number is the starting sector number of the new session. The expected
pair of numbers may be retrieved by calling wodim -msinfo ... If the -C option is used in 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 CD Extra. This is a multi session CD that holds
audio data in the first session and a ISO9660 filesystem in the second session.
-c boot_catalog
Specifies the path and filename of the boot catalog to be used when making an "El Torito" bootable CD. The
pathname must be relative to the source path specified to mkisofs. This option is required to make a
bootable CD. This file will be inserted into the output tree and not created in the source filesystem, so
be sure the specified filename does not conflict with an existing file, as it will be excluded. Usually a
name like "boot.catalog" is chosen.
If the -sort option has not been specified, the boot catalog sorted with low priority (+1) to the begin-
ning of the medium. If you don't like this, you need to specify a sort weight of 0 for the boot catalog.
-check-oldnames
Check all filenames imported from old session for compliance with actual mkisofs ISO9660 file naming
rules. It his option is not present, only names with a length > 31 are checked as these files are a hard
violation of the ISO9660 standard.
-check-session FILE
Check all old sessions for compliance with actual mkisofs ISO9660 file naming rules. This is a high level
option that is a combination of the options: -M FILE -C 0,0 -check-oldnames For the parameter FILE see
description of -M option.
-copyright FILE
Specifies the copyright file name. There is space on the disc for 37 characters of information. This
parameter can also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with COPY=filename. If specified in both places, the
command line version is used.
-d Omit trailing period from files that do not have a period.
This violates the ISO9660 standard, but it happens to work on many systems. Use with caution.
-D Do not use deep directory relocation, and instead just pack them in the way we see them.
If ISO9660:1999 has not been selected, this violates the ISO9660 standard, but it happens to work on many
systems. Use with caution.
-dir-mode mode
Overrides the mode of directories used to create the image to mode. Specifying this option automatically
enables Rock Ridge extensions.
-dvd-video
Generate a DVD-Video compliant UDF file system. This is done by sorting the order of the content of the
appropriate files and by adding padding between the files if needed. Note that the sorting only works if
the DVD-Video filenames include upper case characters only.
Note that in order to get a DVD-Video compliant filesystem image, you need to prepare a DVD-Video compli-
ant directory tree. This means you need to have a directory VIDEO_TS (all caps) in the root directory of
the resulting DVD and you should have a directory AUDIO_TS. The directory VIDEO_TS needs to include all
needed files (file names must be all caps) for a compliant DVD-Video filesystem.
-f Follow symbolic links when generating the filesystem. When this option is not in use, symbolic links will
be entered using Rock Ridge if enabled, otherwise the file will be ignored.
-file-mode mode
Overrides the mode of regular files used to create the image to mode. Specifying this option automati-
cally 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 '=' charac-
ters 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 direc-
tory, then the contents of that directory will be hidden. In order to match a directory name, make sure
the pathname does not include a trailing '/' character. All the hidden files will still be written to the
output CD image file. Should be used with the -hide-joliet option. See README.hide for more details.
-hide-list file
A file containing a list of globs to be hidden as above.
-hidden glob
Add the hidden (existence) ISO9660 directory attribute for glob. This attribute will prevent glob from
being listed on DOS based systems if the /A flag is not used for the listing. glob is a shell wild-card-
style pattern that must match any part of the filename or path. In order to match a directory name, make
sure the pathname does not include a trailing '/' character. 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. See README.hide for more details.
-hide-joliet-list file
A file containing a list of globs to be hidden as above.
-hide-joliet-trans-tbl
Hide the TRANS.TBL files from the Joliet tree. These files usually don't make sense in the Joliet World
as they list the real name and the ISO9660 name which may both be different from the Joliet name.
-hide-rr-moved
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 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 information on the RR_MOVED directory.
-input-charset charset
Input charset that defines the characters used in local file names. To get a list of valid charset names,
call mkisofs -input-charset help. To get a 1:1 mapping, you may use default as charset name. The default
initial values are cp437 on DOS based systems and iso8859-1 on all other systems. See CHARACTER SETS sec-
tion below for more details.
-output-charset charset
Output charset that defines the characters that will be used in Rock Ridge file names. Defaults to the
input charset. See CHARACTER SETS section below for more details.
-iso-level level
Set the ISO9660 conformance level. Valid numbers are 1..3 and 4.
With level 1, files may only consist of one section and filenames are restricted to 8.3 characters.
With level 2, files may only consist of one section.
With level 3, no restrictions (other than ISO-9660:1988) do apply.
With all ISO9660 levels from 1..3, all filenames are restricted to upper case letters, numbers and the
underscore (_). The maximum filename length is restricted to 31 characters, the directory nesting level is
restricted to 8 and the maximum path length is limited to 255 characters.
Level 4 officially does not exists but mkisofs maps it to ISO-9660:1999 which is ISO9660 version 2.
With level 4, an enhanced volume descriptor with version number and file structure version number set to 2
is emitted. There may be more than 8 levels of directory nesting, there is no need for a file to contain
a dot and the dot has no more special meaning, file names do not have version numbers, the maximum length
for files and directory is raised to 207. If Rock Ridge is used, the maximum ISO9660 name length is
reduced to 197.
When creating Version 2 images, mkisofs emits an enhanced volume descriptor which looks similar to a pri-
mary volume descriptor but is slightly different. Be careful not to use broken software to make ISO9660
images bootable by assuming a second PVD copy and patching this putative PVD copy into an El Torito VD.
-J Generate Joliet directory records in addition to regular ISO9660 file names. This is primarily useful
when the discs are to be used on Windows machines. The Joliet filenames are specified in Unicode and each
path component can be up to 64 Unicode characters long. Note that Joliet is not a standard - CDs that use
only Joliet extensions but no standard Rock Ridge extensions may usually only be used on Microsoft Win32
systems. Furthermore, the fact that the filenames are limited to 64 characters and the fact that Joliet
uses the UTF-16 coding for Unicode characters causes interoperability problems.
-joliet-long
Allow Joliet filenames to be up to 103 Unicode characters. This breaks the Joliet specification - but
appears to work. Use with caution. The number 103 is derived from: the maximum Directory Record Length
(254), minus the length of Directory Record(33), minus CD-ROM XA System Use Extension Information(14),
divided by the UTF-16 character size(2).
-jcharset charset
Same as using -input-charset charset and -J options. See CHARACTER SETS section below for more details.
-l Allow full 31 character filenames. Normally the ISO9660 filename will be in an 8.3 format which is com-
patible with MS-DOS, even though the ISO9660 standard allows filenames of up to 31 characters. If you use
this option, the disc may be difficult to use on a MS-DOS system, but this comes in handy on some other
systems (such as the Amiga). Use with caution.
-L Outdated option reserved by POSIX.1-2001, use -allow-leading-dots instead. This option will get
POSIX.1-2001 semantics with mkisofs-2.02.
-jigdo-jigdo jigdo_file
Produce a jigdo .jigdo file as well as the .iso. See the JIGDO NOTES section below for more information.
-jigdo-template template_file
Produce a jigdo .template file as well as the .iso. See the JIGDO NOTES section below for more informa-
tion.
-jigdo-min-file-size size
Specify the minimum size for a file to be listed in the .jigdo file. Default (and minimum allowed) is 1KB.
See the JIGDO NOTES section below for more information.
-jigdo-force-md5 path
Specify a file pattern where files MUST be contained in the externally-suplied MD5 list as supplied by
-md5-list. See the JIGDO NOTES section below for more information.
-jigdo-exclude path
Specify a file pattern where files will not be listed in the .jigdo file. See the JIGDO NOTES section
below for more information.
-jigdo-map path
Specify a pattern mapping for the jigdo file (e.g. Debian=/mirror/debian). See the JIGDO NOTES section
below for more information.
-md5-list md5_file
Specify a file containing the MD5sums, sizes and pathnames of the files to be included in the .jigdo file.
See the JIGDO NOTES section below for more information.
-log-file log_file
Redirect all error, warning and informational messages to log_file instead of the standard error.
-m glob
Exclude glob from being written to CD-ROM. glob is a shell wild-card-style pattern that must match part
of the filename (not the path as with option -x). Technically glob is matched against the d->d_name part
of the directory entry. Multiple globs may be excluded. Example:
mkisofs -o rom -m '*.o' -m core -m foobar
would exclude all files ending in ".o", called "core" or "foobar" to be copied to CD-ROM. Note that if you
had a directory called "foobar" it too (and of course all its descendants) would be excluded.
NOTE: The -m and -x option description should both be updated, they are wrong. Both now work identical
and use filename globbing. A file is excluded if either the last component matches or the whole path
matches.
-exclude-list file
A file containing a list of globs to be exclude as above.
-max-iso9660-filenames
Allow 37 chars in ISO9660 filenames. This option forces the -N option as the extra name space is taken
from the space reserved for ISO9660 version numbers.
This violates the ISO9660 standard, but it happens to work on many systems. Although a conforming appli-
cation needs to provide a buffer space of at least 37 characters, disks created with this option may cause
a buffer overflow in the reading operating system. Use with extreme care.
-M path
or
-M device
or
-dev device
Specifies path to existing ISO9660 image to be merged. The alternate form takes a SCSI device specifier
that uses the same syntax as the dev= parameter of wodim. The output of mkisofs will be a new session
which should get written to the end of the image specified in -M. Typically this requires multi-session
capability for the recorder and cdrom drive that you are attempting to write this image to. This option
may only be used in conjunction with the -C option.
-N Omit version numbers from ISO9660 file names.
This violates the ISO9660 standard, but no one really uses the version numbers anyway. Use with caution.
-new-dir-mode mode
Mode to use when creating new directories in the filesystem image. The default mode is 0555.
-nobak
-no-bak
Do not include backup files files on the ISO9660 filesystem. If the -no-bak option is specified, files
that contain the 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 rot-
ten ISO9660 extension records as e.g. created by NERO burning ROM.
-no-rr Do not use the Rock Ridge attributes from previous sessions. This may help to avoid getting into trouble
when mkisofs finds illegal Rock Ridge signatures on an old session.
-no-split-symlink-components
Don't split the SL components, but begin a new Continuation Area (CE) instead. This may waste some space,
but the SunOS 4.1.4 cdrom driver has a bug in reading split SL components (link_size = component_size
instead of link_size += component_size).
Note that this option has been introduced by Eric Youngdale in 1997. It is questionable whether it makes
sense at all. When it has been introduced, mkisofs did have a serious bug that did create defective CE
signatures if a symlink contained `/../'. This CE signature bug in mkisofs has been fixed in May 2003.
-no-split-symlink-fields
Don't split the SL fields, but begin a new Continuation Area (CE) instead. This may waste some space, but
the SunOS 4.1.4 and Solaris 2.5.1 cdrom driver have a bug in reading split SL fields (a `/' can be
dropped).
Note that this option has been introduced by Eric Youngdale in 1997. It is questionable whether it makes
sense at all. When it has been introduced, mkisofs did have a serious bug that did create defective CE
signatures if a symlink contained `/../'. This CE signature bug in mkisofs has been fixed in May 2003.
-o filename
is the name of the file to which the ISO9660 filesystem image should be written. This can be a disk file,
a tape drive, or it can correspond directly to the device name of the optical disc writer. If not speci-
fied, 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 cor-
rectly.
-pad Pad the end of the whole image by 150 sectors (300 kB). If the option -B is used, then there is a padding
at the end of the ISO9660 partition and before the beginning of the boot partitions. The size of this
padding is chosen to make the first boot partition start on a sector number that is a multiple of 16.
The padding is needed as many operating systems (e.g. Linux) implement read ahead bugs in their filesystem
I/O. These bugs result in read errors on one or more files that are located at the end of a track. They
are usually present when the CD is written in Track at Once mode or when the disk is written as mixed mode
CD where an audio track follows the data track.
To avoid problems with I/O error on the last file on the filesystem, the -pad option has been made the
default.
-no-pad
Do not Pad the end by 150 sectors (300 kB) and do not make the the boot partitions start on a multiple of
16 sectors.
-path-list file
A file containing a list of pathspec directories and filenames to be added to the ISO9660 filesystem. This
list of pathspecs are processed after any that appear on the command line. If the argument is -, then the
list is read from the standard input.
-P Outdated option reserved by POSIX.1-2001, use -publisher instead. This option will get POSIX.1-2001
semantics with mkisofs-2.02.
-publisher publisher_id
Specifies a text string that will be written into the volume header. This should describe the publisher
of the CD-ROM, usually with a mailing address and phone number. There is space on the disc for 128 char-
acters of information. This parameter can also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with PUBL=. If specified in
both places, the command line version is used.
-p preparer_id
Specifies a text string that will be written into the volume header. This should describe the preparer of
the CD-ROM, usually with a mailing address and phone number. There is space on the disc for 128 charac-
ters of information. This parameter can also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with PREP=. If specified in
both places, the command line version is used.
-print-size
Print estimated filesystem size in multiples of the sector size (2048 bytes) and exit. This option is
needed for Disk At Once mode and with some CD-R drives when piping directly into wodim. In this case it
is needed to know the size of the filesystem before the actual CD creation is done. The option
-print-size allows to get this size from a "dry-run" before the CD is 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 sim-
ple shell script, redirect stderr and catch the number from stdout. This may be done with:
cdblocks=` mkisofs -print-size -quiet ... `
mkisofs ... | wodim ... tsize=${cdblocks}s -
-quiet This makes mkisofs even less verbose. No progress output will be provided.
-R Generate SUSP and RR records using the Rock Ridge protocol to further describe the files on the ISO9660
filesystem.
-r This is like the -R option, but file ownership and modes are set to more useful values. The uid and gid
are set to zero, because they are usually only useful on the author's system, and not useful to the
client. All the file read bits are set true, so that files and directories are globally readable on the
client. If any execute bit is set for a file, set all of the execute bits, so that executables are
globally executable on the client. If any search bit is set for a directory, set all of the search bits,
so that directories are globally searchable on the client. All write bits are cleared, because the
filesystem will be mounted read-only in any case. If any of the special mode bits are set, clear them,
because file locks are not useful on a read-only file system, and set-id bits are not desirable for uid 0
or gid 0. When used on Win32, the execute bit is set on all files. This is a result of the lack of file
permissions on Win32 and the Cygwin POSIX emulation layer. See also -uid -gid, -dir-mode, -file-mode and
-new-dir-mode.
-relaxed-filenames
The option -relaxed-filenames allows ISO9660 filenames to include digits, upper case characters and all
other 7 bit ASCII characters (resp. anything except lowercase characters).
This violates the ISO9660 standard, but it happens to work on many systems. Use with caution.
-root dir
Moves all files and directories into dir in the image. This is essentially the same as using -graft-points
and adding dir in front of every pathspec, but is easier to use.
dir may actually be several levels deep. It is created with the same permissions as other graft points.
-old-root dir
This option is necessary when writing a multisession image and the previous (or even older) session was
written with -root dir. Using a directory name not found in the previous session causes mkisofs to abort
with an error.
Without this option, mkisofs would not be able to find unmodified files and would be forced to write their
data into the image once more.
-root and -old-root are meant to be used together to do incremental backups. The initial session would
e.g. use: mkisofs -root backup_1 dirs. The next incremental backup with mkisofs -root backup_2 -old-root
backup_1 dirs. would take another snapshot of these directories. The first snapshot would be found in
backup_1, the second one in backup_2, but only modified or new files need to be written into the second
session.
Without these options, new files would be added and old ones would be preserved. But old ones would be
overwritten if the file was modified. Recovering the files by copying the whole directory back from CD
would also restore files that were deleted intentionally. Accessing several older versions of a file
requires support by the operating system to choose which sessions are to be mounted.
-sort sort file
Sort file locations on the media. Sorting is controlled by a file that contains pairs of filenames and
sorting offset weighting. If the weighting is higher, the file will be located closer to the beginning of
the media, if the weighting is lower, the file will be located closer to the end of the media. There must
be only one space or tabs character between the filename and the weight and the weight must be the last
characters on a line. The filename is taken to include all the characters up to, but not including the
last space or tab character on a line. This is to allow for space characters to be in, or at the end of a
filename. This option does not sort the order of the file names that appear in the ISO9660 directory. It
sorts the order in which the file data is written to the CD image - which may be useful in order to opti-
mize the data layout on a CD. See README.sort for more details.
-sparc-boot img_sun4,img_sun4c,img_sun4m,img_sun4d,img_sun4e
See -B option above.
-sparc-label label
Set the Sun disk label name for the Sun disk label that is created with the -sparc-boot option.
-split-output
Split the output image into several files of approximately 1 GB. This helps to create DVD sized ISO9660
images on operating systems without large file support. Wodim will concatenate more than one file into a
single track if writing to a DVD. To make -split-output work, the -o filename option must be specified.
The resulting outout images will be named: filename_00,filename_01,filename_02...
-stream-media-size #
Select streaming operation and set the media size to # sectors. This allows you to pipe the output of the
tar program into mkisofs and to create a ISO9660 filesystem without the need of an intermediate tar
archive file. If this option has been specified, mkisofs reads from stdin and creates a file with the
name STREAM.IMG. The maximum size of the file (with padding) is 200 sectors less than the specified media
size. If -no-pad has been specified, the file size is 50 sectors less than the specified media size. If
the file is smaller, then mkisofs will write padding. This may take a while.
The option -stream-media-size creates simple ISO9660 filesystems only and may not used together with
multi-session or hybrid filesystem options.
-stream-file-name name
Reserved for future use.
-sunx86-boot UFS-img,,,AUX1-img
Specifies a comma separated list of filesystem images that are needed to make a bootable CD for Solaris
x86 systems.
Note that partition 1 is used for the ISO9660 image and that partition 2 is the whole disk, so partition 1
and 2 may not be used by external partition data. The first image file is mapped to partition 0. There
may be empty fields in the comma separated list, and list entries for partition 1 and 2 must be empty.
The maximum number of supported partitions is 8 (although the Solaris x86 partition table could support up
to 16 partitions), so it is impossible to specify more than 6 partition images. This option is required
to make a bootable CD for Solaris x86 systems.
If the -sunx86-boot option has been specified, the first sector of the resulting image will contain a PC
fdisk label with a Solaris type 0x82 fdisk partition that starts at offset 512 and spans the whole CD. In
addition, for the Solaris type 0x82 fdisk partition, there is a SVr4 disk label at offset 1024 in the
first sector of the CD. This disk label specifies slice 0 for the first (usually UFS type) filesystem
image that is used to boot the PC and slice 1 for the ISO9660 image. Slice 2 spans the whole CD slice 3
... slice 7 may be used for additional filesystem images that have been specified with this option.
A Solaris x86 boot CD uses a 1024 byte sized primary boot that uses the El-Torito no-emulation boot mode
and a secondary generic boot that is in CD sectors 1..15. For this reason, both -b bootimage
-no-emul-boot and -G genboot must be specified.
-sunx86-label label
Set the SVr4 disk label name for the SVr4 disk label that is created with the -sunx86-boot option.
-sysid ID
Specifies the system ID. There is space on the disc for 32 characters of information. This parameter can
also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with SYSI=system_id. If specified in both places, the command line
version is used.
-T Generate a file TRANS.TBL in each directory on the CD-ROM, which can be used on non-Rock Ridge capable
systems to help establish the correct file names. There is also information present in the file that
indicates the major and minor numbers for block and character devices, and each symlink has the name of
the link file given.
-table-name TABLE_NAME
Alternative translation table file name (see above). Implies the -T option. If you are creating a multi-
session image you must use the same name as in the previous session.
-ucs-level level
Set Unicode conformance level in the Joliet SVD. The default level is 3. It may be set to 1..3 using this
option.
-udf Include UDF support in the generated filesystem image. UDF support is currently in alpha status and for
this reason, it is not possible to create UDF only images. UDF data structures are currently coupled to
the Joliet structures, so there are many pitfalls with the current implementation. There is no UID/GID
support, there is no POSIX permission support, there is no support for symlinks. Note that UDF wastes the
space from sector ~20 to sector 256 at the beginning of the disk in addition to the space needed for real
UDF data structures.
-uid uid
Overrides the uid read from the source files to the value of uid. Specifying this option automatically
enables Rock Ridge extensions.
-use-fileversion
The option -use-fileversion allows mkisofs to use file version numbers from the filesystem. If the option
is not specified, mkisofs creates a version number of 1 for all files. File versions are strings in the
range ;1 to ;32767 This option is the default on VMS.
-U Allows "Untranslated" filenames, completely violating the ISO9660 standards described above. Forces on the
-d, -l, -N, -allow-leading-dots, -relaxed-filenames, -allow-lowercase, -allow-multidot and -no-iso-trans-
late flags. It allows more than one '.' character in the filename, as well as mixed case filenames. This
is useful on HP-UX system, where the built-in CDFS filesystem does not recognize ANY extensions. Use with
extreme caution.
-no-iso-translate
Do not translate the characters '#' and '~' which are invalid for ISO9660 filenames. These characters are
though invalid often used by Microsoft systems.
This violates the ISO9660 standard, but it happens to work on many systems. Use with caution.
-V volid
Specifies the volume ID (volume name or label) to be written into the master block. There is space on the
disc for 32 characters of information. This parameter can also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with
VOLI=id. If specified in both places, the command line version is used. Note that if you assign a volume
ID, this is the name that will be used as the mount point used by the Solaris volume management system and
the name that is assigned to the disc on a Microsoft Win32 or Apple Mac platform.
-volset ID
Specifies the volset ID. There is space on the disc for 128 characters of information. This parameter
can also be set in the file .mkisofsrc with VOLS=volset_id. If specified in both places, the command line
version is used.
-volset-size #
Sets the volume set size to #. The volume set size is the number of CDs that are in a CD volume set. A
volume set is a collection of one or more volumes, on which a set of files is recorded.
Volume Sets are not intended to be used to create a set numbered CDs that are part of e.g. a Operation
System installation set of CDs. Volume Sets are rather used to record a big directory tree that would not
fit on a single volume. Each volume of a Volume Set contains a description of all the directories and
files that are recorded on the volumes where the sequence numbers are less than, or equal to, the assigned
Volume Set Size of the current volume.
mkisofs currently does not support a -volset-size that is larger than 1.
The option -volset-size must be specified before -volset-seqno on each command line.
-volset-seqno #
Sets the volume set sequence number to #. The volume set sequence number is the index number of the cur-
rent CD in a CD set. The option -volset-size must be specified before -volset-seqno on each command line.
-v Verbose execution. If given twice on the command line, extra debug information will be printed.
-x path
Exclude path from being written to CD-ROM. path must be the complete pathname that results from concate-
nating the pathname given as command line argument and the path relative to this directory. Multiple
paths may be excluded. Example:
mkisofs -o cd -x /local/dir1 -x /local/dir2 /local
NOTE: The -m and -x option description should both be updated, they are wrong. Both now work identical
and use filename globbing. A file is excluded if either the last component matches or the whole path
matches.
-z Generate special RRIP records for transparently compressed files. This is only of use and interest for
hosts that support transparent decompression, such as Linux 2.4.14 or later. You must specify the -R or
-r options to enable Rock Ridge, and generate compressed files using the mkzftree utility before running
mkisofs. Note that transparent compression is a nonstandard Rock Ridge extension. The resulting disks
are only transparently readable if used on Linux. On other operating systems you will need to call
mkzftree by hand to decompress the files.
HFS OPTIONS
-hfs Create an ISO9660/HFS hybrid CD. This option should be used in conjunction with the -map, -magic and/or
the various double dash options given below.
-apple Create an ISO9660 CD with Apple's extensions. Similar to the -hfs option, except that the Apple Extensions
to ISO9660 are added instead of creating an HFS hybrid volume. Former mkisofs versions did include Rock
Ridge attributes by default if -apple was specified. This versions of mkisofs does not do this anymore. If
you like to have Rock Ridge attributes, you need to specify this separately.
-map mapping_file
Use the mapping_file to set the CREATOR and TYPE information for a file based on the filename's extension.
A filename is mapped only if it is not one of the know Apple/Unix file formats. See the HFS CREATOR/TYPE
section below.
-magic magic_file
The CREATOR and TYPE information is set by using a file's magic number (usually the first few bytes of a
file). The magic_file is only used if a file is not one of the known Apple/Unix file formats, or the file-
name extension has not been mapped using the -map option. See the HFS CREATOR/TYPE section below for more
details.
-hfs-creator CREATOR
Set the default CREATOR for all files. Must be exactly 4 characters. See the HFS CREATOR/TYPE section
below for more details.
-hfs-type TYPE
Set the default TYPE for all files. Must be exactly 4 characters. See the HFS CREATOR/TYPE section below
for more details.
-probe Search the contents of files for all the known Apple/Unix file formats. See the HFS MACINTOSH FILE FOR-
MATS section below for more about these formats. However, the only way to check for MacBinary and
AppleSingle files is to open and read them. Therefore this option may increase processing time. It is bet-
ter to use one or more double dash options given below if the Apple/Unix formats in use are known.
-no-desktop
Do not create (empty) Desktop files. New HFS Desktop files will be created when the CD is used on a Macin-
tosh (and stored in the System Folder). By default, empty Desktop files are added to the HFS volume.
-mac-name
Use the HFS filename as the starting point for the ISO9660, Joliet and Rock Ridge file names. See the HFS
MACINTOSH FILE NAMES section below for more information.
-boot-hfs-file driver_file
Installs the driver_file that may make the CD 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 Macintosh CD-
ROM drivers need an HFS partition table on the CD-ROM to be able to recognize a hybrid CD-ROM.
-auto AutoStart_file
Make the HFS CD use the QuickTime 2.0 Autostart feature to launch an application or document. The given
filename must be the name of a document or application located at the top level of the CD. The filename
must be less than 12 characters. (Alpha).
-cluster-size size
Set the size in bytes of the cluster or allocation units of PC Exchange files. Implies the --exchange
option. See the HFS MACINTOSH FILE FORMATS section below.
-hide-hfs glob
Hide glob from the HFS volume. The file or directory will still exist in the ISO9660 and/or Joliet direc-
tory. glob is a shell wild-card-style pattern that must match any part of the filename Multiple globs may
be excluded. Example:
mkisofs -o rom -hfs -hide-hfs '*.o' -hide-hfs foobar
would exclude all files ending in ".o" or called "foobar" from the HFS volume. Note that if you had a
directory called "foobar" it too (and of course all its descendants) would be excluded. The glob can also
be a path name relative to the source directories given on the command line. Example:
mkisofs -o rom -hfs -hide-hfs src/html src
would exclude just the file or directory called "html" from the "src" directory. Any other file or direc-
tory called "html" in the tree will not be excluded. Should be used with the -hide and/or -hide-joliet
options. In order to match a directory name, make sure the pathname does not include a trailing '/' char-
acter. See README.hide for more details.
-hide-hfs-list file
A file containing a list of globs to be hidden as above.
-hfs-volid hfs_volid
Volume name for the HFS partition. This is the name that is assigned to the disc on a Macintosh and
replaces the volid used with the -V option
-icon-position
Use the icon position information, if it exists, from the Apple/Unix file. The icons will appear in the
same position as they would on a Macintosh desktop. Folder location and size on screen, its scroll
positions, folder View (view as Icons, Small Icons, etc.) are also preserved. This option may become set
by default in the future. (Alpha).
-root-info file
Set the location, size on screen, scroll positions, folder View etc. for the root folder of an HFS volume.
See README.rootinfo for more information. (Alpha)
-prep-boot FILE
PReP boot image file. Up to 4 are allowed. See README.prep_boot (Alpha)
-input-hfs-charset charset
Input charset that defines the characters used in HFS file names when used with the -mac-name option. The
default charset is cp10000 (Mac Roman) cp10000 (Mac Roman) See CHARACTER SETS and HFS MACINTOSH FILE NAMES
sections below for more details.
-output-hfs-charset charset
Output charset that defines the characters that will be used in the HFS file names. Defaults to the input
charset. See CHARACTER SETS section below for more details.
-hfs-unlock
By default, mkisofs will create an HFS volume that is locked. This option leaves the volume unlocked so
that other applications (e.g. hfsutils) can modify the volume. See the HFS PROBLEMS/LIMITATIONS section
below for warnings about using this option.
-hfs-bless folder_name
"Bless" the given directory (folder). This is usually the System Folder and is used in creating HFS
bootable CDs. The name of the directory must be the whole path name as mkisofs sees it. e.g. if the given
pathspec is ./cddata and the required folder is called System Folder, then the whole path name is
"./cddata/System Folder" (remember to use quotes if the name contains spaces).
-hfs-parms PARAMETERS
Override certain parameters used to create the HFS file system. Unlikely to be used in normal circum-
stances. See the libhfs_iso/hybrid.h source file for details.
--cap Look for AUFS CAP Macintosh files. Search for CAP Apple/Unix file formats only. Searching for the other
possible Apple/Unix file formats is disabled, unless other double dash options are given.
--netatalk
Look for NETATALK Macintosh files
--double
Look for AppleDouble Macintosh files
--ethershare
Look for Helios EtherShare Macintosh files
--ushare
Look for IPT UShare Macintosh files
--exchange
Look for PC Exchange Macintosh files
--sgi Look for SGI Macintosh files
--xinet
Look for XINET Macintosh files
--macbin
Look for MacBinary Macintosh files
--single
Look for AppleSingle Macintosh files
--dave Look for Thursby Software Systems DAVE Macintosh files
--sfm Look for Microsoft's Services for Macintosh files (NT only) (Alpha)
--osx-double
Look for MacOS X AppleDouble Macintosh files
--osx-hfs
Look for MacOS X HFS Macintosh files
CHARACTER SETS
mkisofs processes file names in a POSIX compliant way as strings of 8-bit characters. To represent all codings
for all languages, 8-bit characters are not sufficient. Unicode or ISO-10646 define character codings that need
at least 21 bits to represent all known languages. They may be represented with UTF-32, UTF-16 or UTF-8 coding.
UTF-32 uses a plain 32-bit coding but seems to be uncommon. UTF-16 is used by Microsoft with Win32 with the 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 may use UTF-8 coding for filenames. This coding allows to use the complete Unicode
code set. Each 32-bit character is represented by one or more 8-bit characters. If a character is coded in
ISO-8859-1 (used in Central Europe and North America) is maps 1:1 to a UTF-32 or UTF-16 coded Unicode character.
If a character is coded in 7-Bit ASCII (used in USA and other countries with limited character set) is maps 1:1
to a UTF-32, UTF-16 or UTF-8 coded Unicode character. Character codes that cannot be represented as a single
byte in UTF-8 (typically if the value is > 0x7F) use escape sequences that map to more than one 8-bit character.
If all operating systems would use UTF-8 coding, mkisofs would not need to recode characters in file names.
Unfortunately, Apple uses completely nonstandard codings and Microsoft uses a Unicode coding that is not compati-
ble 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 charac-
ters in a character set will reflect the region or natural language used by the user.
Usually character codes 0x00-0x1f are control characters, codes 0x20-0x7f are the 7 bit ASCII characters and (on
PC's and Mac's) 0x80-0xff are used for other characters. Unfortunately even this does not follow ISO standards
that reserve the range 0x80-0x9f for control characters and only allow 0xa0-0xff for other characters.
As there is a lot more than 256 characters/symbols in use, only a small subset are represented in a character
set. Therefore the same character code may represent a different character in different character sets. So a file
name generated, say in central Europe, may not display the same character when viewed on a machine in, say east-
ern Europe.
To make matters more complicated, different operating systems 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 char-
acter set the file names should appear on the CD.
There are four options to specify the character sets you want to use:
-input-charset
Defines the local character set you are using on your host machine. Any character set conversions that
take place will use this character set as the staring point. The default input character sets are cp437 on
DOS based systems and iso8859-1 on all other systems.
If the -J option is given, then the Unicode equivalents of the input character set will be used in the
Joliet directory. Using the -jcharset option is the same as using the -input-charset and -J options.
-output-charset
Defines the character set that will be used with for the Rock Ridge names on the CD. Defaults to the input
character set. Only likely to be useful if used on a non-Unix platform. e.g. using mkisofs on a Microsoft
Win32 machine to create Rock Ridge CDs. If you are using mkisofs on a Unix machine, it is likely that the
output character set will be the same as the input character set.
-input-hfs-charset
Defines the HFS character set used for HFS file names decoded from any of the various Apple/Unix file for-
mats. Only useful when used with -mac-name option. See the HFS MACINTOSH FILE NAMES for more information.
Defaults to cp10000 (Mac Roman).
-output-hfs-charset
Defines the HFS character set used to create HFS file names from the input character set in use. In most
cases this will be from the character set given with the -input-charset option. Defaults to the input HFS
character set.
There are a number of character sets built in to mkisofs. To get a listing, use mkisofs -input-charset help.
This list doesn't include the charset derived from the current locale, if mkisofs is built with iconv support.
Additional character sets can be read from file for any of the 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 charac-
ter 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 #
character) are ignored without any warnings. Any missing input code is mapped to Unicode character 0x0000.
Note that there is no support for 16 bit UNICODE (UTF-16) or 32 bit UNICODE (UTF-32) coding because this coding
is not POSIX compliant. There should be support for UTF-8 UNICODE coding which is compatible to POSIX filenames
and supported by moder Unix implementations such as Solaris.
A 1:1 character set mapping can be defined by using the keyword default as the argument to any of the character
set options. This is the behaviour of older (v1.12) versions of mkisofs.
The ISO9660 file names generated from the input filenames are not 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 Mac-
intosh user to double-click on a file and launch the correct application etc. The CREATOR and TYPE of a particu-
lar file can be found by using something like ResEdit (or similar) on a Macintosh.
The CREATOR and TYPE information is stored in all the various Apple/Unix encoded files. For other files it is
possible to base the CREATOR and TYPE on the filename's extension using a mapping file (the -map option) and/or
using the magic number (usually a signature in the first few bytes) of a file (the -magic option). If both these
options are given, then their order on the command line is important. If the -map option is given first, then a
filename extension match is attempted before a magic number match. However, if the -magic option is given first,
then a magic number match is attempted before a filename extension match.
If a mapping or magic file is not used, or no match is found then the default CREATOR and TYPE for all regular
files can be set by using entries in the .mkisofsrc file or using the -hfs-creator and/or -hfs-type options, oth-
erwise the default CREATOR and TYPE are 'Unix' and 'TEXT'.
The format of the mapping file is the same afpfile format as used by aufs. This file has five columns for the
extension, file translation, CREATOR, TYPE and Comment. Lines starting with the '#' character are comment lines
and are ignored. An example file would be like:
tab (/); l s s s s l s s s s l l l l l . # Example filename mapping file # # EXTN/XLate/CREATOR/TYPE/Comment
.tif/Raw/'8BIM'/'TIFF'/"Photoshop TIFF image" .hqx/Ascii/'BnHq'/'TEXT'/"BinHex file" .doc/Raw/'MSWD'/'WDBN'/"Word
file" .mov/Raw/'TVOD'/'MooV'/"QuickTime Movie" */Ascii/'ttxt'/'TEXT'/"Text file"
Where:
The first column EXTN defines the Unix filename extension to be mapped. The default mapping for any file-
name extension that doesn't match is defined with the "*" character.
The Xlate column defines the type of text translation between the Unix and Macintosh file it is ignored by
mkisofs, but is kept to be compatible with aufs(1). Although mkisofs does not alter the contents of a
file, if a binary file has it's TYPE set as 'TEXT', it may be read incorrectly on a Macintosh. Therefore a
better choice for the default TYPE may be '????'
The CREATOR and TYPE keywords must be 4 characters long and enclosed in single quotes.
The comment field is enclosed in double quotes - it is ignored by mkisofs, but is kept to be compatible
with aufs.
The format of the magic file is almost identical to the magic(5) file used by the Linux file(1) command - the
routines for reading and decoding the magic file are based on the Linux file(1) command.
This file has four tab separated columns for the byte offset, type, test and message. Lines starting with the
'#' character are comment lines and are ignored. An example file would be like:
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
standard Unix compress 0/string/\037\213/GNUz ZIVU gzip compressed data 0/string/%!/ASPS TEXT Postscript
0/string/\004%!/ASPS TEXT PC Postscript with a ^D to start 4/string/moov/txtt MooV QuickTime movie file (moov)
4/string/mdat/txtt MooV QuickTime movie file (mdat)
The format of the file is described in the magic(4) man page. The only difference here is that for each entry in
the magic file, the message for the initial offset must be 4 characters for the CREATOR followed by 4 characters
for the TYPE - white space is optional between them. Any other characters on this line are ignored. Continuation
lines (starting with a '>') are also ignored i.e. only the initial offset lines are used.
Using the -magic option may significantly increase processing time as each file has to opened and read to find
it's magic number.
In summary, for all files, the default CREATOR is 'Unix' and the default TYPE is 'TEXT'. These can be changed by
using entries in the .mkisofsrc file or by using the -hfs-creator and/or -hfs-type options.
If the a file is in one of the known Apple/Unix formats (and the format has been selected), then the CREATOR and
TYPE are taken from the values stored in the Apple/Unix file.
Other files can have their CREATOR and TYPE set from their file name extension (the -map option), or their magic
number (the -magic option). If the default match is used in the mapping file, then these values override the
default CREATOR and TYPE.
A full CREATOR/TYPE database can be found at http://www.angelfire.com/il/szekely/index.html
HFS MACINTOSH FILE FORMATS
Macintosh files have two parts called the Data and Resource fork. Either may be empty. Unix (and many other OSs)
can only cope with files having one part (or fork). To add to this, Macintosh files have a number of attributes
associated with them - probably the most important are the TYPE and CREATOR. Again Unix has no concept of these
types of attributes.
e.g. a Macintosh file may be a JPEG image where the image is stored in the Data fork and a desktop thumbnail
stored in the Resource fork. It is usually the information in the data fork that is useful across platforms.
Therefore to store a Macintosh file on a Unix filesystem, a way has to be found to cope with the two forks and
the extra attributes (which are referred to as the finder info). Unfortunately, it seems that every software
package that stores Macintosh files on Unix has chosen a completely different storage method.
The Apple/Unix formats that mkisofs (partially) supports are:
CAP AUFS format
Data fork stored in a file. Resource fork in subdirectory .resource with same filename as data fork.
Finder info in .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 file-
name as data fork.
IPT UShare
Very similar to the EtherShare format, but the finder info is stored slightly differently.
MacBinary
Both forks and finder info stored in one file.
Apple PC Exchange
Used by Macintoshes to store Apple files on DOS (FAT) disks. Data fork stored in a file. Resource fork in
subdirectory resource.frk (or RESOURCE.FRK). Finder info as one record in file finder.dat (or FINDER.DAT).
Separate finder.dat for each data fork directory.
Note: mkisofs needs to know the native FAT cluster size of the disk that the PC Exchange files are on (or
have been copied from). This size is given by the -cluster-size option. The cluster or allocation size
can be found by using the DOS utility CHKDSK.
May not work with PC Exchange v2.2 or higher files (available with MacOS 8.1). DOS media containing PC
Exchange files should be mounted as type msdos (not vfat) when using Linux.
SGI/XINET
Used by SGI machines when they mount HFS disks. Data fork stored in a file. Resource fork in subdirectory
.HSResource with same name. Finder info as one record in file .HSancillary. Separate .HSancillary for each
data fork directory.
Thursby Software Systems DAVE
Allows Macintoshes to store Apple files on SMB servers. Data fork stored in a file. Resource fork in sub-
directory resource.frk. Uses the AppleDouble format to store resource fork.
Services for Macintosh
Format of files stored by NT Servers on NTFS filesystems. Data fork is stored as "filename". Resource fork
stored as a NTFS stream called "filename:AFP_Resource". The finder info is stored as a NTFS stream called
"filename:Afp_AfpInfo". These streams are normally invisible to the user.
Warning: mkisofs only partially supports the SFM format. If an HFS file or folder stored on the NT server
contains an illegal NT character in its name, then NT converts these characters to Private Use Unicode
characters. The characters are: " * / < > ? | also a space or period if it is the last character of the
file name, character codes 0x01 to 0x1f (control characters) and Apple' apple logo.
Unfortunately, these private Unicode characters are not readable by the mkisofs NT executable. Therefore
any file or directory name containing these characters will be ignored - including the contents of any
such directory.
MacOS X AppleDouble
When HFS/HFS+ files are copied or saved by MacOS X on to a non-HFS file system (e.g. UFS, NFS etc.), the
files are stored in AppleDouble format. Data fork stored in a file. Resource fork stored in a file with
same name prefixed with "._". Finder info also stored in same "._" file.
MacOS X HFS (Alpha)
Not really an Apple/Unix encoding, but actual HFS/HFS+ files on a MacOS X system. Data fork stored in a
file. Resource fork stored in a pseudo file with the same name with the suffix '/rsrc'. The finderinfo is
only available via a MacOS X library call.
Notes: (also see README.macosx)
Only works when used on MacOS X.
If a file is found with a zero length resource fork and empty finderinfo, it is assumed not to have any
Apple/Unix encoding - therefore a TYPE and CREATOR can be set using other methods.
mkisofs will attempt to set the CREATOR, TYPE, date and possibly other flags from the finder info. Additionally,
if it exists, the Macintosh filename is set from the finder info, otherwise the Macintosh name is based on the
Unix filename - see the HFS MACINTOSH FILE NAMES section below.
When using the -apple option, the TYPE and CREATOR are stored in the optional System Use or SUSP field in the
ISO9660 Directory Record - in much the same way as the Rock Ridge attributes are. In fact to make life easy, the
Apple extensions are added at the beginning of the existing Rock Ridge attributes (i.e. to get the Apple 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
When using the -hfs option, the TYPE and CREATOR plus other finder info, are stored in a separate HFS directory,
not visible on the ISO9660 volume. The HFS directory references the same data and resource fork files described
above.
In most cases, it is better to use the -hfs option instead of the -apple option, as the latter imposes the lim-
ited 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 filename 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 Ether-
Share have a similar scheme, but uses "%" instead of a ":".
If mkisofs can not find an HFS filename, it uses the Unix name, with any %xx or :xx characters (xx == two hex
digits) converted to a single character code. If "xx" are not hex digits ([0-9a-fA-F]), then they are left alone
- although any remaining ":" is converted to "%" as colon is the HFS directory separator. Care must be taken, as
an ordinary Unix file with %xx or :xx will also be converted. e.g.
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. Normal Unix files without an HFS name will still use
their Unix name. e.g.
If a MacBinary (or PC Exchange) file is stored as someimage.gif.bin on the Unix filesystem, but contains a HFS
file called someimage.gif, then this is the name that would appear on the HFS part of the CD. However, as mkisofs
uses the Unix name as the starting point for the other names, then the ISO9660 name generated will probably be
SOMEIMAG.BIN and the Joliet/Rock Ridge would be someimage.gif.bin. Although the actual data (in this case) is a
GIF image. This option will use the HFS filename as the starting point and the ISO9660 name will probably be
SOMEIMAG.GIF and the Joliet/Rock Ridge would be someimage.gif.
Using the -mac-name option will not currently work with the -T option - the Unix name will be used in the
TRANS.TBL file, not the Macintosh name.
The character set used to convert any HFS file name to a Joliet/Rock Ridge file name defaults to cp10000 (Mac
Roman). The character set used can be specified using the -input-hfs-charset option. Other built in HFS charac-
ter 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 prob-
lems on a Macintosh - still take care over the names, for example this.file.name will be converted to THIS.FILE
i.e. only have one '.', also filename abcdefgh will be seen as ABCDEFGH but abcdefghi will be seen as ABCDEFGHI.
i.e. with a '.' at the end - don't know if this is a Macintosh problem or mkisofs/mkhybrid problem. All filenames
will be in upper case when viewed on a Macintosh. Of course, DOS/Win3.X machines will not be able to see Level 2
filenames...
HFS CUSTOM VOLUME/FOLDER ICONS
To give a HFS CD a custom icon, make sure the root (top level) folder includes a standard Macintosh volume icon
file. To give a volume a 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 character. e.g.
hmount /dev/fd0
hdir -a
hcopy -m Icon^V^M icon_dir/icon
Where '^V^M' is control-V followed by control-M. Then run mkisofs by using something like:
mkisofs --macbin -o output source_dir icon_dir
The procedure for creating/using custom folder icons is very similar - paste an icon to folder's "Get Info" box
and transfer the resulting 'Icon\r' file to the relevant directory in the mkisofs source tree.
You may want to hide the icon files from the ISO9660 and Joliet trees.
To give a custom icon to a Joliet CD, follow the instructions found at: http://www.fadden.com/cdr-
faq/faq03.html#[3-21]
HFS BOOT DRIVER
It may be possible to make the hybrid CD bootable on a Macintosh.
A bootable HFS CD requires an Apple CD-ROM (or compatible) driver, a bootable HFS partition and the necessary
System, Finder, etc. files.
A driver can be obtained from any other Macintosh bootable CD-ROM using the apple_driver utility. This file can
then be used with the -boot-hfs-file option.
The HFS partition (i.e. the hybrid disk in our case) must contain a suitable System Folder, again from another
CD-ROM or disk.
For a partition to be bootable, it must have it's boot block set. The boot block is in the first two blocks of a
partition. For a non-bootable partition the boot block is full of zeros. Normally, when a System file is copied
to partition on a Macintosh disk, the boot block is filled with a number of required settings - unfortunately I
don't know the full spec for the boot block, so I'm guessing that the following will work OK.
Therefore, the utility apple_driver also extracts the boot block from the first HFS partition it finds on the
given CD-ROM and this is used for the HFS partition created by mkisofs.
PLEASE NOTE
By using a driver from an Apple CD and copying Apple software to your CD, you become liable to obey Apple
Computer, Inc. Software License Agreements.
EL TORITO BOOT INFORMATION TABLE
When the -boot-info-table option is given, mkisofs will modify the boot file specified by the -b option by
inserting a 56-byte "boot information table" at offset 8 in the file. This modification is done in the source
filesystem, so make sure you use a copy if this file is not easily recreated! This file contains pointers which
may not be easily or reliably obtained at boot time.
The format of this table is as follows; all integers are in section 7.3.1 ("little endian") format.
Offset Name Size Meaning
8 bi_pvd 4 bytes LBA of primary volume descriptor
12 bi_file 4 bytes LBA of boot file
16 bi_length 4 bytes Boot file length in bytes
20 bi_csum 4 bytes 32-bit checksum
24 bi_reserved 40 bytes Reserved
The 32-bit checksum is the sum of all the 32-bit words in the boot file starting at byte offset 64. All linear
block addresses (LBAs) are given in CD sectors (normally 2048 bytes).
HPPA NOTES
To make a bootable CD for HPPA, at the very least a boot loader file ( -hppa-bootloader ), a kernel image file
(32- or 64-bit or both, depending on hardware) and a boot command line ( -hppa-cmdline ) must be specified. Some
systems can boot either a 32- or a 64-bit kernel, and the choice of which one to use will be made by the
firmware. Optionally, a ramdisk can be used for the root filesystem using -hppa-cmdline.
JIGDO NOTES
Jigdo is a useful tool to help in the distribution of large files like CD and DVD images. See Richard Atterer's
site for more details. Debian CDs and DVD ISO images are published on the web in jigdo format to allow end users
to download them more efficiently.
To create jigdo and template files alongside the ISO image from mkisofs, you must first generate a list of the
files that will be used, in the following format:
MD5sum File size Path
32 chars 12 chars to end of line
The MD5sum should be written in jigdo's pseudo-base64 format. The file size should be in decimal, and the path to
the file must be absolute.
Once you have this file, call mkisofs with all of your normal command line parameters. Specify the output file-
names for the jigdo and template files using -jigdo-jigdo and -jigdo-template, and pass in the location of your
MD5 list with the -md5-list option.
If there are files that you do NOT want to be added into the jigdo file (e.g. if they are likely to change
often), specify them using -jigdo-ignore. If you want to verify some of the files as they are written into the
image, specify them using -jigdo-force-md5. If any files don't match, mkisofs will then abort. Both of these
options take regular expressions as input. It is possible to restrict the set of files that will be used further
based on size - use the -jigdo-min-file-size option.
Finally, the jigdo code needs to know how to map the files it is given onto a mirror-style configuration. Specify
how to map paths using the -jigdo-map option. Using "Debian=/mirror/debian" will cause all paths starting with
"/mirror/debian" to be mapped to "Debian:<file>" in the output jigdo file.
CONFIGURATION
mkisofs looks for the .mkisofsrc file, first in the current working directory, then in the user's home directory,
and then in the directory in which the mkisofs binary is stored. This file is assumed to contain a series of
lines of the form TAG=value , and in this way you can specify certain options. The case of the tag is not sig-
nificant. 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 information. May be overridden using the -A command line option.
COPY The copyright information, often the name of a file on the disc containing the copyright notice. There is
space in the disc for 37 characters of information. May be overridden using the -copyright command line
option.
ABST The abstract information, often the name of a file on the disc containing an abstract. There is space in
the disc for 37 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 information. May be overridden using the -bilio command line
option.
PREP This should describe the preparer of the CD-ROM, usually with a mailing address and phone number. There
is space on the disc for 128 characters of information. May be overridden using the -p command line
option.
PUBL This should describe the publisher of the CD-ROM, usually with a mailing address and phone number. There
is space on the disc for 128 characters of information. May be overridden using the -publisher command
line option.
SYSI The System Identifier. There is space on the disc for 32 characters of information. May be overridden
using the -sysid command line option.
VOLI The Volume Identifier. There is space on the disc for 32 characters of information. May be overridden
using the -V command line option.
VOLS The Volume Set Name. There is space on the disc for 128 characters of information. May be overridden
using the -volset command line option.
HFS_TYPE
The default TYPE for Macintosh files. Must be exactly 4 characters. May be overridden using the -hfs-type
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 ISO9660 filesystem image in the file cd.iso, where the directory cd_dir will become the root
directory if the CD, call:
% mkisofs -o cd.iso cd_dir
To create a CD with Rock Ridge extensions of the source directory cd_dir:
% mkisofs -o cd.iso -R cd_dir
To create a CD with Rock Ridge extensions of the source directory cd_dir where all files have at least read per-
mission and all files are owned by root, call:
% mkisofs -o cd.iso -r cd_dir
To write a tar archive directly to a CD that will later contain a simple ISO9660 filesystem with the tar archive
call:
% star -c . | mkisofs -stream-media-size 333000 | \
wodim dev=b,t,l -dao tsize=333000s -
To create a HFS hybrid CD with the Joliet and Rock Ridge extensions of the source directory cd_dir:
% mkisofs -o cd.iso -R -J -hfs cd_dir
To create a HFS hybrid CD from the source directory cd_dir that contains Netatalk Apple/Unix files:
% mkisofs -o cd.iso --netatalk cd_dir
To create a HFS hybrid CD from the source directory cd_dir, giving all files CREATOR and TYPES based on just
their filename extensions listed in the file "mapping".:
% mkisofs -o cd.iso -map mapping cd_dir
To create a CD with the 'Apple Extensions to ISO9660', from the source directories cd_dir and another_dir. Files
in all the known Apple/Unix format are decoded and any other files are given CREATOR and TYPE based on their
magic number given in the file "magic":
% mkisofs -o cd.iso -apple -magic magic -probe \
cd_dir another_dir
The following example puts different files on the CD that all have the name README, but have different contents
when seen as a ISO9660/Rock Ridge, Joliet or HFS CD.
Current directory contains:
% ls -F
README.hfs README.joliet README.Unix cd_dir/
The following command puts the contents of the directory cd_dir on the CD along with the three README files - but
only one will be seen from each of the three filesystems:
% mkisofs -o cd.iso -hfs -J -r -graft-points \
-hide README.hfs -hide README.joliet \
-hide-joliet README.hfs -hide-joliet README.Unix \
-hide-hfs README.joliet -hide-hfs README.Unix \
README=README.hfs README=README.joliet \
README=README.Unix cd_dir
i.e. the file README.hfs will be seen as README on the HFS CD and the other two README files will be hidden. Sim-
ilarly for the Joliet and ISO9660/Rock Ridge CD.
There are probably all sorts of strange results possible with combinations of the hide options ...
NOTES
mkisofs is not based on the standard mk*fs tools for Unix, because we must generate a complete copy of an exist-
ing 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. However, the appropriate tool name for a Unix tool
that creates populated filesystems - mkproto - is not well known.
mkisofs may safely be installed suid root. This may be needed to allow mkisofs to read the previous session when
creating a multi session image.
If mkisofs is creating a filesystem image with Rock Ridge attributes and the directory nesting level of the
source directory tree is too much for ISO9660, mkisofs will do deep directory relocation. This results in a
directory called RR_MOVED in the root directory of the CD. You cannot avoid this directory.
The sparc boot support that is implemented with the -sparc-boot options completely follows the official Sparc CD
boot requirements from the Boot prom in Sun Sparc systems. Some Linux distributions for Sparc systems use a boot
loader called SILO that unfortunately is not Sparc CD boot compliant. It is annoyingly to see that the Authors
of SILO don't fix SILO but instead provide a completely unneeded "patch" to mkisofs that incorporates far more
source than the fix for SILO would need.
BUGS
� Any files that have hard links to files not in the tree being copied to the ISO9660 filesystem will have
an incorrect file reference count.
� Does not check for SUSP record(s) in "." entry of the root directory to verify the existence of Rock Ridge
enhancements.
This problem is present when reading old sessions while adding data in multi-session mode.
� Does not properly read relocated directories in multi-session mode when adding data.
Any relocated deep directory is lost if the new session does not include the deep directory.
Repeat by: create first session with deep directory relocation then add new session with a single dir that
differs from the old deep path.
� Does not re-use RR_MOVED when doing multi-session from TRANS.TBL
� Does not create whole_name entry for RR_MOVED in multi-session mode.
There may be some other ones. Please, report them to the author.
HFS PROBLEMS/LIMITATIONS
I have had to make several assumptions on how I expect the modified libhfs routines to work, however there may be
situations that either I haven't thought of, or come across when these assumptions fail. Therefore I can't guar-
antee that mkisofs will work as expected (although I haven't had a major problem yet). Most of the HFS features
work fine, however, some are not fully tested. These are marked as Alpha above.
Although HFS filenames appear to support upper and lower case letters, the filesystem is case insensitive. i.e.
the filenames "aBc" and "AbC" are the same. If a file is found in a directory with the same HFS name, then
mkisofs will attempt, where possible, to make a unique name by adding '_' characters to one of the filenames.
HFS file/directory names that share the first 31 characters have _N' (N == decimal number) substituted for the
last few characters to generate unique names.
Care must be taken when "grafting" Apple/Unix files or directories (see above for the method and syntax
involved). It is not possible to use a new name for an Apple/Unix encoded file/directory. e.g. If a Apple/Unix
encoded file called "oldname" is to added to the CD, then you can not use the command line:
mkisofs -o output.raw -hfs -graft-points newname=oldname cd_dir
mkisofs will be unable to decode "oldname". However, you can graft Apple/Unix encoded files or directories as
long as you do not attempt to give them new names as above.
When creating an HFS volume with the multisession options, -M and -C, only files in the last session will be in
the HFS volume. i.e. mkisofs can not add existing files from previous sessions to the HFS volume.
However, if each session is created with the -part option, then each session will appear as separate volumes when
mounted on a Mac. In this case, it is worth using the -V or -hfs-volid option to give each session a unique vol-
ume name, otherwise each "volume" will appear on the Desktop with the same name.
Symbolic links (as with all other non-regular files) are not added to the HFS directory.
Hybrid volumes may be larger than pure ISO9660 volumes containing the same data. In some cases (e.g. DVD sized
volumes) the hybrid volume may be significantly larger. As an HFS volume gets bigger, so does the allocation
block size (the smallest amount of space a file can occupy). For a 650Mb CD, the allocation block is 10Kb, for a
4.7Gb DVD it will be about 70Kb.
The maximum number of files in an HFS volume is about 65500 - although the real limit will be somewhat less than
this.
The resulting hybrid volume can be accessed on a Unix machine by using the hfsutils routines. However, no changes
can be made to the volume as it is set as locked. The option -hfs-unlock will create an output image that is
unlocked - however no changes should be made to the contents of the volume (unless you really know what you are
doing) as it's not a "real" HFS volume.
Using the -mac-name option will not currently work with the -T option - the Unix name will be used in the
TRANS.TBL file, not the Macintosh name.
Although mkisofs does not alter the contents of a file, if a binary file has it's TYPE set as 'TEXT', it may be
read incorrectly on a Macintosh. Therefore a better choice for the default TYPE may be '????'
The -mac-boot-file option may not work at all...
May not work with PC Exchange v2.2 or higher files (available with MacOS 8.1). DOS media containing PC Exchange
files should be mounted as type msdos (not vfat) when using Linux.
The SFM format is only partially supported - see HFS MACINTOSH FILE FORMATS section above.
It is not possible to use the the -sparc-boot or -generic-boot options with the -boot-hfs-file or -prep-boot
options.
mkisofs should be able to create HFS hybrid images over 4Gb, although this has not been fully tested.
RELATED
wodim(1), mkzftree(8), magic(5), apple_driver(8).
FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS
Some sort of gui interface.
AVAILABILITY
mkisofs is available as part of the cdrkit package from http://alioth.debian.org/projects/debburn/. There are
multiple other versions of mkisofs available, look at their homepages for more information.
mkisofs as part of the cdrtools package from Joerg Schilling, see ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/cdrecord/alpha/
hfsutils from ftp://ftp.mars.org/pub/hfs
MAILING LISTS
If you want to actively take part on the development of mkisofs, you may join the Cdrkit developers mailing list
by following the instructions on:
https://alioth.debian.org/mail/?group_id=31006
and include the word subscribe in the body. The mail address of the list is:
debburn-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org
MAINTAINER
This is the Cdrkit spinoff of the original mkisofs application. Maintained by:
Joerg Jaspert
Eduard Bloch
Steve McIntyre
Ben Hutchings
and other contributors
Cdrkit implementation of mkisofs is derived from the Cdrtools package [1] (however
now developed independently), having previous maintainers:
Joerg Schilling
Seestr. 110
D-13353 Berlin
Germany
James Pearson (HFS MKHYBRID MAINTAINER)
j.pearson@ge.ucl.ac.uk
If you have support questions, send them to:
debburn-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org
Note that Cdrkit is not affiliated to Cdrtools and vice versa.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the US and other countries.
SOURCES
[1] Cdrtools 2.01.01a08 from May 2006, http://cdrecord.berlios.de
CATEGORY