NAME

xorrisofs - Emulation of ISO 9660 program mkisofs by program xorriso

SYNOPSIS

xorrisofs [ options ] [-o filename ] pathspec [pathspecs ...]

DESCRIPTION

xorrisofs produces Rock Ridge enhanced ISO 9660 filesystems and add-on sessions to such filesystems. Optionally it can produce Joliet directory trees too. xorrisofs understands options of program mkisofs from cdrtools by Joerg Schilling. Its implementation is part of program xorriso which shares no source code with cdrtools.

OPTIONS

Image loading:

The following options control loading of an existing ISO image for the purpose of preparing a suitable add-on session. If they are missing then a new image is composed from scratch.

-M disk_path

Set the path from which to load the existing ISO image directory tree on which to base the upcomming directory tree as add-on session. The path must lead to a random-access readable file object. On GNU/Linux: regular data files or block device files.

 

A special kind of pseudo disk_path has the form "/dev/fd/"number. It depicts the open file descriptor with the given number, regardless whether the operating system supports this feature by file nodes in /dev/fd or not. E.g. /dev/fd/3 is file descriptor 3 which was opened by the program that later started xorriso.

-prev-session disk_path

Alias of -M.

-dev disk_path

Alias of -M.

-C last_session_start,next_writeable_address

Set the 2 KiB block address last_session_start from where to read the ISO image out of the file given by option -M.

 

Separated by a comma, set the next_writeable_address to which the add-on session will finally be written. Decisive is actually the block address which the intended readers will have to use as superblock address on the intended medium.

 

Both values can be inquired from optical media by help of burn programs and cdrecord option -msinfo. xorriso itself can obtain it in its cdrecord emulation. Do not let it load the drive, but rather do this manually or by a program like dd which reads a few bytes. Only then it is sure that the device driver knows the true readable size of the medium.

 

dd if=/dev/... count=1 >/dev/null 2>&1

 

values=$(xorriso -as cdrecord dev=/dev/... -msinfo)

 

echo $values

 

Option -C may be used without option -M to create an ISO image from scratch and prepare it for being finally written to a block address other than 0. Parameter last_session_start must then be set to 0.

-cdrecord-params last_session_start,next_writeable_address

Alias of -C.

Settings for file insertion:

-path-list disk_path

Read pathspecs line-by-line from disk_file and insert the depicted file objects into the ISO image. If disk_path is "-" then read the pathspecs from standard input.

--quoted_path_list disk_path

Like option -path-list but reading quoted words rather than plain lines. Whitespace outside of quotes will be discarded. On the other hand it is possible to represent pathspecs which contain newline characters.

 

The double quotation mark " and the single quotation mark ' can be used to enclose whitespace and make it part of pathspecs. Each mark type can enclose the marks of the other type. A trailing backslash \ outside quotations or an open quotation cause the next input line to be appended.

-f

 

Resolve symbolic links on disk rather than storing them as symbolic links in the ISO image.

-follow-links

Alias of -f.

-graft-points

Enable interpretation of input file pathspecs as combination of iso_rr_path and disk_path, separated by a =-character.

-m disk_pattern

Exclude files from being inserted into the image. Silently ignored are those files of which the disk_path matches the given shell parser pattern. If no /-character is part of the pattern, then it gets matched against the leaf name of the disk file.

 

It is possible to give more than one -m option.

-exclude

Alias of -m.

-x

 

Alias of -m.

-old-exclude

Alias of -m.

-exclude-list disk_path

Perform -m using each line out of file disk_path as argument disk_pattern.

-z

 

Enable recognition and proper processing of zisofs compressed files as produced by program mkzftree. These files will get equipped with the necessary meta data so that a Linux kernel will recognize them and deliver their content in uncompressed form.

-transparent-compression

Alias of -z.

-root iso_rr_path

Insert all files under the given iso_rr_path. If option -graft-points is given, then iso_rr_path is prepended to each target part of a pathspec.

 

The default for -root is "/".

-old-root iso_rr_path

Enable incremental insertion of files into the loaded image. The effective target and source addresses of given pathspecs get compared whether the target already exists in the ISO image and is still identical to the source on disk. Metadata in the ISO image will get adjusted, if they differ from those on disk. New files and files with changed content will get newly added. Target files which do not exist in any of the according pathspec sources will get removed from the ISO directory tree.

 

If the effective setting of -root differs from the iso_rr_path given with -old-root, then the files underneath the -old-root directory get cloned underneath the -root directory. Cloning happens before file comparison.

--old-root-no-ino

Disable recording and use of disk inode numbers. If no disk inode numbers are recorded, then option -old-root will have to read disk file content and compare it with the MD5 checksum that is recorded in the ISO image.

 

With recorded disk inode numbers and with credible ctime and mtime, it is possible to detect potential changes in the content without actually reading it. A loophole remains if multiple different filesystems may get mounted at the same directory, like it is habit with /mnt. In this case one has to use option --old-root-devno or disable the inode number shortcut by --old-root-no-ino.

--old-root-devno

Enable comparison of recorded device numbers together with recorded inode numbers. This works only with good old stable device numbers which get out of fashion, regrettably. If the hard disk has a different device number after each reboot, then this comparison will see all files as changed and thus prevent any incremental size saving.

--old-root-no-md5

Disable recording and use of MD5 checksums for data file content. If neither checksums and nor disk inode numbers are recorded, then option -old-root will have to read ISO image file content when comparing it with disk file content.

Settings for image production:

-o disk_path

Set the output file address for the emerging ISO image. If the address exists as regular file, it will be truncated to length 0 when image production begins. It may not already exist as directory. If it does not exist yet then its parent directory must exist and a regular file will get created.

 

A special kind of pseudo disk_path has the form "/dev/fd/"number. It depicts the open file descriptor with the given number, regardless whether the operating system supports this feature by file nodes in /dev/fd or not. E.g. /dev/fd/4 is file descriptor 4 which was opened by the program that later started xorriso.

 

Default is standard output (/dev/fd/1) which may also be set by disk_path "-".

-output disk_path

Alias of -o.

--stdio_sync "on"|"off"|"end"|number

Set the number of bytes after which to force output to disk in order to keep the memory from being clogged with lots of pending data for slow devices. "on" is the same as "16m". Forced output can be disabled by "off", or be delayed by "end" until all data are produced. If a number is chosen, then it must be at least 64k.

 

The default with xorriso mkisofs emulation is --stdio_sync "off".

 

xorriso uses an inner fifo buffer with default size 4 MiB. So forcing the operating system i/o cache to disk does not necessarily block the simultaneous production of more image content.

--emul-toc

Write a second superblock with the first session into random-access files. If further sessions get appended and the first superblock gets updated, then the second superblock will not be overwritten. This allows to still mount the first session and to find the start blocks of the further sessions.

 

The price is 64 KiB extra space consumption. If -partition_offset is non-zero, then it is 128 KiB plus twice the partition setup.

--no-emul-toc

Do not write a second superblock with the first session into random-access files.

 

This is the default.

--sort-weight weight_number iso_rr_path

Attribute a LBA weight number to regular files. If iso_rr_path leads to a directory then all regular files underneath will get the weight_number.

 

The weight_number may range from -2147483648 to 2147483647. The higher it is, the lower will be the block address of the file data in the emerging ISO image. Currently the El Torito boot catalog has a hardcoded weight of 1 billion. Normally it should occupy the block with the lowest possible address. Data files get added or loaded with initial weight 0. Boot image files have a default weight of 2.

--sort-weight-list disk_path

Read pairs of weight number and iso_rr_path from a file of the local filesystem. Apply each pair like with --sort-weight.

 

Only the last --sort-weight-list or --sort-weight-patterns of a xorrisofs run gets into effect.

 

The weight number is read from the start of the line. The iso_rr_path part of an input line begins immediately after the first blank or tab character of the line.

 

Notes for the case that this feature is used within a sequence of generic xorriso commands (not an issue with a pure mkisofs emulation run):

 

The addressed files must already be in the ISO image model when you execute

 

-as mkisofs --sort-weight-list disk_path --

 

Several such commands may be used to apply more than one weight file.

 

Data files which are loaded by -indev or -dev get a weight between 1 and 2 exp 28 = 268,435,456, depending on their block address. This shall keep them roughly in the same order if the write method of modifying is applied.

--sort-weight-patterns disk_path

Like --sort-weight-list , but expanding the iso_rr_paths as shell parser patterns and applying --sort-weight to each matching file.

-dir-mode mode

Set the access permissions for all directories in the image to the given mode which is either an octal number beginning with "0" or a comma separated list of statements of the form [ugoa]*[+-=][rwxst]* . E.g. ug=rx,a-rwx

-file-mode mode

Like -dir-mode but for all regular data files in the image.

-pad

 

Add 300 KiB to the end of the produced ISO image. This circumvents possible read errors from ISO images which have been written to CD media in TAO mode. The additional bytes are claimed as part of the ISO image if not --emul-toc is given.

 

Option -pad is the default.

-no-pad

Disable padding of 300 KiB to the end of the produced ISO image. This is safe if the image is not meant to be written on CD or if it gets written to CD as only track in write mode SAO.

--old-empty

Use the old way of of giving block addresses in the range of [0,31] to files with no own data content. The new way is to have a dedicated block to which all such files will point.

Settings for standards compliance:

-iso-level number

Specify the ISO 9660 version which defines the limitations of file naming and data file size. The naming restrictions do not apply to the Rock Ridge names but only to the low-level ISO 9660 names. There are three conformance levels:

 

Level 1 allows ISO names of the form 8.3 and file size up to 4 GiB - 1.

 

Level 2 allows ISO names with up to 32 characters and file size up to 4 GiB - 1.

 

Level 3 allows ISO names with up to 32 characters and file size of up to 400 GiB - 200 KiB. (This size limitation is set by the xorriso implementation and not by ISO 9660 which would allow nearly 8 TiB.)

 

Pseudo-level 4 enables production of an additional ISO 9660:1999 directory tree.

-disallow_dir_id_ext

Do not follow a bad habit of mkisofs which allows dots in the ISO names of directories. On the other hand, some bootable GNU/Linux images depend on this bad habit.

-U

 

This option allows ISO file names without dot and up to 37 characters, ISO file paths longer than 255 characters, and all ASCII characters in file names. Further it omits the semicolon and the version numbers at the end of ISO names.

 

This all violates ISO 9660 specs.

-untranslated-filenames

Alias of -U.

-untranslated_name_len number

Allow ISO file names up to the given number of characters without any character conversion. The maximum number is 96. If a file name has more characters, then image production will fail deliberately.

 

This violates ISO 9660 specs.

-allow-lowercase

Allow lowercase character in ISO file names.

 

This violates ISO 9660 specs.

-relaxed-filenames

Allow nearly all 7-bit characters in ISO file names. Not allowed are 0x0 and '/'. If not option -allow-lowercase is given, then lowercase letters get converted to uppercase.

 

This violates ISO 9660 specs.

-d

 

Do not add trailing dot to ISO file names without dot.

 

This violates ISO 9660 specs.

-omit-period

Alias of -d.

-l

 

Allow up to 31 characters in ISO file names.

-full-iso9660-filenames

Alias of -l.

-max-iso9660-filenames

Allow up to 37 characters in ISO file names.

 

This violates ISO 9660 specs.

-N

 

Omit the semicolon and the version numbers at the end of ISO names.

 

This violates ISO 9660 specs.

-omit-version-number

Alias of -N.

Settings for standards extensions:

-R

 

With mkisofs this option enables Rock Ridge extensions. xorrisofs produces them by default. It is strongly discouraged to disable them by option --norock.

-rock

 

Alias of -R.

-r

 

Set Rock Ridge user and group id of all files in the ISO image to 0. Grant r-permissions to all. Deny all w-permissions. If any x-permission is set, grant x-permission to all. Remove s-bit and t-bit.

-rational-rock

Alias of -r.

--norock

 

This option disables the production of Rock Ridge extensions for the ISO 9660 file objects. The multi-session capabilities of xorrisofs depend much on the naming fidelity of Rock Ridge. So it is strongly discouraged to disable it by this option.

-D

The standard ECMA-119 demands that no path in the image shall have more than 8 name components or 255 characters. Therefore it would be necessary to move deeper directory trees to a higher directory. Rock Ridge offers an opportunity to let these relocated directories appear at their orginal deep position, but this feature might not be implemented properly by operating systems which mount the image.

 

Option -D disables this deep directory relocation, and thus violates ISO 9660 specs.

 

xorrisofs has -D set by default. If given explicitely then it overrides the options -rr_reloc_dir and -hide-rr-moved.

-disable-deep-relocation

Alias of -D.

-rr_reloc_dir name

Enable the relocation of deep directories and thus avoid ECMA-119 file paths of more than 8 name components or 255 characters. Directories which lead to such file paths will get moved to a directory in the root directory of the image. Its name gets set by this option. It is permissible to use the root directory itself.

 

The overall directory tree will appear originally deep when interpreted as Rock Ridge tree. It will appear as re-arranged if only ECMA-119 information is considered.

 

If the given relocation target directory does not already exist when image production begins, then it will get created and marked for Rock Ridge as relocation artefact. At least on GNU/Linux it will not be displayed in mounted Rock Ridge images.

 

The name must not contain a '/' character after its first character and it must not be longer than 255 bytes.

 

This option has no effect if option -D is present.

-hide-rr-moved

Alias of -rr_reloc_dir "/.rr_moved"

--for_backup

Enable options which improve backup fidelity: --acl, --xattr, --md5, --hardlinks.

--acl

 

Enable recording and loading of ACLs from GNU/Linux or FreeBSD (see man getfacl, man acl). They will not be in effect with mounted ISO images. But xorriso can restore them on the same systems when extracting files from the ISO image.

--xattr

 

Enable recording and loading of GNU/Linux or FreeBSD extended attributes in user namespace (see man getfattr, man attr, resp. man getextattr, man 9 extattr). They will not be in effect with mounted ISO images. But xorriso can restore them on the same systems when extracting files from the ISO image.

--md5

 

Enable recording of MD5 checksums for the overall ISO image and for each single data file in the image. xorriso can check the content of an ISO image with these sums and raise alert on mismatch. See man xorriso, options -check_media, check_md5_r. xorriso can print recorded MD5 checksums. E.g. by:

 

-find / -exec get_md5

--hardlinks

Enable loading and recording of hardlink relations. Search for families of iso_rr files which stem from the same disk file, have identical content filtering and have identical properties. The members of each family get the same inode number in the ISO image.

 

Whether these numbers are respected at mount time depends on the operating system. xorriso can create hardlink families when extracting files from the ISO image.

--scdbackup_tag disk_path record_name

Append a scdbackup checksum record to the image. This works only if the parameter next_writeable_address of option -C is 0. If disk_path is not an empty string, then append a scdbackup checksum record to the end of this file. record_name is a word that gets part of tag and record.

 

Program scdbackup_verify will recognize and verify tag resp. record.

-J

 

Enable the production of an additional Joliet directory tree along with the ISO 9660 Rock Ridge tree.

-joliet

Alias of -J.

-joliet-long

Allow 103 characters in Joliet file names rather than 64 as is prescribed by the specification. Allow Joliet paths longer than the prescribed limit of 240 characters.

 

Oversized names get truncated. Without this option, oversized paths get excluded from the Joliet tree.

-joliet-utf16

Encode Joliet file names in UTF-16BE rather than UCS-2. The difference is with characters which are not present in UCS-2 and get encoded in UTF-16 by 2 words of 16 bit each. Both words then stem from a reserved subset of UCS-2.

-hfsplus

Enable the production of an additional HFS+ filesystem inside the ISO 9660 image and mark it by Apple Partition Map (APM) entries in the System Area, the first 32 KiB of the image.

 

This may collide with options like -G or -isohybrid-mbr which submit user data for inclusion in the same address range. The first 8 bytes of the System Area get overwritten by { 0x45, 0x52, 0x08 0x00, 0xeb, 0x02, 0xff, 0xff } which can be executed as x86 machine code without negative effects. So if an MBR gets combined with this feature, then its first 8 bytes should contain no essential commands.

 

The next blocks of 2 KiB in the System Area will be occupied by APM entries. The first one covers the part of the ISO image before the HFS+ filesystem metadata. The second one marks the range from HFS+ metadata to the end of file content data. If more ISO image data follow, then a third partition entry gets produced. Other features of xorriso might cause the need for more APM entries.

 

Be aware that HFS+ is case-insensitive although it can record file names with upper-case and lower-case letters. Therefore, file names from the iso_rr name tree may collide in the HFS+ name tree. In this case they get changed by adding underscore characters and counting numbers. In case of very long names, it might be necessary to map them to "MANGLED_...".

-hfsplus-serial-no

Set a string of 16 digits "0" to "9" and letters "a" to "f", which will be used as unique serial number of an emerging HFS+ filesystem.

-hfsplus-block-size number

Set the allocation block size to be used when producing HFS+ filesystems. Permissible are 512, 2048, or 0. The latter lets the program decide.

-apm-block-size number

Set the block size to be used when describing partitions by an Apple Partition Map. Permissible are 512, 2048, or 0. The latter lets the program decide.

 

Note that size 512 is not compatible with production of GPT, and that size 2048 will not be mountable -t hfsplus at least by older Linux kernels.

-hfsplus-file-creator-type creator type iso_rr_path

Set the HFS+ creator and type attributes of a file in the emerging image. These are two codes of 4 characters each.

-hfs-bless-by blessing iso_rr_path

Issue a HFS+ blessing. They are roles which can be attributed to up to four directories and a data file:

 

"ppc_bootdir", "intel_bootfile", "show_folder", "os9_folder", "osx_folder".

 

They may be abbreviated as "p", "i", "s", "9", and "x".

 

Each such role can be attributed to at most one file object. "intel_bootfile" is the one that would apply to a data file. All others apply to directories. No file object can bear more than one blessing.

-hfs-bless disk_path

Issue HFS+ blessing "ppc_bootdir" to the directory which stems from the directory disk_path in the local filesystem tree.

 

This works only if there is at least one data file underneath the directory. disk_path can become ambigous if files from different local filesystem sub-trees are put into the same sub-tree of the ISO image. Consider to use -hfs-bless-by "p" for unambigous addressing via iso_rr_path.

Settings for file hiding:

-hide disk_path_pattern

Make files invisible in the directory tree of ISO 9660 and Rock Ridge, if their disk_path matches the given shell parser pattern. The data content of such hidden files will be included in the resulting image, even if they do not show up in any directory. But you will need own means to find nameless data in the image.

 

This command does not apply to the boot catalog.

-hide-list disk_path

Perform -hide using each line out of file disk_path as argument disk_path_pattern.

-hide-joliet disk_path_pattern

Like option -hide but making files invisible in the directory tree of Joliet, if their disk_path matches the given shell parser pattern.

-hide-joliet-list disk_path

Perform -hide-joliet using each line out of file disk_path as argument disk_path_pattern.

-hide-hfsplus disk_path_pattern

Like option -hide but making files invisible in the directory tree of HFS+, if their disk_path matches the given shell parser pattern.

-hide-hfsplus-list disk_path

Perform -hide-hfsplus using each line out of file disk_path as argument disk_path_pattern.

ISO image ID strings:

The following strings and file addresses get stored in the Primary Volume Descriptor of the ISO9660 image. The file addresses are ISO 9660 paths. These files should have iso_rr_paths which consist only of the characters [A-Z0-9_] and exactly one dot which separates at most 8 characters from at most 3 characters.

-V text

Set the Volume Id of the ISO image. xorriso accepts any text up to 32 characters, but according to rarely obeyed specs stricter rules apply:

 

Conformant are ASCII characters out of [A-Z0-9_]. Like: "IMAGE_23"

 

Joliet allows 16 UCS-2 characters. Like: "Windows name"

 

Be aware that the volume id might get used automatically as name of the mount point when the medium is inserted into a playful computer system.

-volid text

Alias of -V.

-volset text

Set the Volume Set Id of the ISO image. Permissible are up to 128 characters.

-P text

Set the Publisher Id of the ISO image. This may identify the person or organisation who specified what shall be recorded. Permissible are up to 128 characters.

-publisher text

Alias of -P.

-A text

Set the Application Id of the ISO image. This may identify the specification of how the data are recorded. Permissible are up to 128 characters.

 

The special text "@xorriso@" gets converted to the id string of xorriso which is normally written as Preparer Id. It is a wrong tradition to write the program id as Application Id.

-appid text

Alias of -A.

-sysid text

Set the System Id of the ISO image. This may identify the system which can recognize and act upon the content of the System Area in image blocks 0 to 15. Permissible are up to 32 characters.

-p text

Set the Preparer Id of the ISO image. This may identify the person or other entity which controls the preparation of the data which shall be recorded. Normally this should be the id of xorriso and not of the person or program which operates xorriso. Please avoid to change it. Permissible are up to 128 characters.

 

The special text "@xorriso@" gets converted to the id string of xorriso which is default at program startup.

-preparer text

Alias of -p.

-abstract iso_path

Set the address of the Abstract File of the ISO image. This should be the ISO 9660 path of a file in the image which contains an abstract statement about the image content. Permissible are up to 37 characters.

-biblio iso_path

Set the address of the Biblio File of the ISO image. This should be the ISO 9660 path of a file in the image which contains bibliographic records. Permissible are up to 37 characters.

-copyright iso_path

Set the address of the Copyright File of the ISO image. This should be the ISO 9660 path of a file in the image which contains a copyright statement. Permissible are up to 37 characters.

--modification-date=YYYYMMDDhhmmsscc

Set a timestring that overrides ISO image creation and modification timestamps literally. It must consist of 16 decimal digits which form YYYYMMDDhhmmsscc, with YYYY between 1970 and 2999. Time zone is GMT. It is supposed to match this GRUB line:

 

search --fs-uuid --set YYYY-MM-DD-hh-mm-ss-cc

 

E.g. 2010040711405800 is 7 Apr 2010 11:40:58 (+0 centiseconds).

--application_use character|0xXY|disk_path

Specify the content of the Application Use field which can take at most 512 bytes.

 

If the parameter of this command is empty, then the field is filled with 512 0-bytes. If it is a single character, then it gets repeated 512 times. If it begins by "0x" followed by two hex digits [0-9a-fA-F], then the digits are read as byte value which gets repeated 512 times.

 

Any other parameter text is used as disk_path to open a data file and to read up to 512 bytes from it. If the file is smaller than 512 bytes, then the remaining bytes in the field get set to binary 0.

El Torito Bootable ISO images:

The precondition for a bootable ISO image is to have in the ISO image the files of a boot loader. The boot facilities of computers get directed to such files, which usually execute further program files from the ISO image. xorrisofs can produce several kinds of boot block or boot record, which become part of the ISO image, and get interpreted by the according boot facility. An El Torito boot record points the bootstrapping facility to a boot catalog with one or more boot images, which are binary program files stored in the ISO image. The content of the boot image files is not in the scope of El Torito. xorriso composes the boot catalog according to the boot image files given and structured by options -b, -e, -el-torito-alt-boot, and --efi-boot. Often it contains only one entry. El Torito gets interpreted by boot facilities PC-BIOS and EFI. Most bootable GNU/Linux CDs are equipped with ISOLINUX or GRUB boot images for PC-BIOS. xorrisofs supports the example options out of the ISOLINUX wiki, the options used in GRUB script grub-mkrescue, and the example in the FreeBSD AvgLiveCD wiki. For CD booting via boot facilities other than PC-BIOS and EFI, and for booting from USB sticks or hard disks, see the next section about the Sytem Area.

-b iso_rr_path

Specify the boot image file which shall be mentioned in the current entry of the El Torito boot catalog. It will be marked as suitable for PC-BIOS.

 

With boot images from ISOLINUX and GRUB this option should be accompanied by options -c , -no-emul-boot , -boot-load-size 4 , -boot-info-table.

-eltorito-boot iso_rr_path

Alias of -b.

-eltorito-alt-boot

Finalize the current El Torito boot catalog entry and begin a new one. A boot image file and all its necessary options shall be specified before option -eltorito-alt-boot. All further El Torito boot options apply to the new catalog entry. Up to 32 catalog entries are possible.

-e iso_rr_path

Specify the boot image file which shall be mentioned in the current entry of the El Torito boot catalog. It will be marked as suitable for EFI.

 

Normally no other El Torito options should be used with the catalog entry that points to an EFI image. Consider to use --efi-boot rather than -e.

--efi-boot iso_rr_path

Perform -eltorito-alt-boot, option -e with the given iso_rr_path, and again -eltorito-alt-boot. This gesture is used for achieving EFI-bootability of the GRUB2 rescue CD.

-boot-load-size number

Set the number of 512-byte blocks for boot images which emulate a floppy or a hard disk. A safe default for non-emulating boot images is 4.

-hard-disk-boot

Mark the boot image in the current catalog entry as emulated hard disk. (Not suitable for any known boot loader.)

-no-emul-boot

Mark the boot image in the current catalog entry as not emulating floppy or hard disk. (This is to be used with all known boot loaders.)

 

If neither -hard-disk-boot nor -no-emul-boot is given, then the boot image will be marked as emulating a floppy. (Not suitable for any known boot loader.)

-eltorito-id text|56_hexdigits

Define the ID string of the boot catalog section where the boot image will be listed. If the value consists of 56 characters [0-9A-Fa-f] then it is converted into 28 bytes, else the first 28 characters become the ID string. The ID string of the first boot image becomes the overall catalog ID. It is limited to 24 characters. Other id_strings become section IDs.

-eltorito-selcrit hexdigits

Define the Selection Criteria of the boot image. Up to 20 bytes get read from the given characters [0-9A-Fa-f]. They get attributed to the boot image entry in the catalog.

-boot-info-table

Overwrite bytes 8 to 63 in the current boot image. The information will be supplied by xorriso in the course of image production: Block address of the Primary Volume Descriptor, block address of the boot image file, size of the boot image file.

--grub2-boot-info

Overwrite bytes 2548 to 2555 in the current boot image by the address of that boot image. The address is written as 64 bit little-endian number. It is the 2KB block address of the boot image content, multiplied by 4, and then incremented by 5.

-c iso_rr_path

Set the address of the El Torito boot catalog file within the image. This file address is not significant for the booting PC-BIOS or EFI, but it may later be read by other programs in order to learn about the available boot images.

-eltorito-catalog iso_rr_path

Alias of -c.

--boot-catalog-hide

Prevent the El Torito boot catalog from appearing as file in the directory trees of the image.

System Area, MBR, GPT, APM, other boot blocks:

The first 16 blocks of an ISO image are the System Area. It is reserved for system dependent boot software. This may be the boot facilities and partition tables of various hardware architectures. A MBR (Master Boot Record) contains boot code and a partition table. It is read by PC-BIOS when booting from USB stick or hard disk, and by PowerPC CHRP or PReP when booting. An MBR partiton with type 0xee indicates the presence of GPT. A GPT (GUID Partition Table) marks partitions in a more modern way. It is read by EFI when booting from USB stick or hard disk, and may be used for finding and mounting a HFS+ partition inside the ISO image. An APM (Apple Partition Map) marks the HFS+ partition. It is read by Macs for booting and for mounting. MBR, GPT and APM are combinable. APM occupies the first 8 bytes of MBR boot code. All three do not hamper El Torito booting from CDROM. xorrisofs supports further boot facilities: MIPS Big Endian (SGI), MIPS Little Endian (DEC), SUN SPARC, HP-PA. Those are mutually not combinable and also not combinable with MBR, GPT, or APM.

-G disk_path

Copy at most 32768 bytes from the given disk file to the very start of the ISO image.

 

Other than a El Torito boot image, the file disk_path needs not to be added to the ISO image. It will not show up as file in the directory trees.

-generic-boot disk_path

Alias of -G.

--embedded-boot disk_path

Alias of -G.

--grub2-mbr disk_path

Install disk_path in the System Area and treat it as modern GRUB2 MBR. The content start address of the first boot image is converted to a count of 512 byte blocks, and an offset of 4 is added. The result is written as 64 bit little-endian number to byte address 0x1b0.

-isohybrid-mbr disk_path

Install disk_path as ISOLINUX isohybrid MBR which makes the boot image given by option -b bootable from USB sticks and hard disks via PC-BIOS. This preparation is normally done by ISOLINUX program isohybrid on the already produced ISO image.

 

The disk path should lead to one of the Syslinux files isohdp[fp]x*.bin . The MBR gets patched according to isohybrid needs. The first partition describes the range of the ISO image. Its start is at block 0 by default, but may be set to 64 disk blocks by option -partition_offset 16.

-isohybrid-gpt-basdat

Mark the current El Torito boot image (see options -b and -e) in GPT as partition of type Basic Data. This works only with -isohybrid-mbr and has the same impact on the system area as -efi-boot-part. It cannot be combined with -efi-boot-part or -hfsplus.

 

The first three boot images which are marked by GPT will also show up as partition entries of type 0xef in MBR. The MBR partition for PC-BIOS gets type 0x00 rather than 0x17 in this case. Often the further MBR entries are the ones which actually get used by EFI.

-isohybrid-gpt-hfsplus

Mark the current El Torito boot image (see options -b and -e) in GPT as partition of type HFS+. Impact and restrictions are like with -isohybrid-gpt-basdat.

-isohybrid-apm-hfsplus

Mark the current El Torito boot image (see options -b and -e) in Apple Partition Map as partition of type HFS+. This works only with -isohybrid-mbr and has a similar impact on the system area as -hfsplus. It cannot be combined with -efi-boot-part or -hfsplus.

 

The ISOLINUX isohybrid MBR file must begin by a known pattern of 32 bytes of x86 machine code which essentially does nothing. It will get overwritten by 32 bytes of APM header mock-up.

--protective-msdos-label

Patch the System Area by a simple PC-DOS partition table where partition 1 claims the range of the ISO image but leaves the first block unclaimed.

-partition_offset 2kb_block_adr

Cause a partition table with a single partition that begins at the given block address. This is counted in 2048 byte blocks, not in 512 byte blocks. If the block address is non-zero then it must be at least 16. Values larger than 16 are hardly of use. A non-zero partition offset causes two superblocks to be generated and two sets of directory trees. The image is then mountable from its absolute start as well as from the partition start.

 

The offset value of an ISO image gets preserved when a new session is added to a loaded image. So the value defined here is only in effect if a new ISO image gets written.

-partition_hd_cyl number

Set the number of heads per cylinder for the partition table. 0 chooses a default value. Maximum is 255.

-partition_sec_hd number

Set the number of sectors per head for the partition table. 0 chooses a default value. Maximum is 63.

 

The product partition_sec_hd * partition_hd_cyl * 512 is the cylinder size. It should be divisible by 2048 in order to allow exact alignment. If it is too small to describe the image size by at most 1024 cylinders, then appropriate values of partition_hd_cyl are chosen with partition_sec_hd 32 or 63. If the image is larger than 8,422,686,720 bytes, then the cylinder size constraints cannot be fulfilled. They seem not overly important anyway. Flat block addresses in partition tables are good for 1 TiB.

-partition_cyl_align mode

Control image size alignment to an integer number of cylinders. It is prescribed by isohybrid specs and it seems to please program fdisk. Cylinder size must be divisible by 2048. Images larger than 8,323,596,288 bytes cannot be aligned.

 

Mode "auto" is default. Alignment by padding happens only if option -isohybrid-mbr is given.

 

Mode "on" causes alignment by padding with option --protective-msdos-label too. Mode "all" is like "on" but also pads up partitions from -append_partition to an aligned size.

 

Mode "off" disables alignment unconditionally.

-append_partition partition_number type_code disk_path

Cause a prepared filesystem image to be appended to the ISO image and to be described by a partition table entry in a boot block at the start of the emerging ISO image. The partition entry will bear the size of the submitted file rounded up to the next multiple of 2048 bytes or to the next multiple of the cylinder size.

 

Beware of subsequent multi-session runs. The appended partition will get overwritten.

 

partition_number may be 1 to 4. Number 1 will put the whole ISO image into the unclaimed space before partition 1. So together with most xorriso MBR features, number 2 would be the most natural choice.

 

The type_code may be "FAT12", "FAT16", "Linux", or a hexadecimal number between 0x00 and 0xff. Not all those numbers will yield usable results. For a list of codes search the Internet for "Partition Types" or run fdisk command "L".

-efi-boot-part disk_path

Copy a file from disk into the emerging ISO image and mark it by a GPT entry as EFI System Partition. EFI boot firmware is supposed to use a FAT filesystem image in such a partition for booting from USB stick or hard disk.

 

Instead of a disk_path, the word --efi-boot-image may be given. It exposes in GPT the content of the first El Torito EFI boot image as EFI system partition. EFI boot images are introduced by options -e or --efi-boot. The affected EFI boot image cannot show up in HFS+ because it is stored outside the HFS+ partition.

-chrp-boot-part

Mark the block range of the whole emerging ISO image as MBR partition of type 0x96. This is not compatible with any other feature that produces MBR partition entries. It makes GPT unrecognizable.

 

CHRP is used in conjunction with HFS. It is not yet tested whether HFS+ filesystems produced with option -hfsplus would boot on any CHRP capable machine.

-prep-boot-part disk_path

Copy a file from disk into the emerging ISO image and mark it by a MBR partition entry of type 0x41. PReP boot firmware is supposed to read the content of the partition as single ELF executable file. This option is compatible with other MBR partitions and with GPT.

-mips-boot iso_rr_path

Declare a data file in the image to be a MIPS Big Endian boot file and cause production of a MIPS Big Endian Volume Header. This is mutually exclusive with production of other boot blocks like MBR. It will overwrite the first 512 bytes of any data provided by -G. Up to 15 boot files can be declared by multiple -mips-boot options.

-mipsel-boot iso_rr_path

Declare a data file in the image to be the MIPS Little Endian boot file. This is mutually exclusive with other boot blocks. It will overwrite the first 512 bytes of any data provided by -G. Only a single boot file can be declared by -mipsel-boot.

-B disk_path[,disk_path ...]

Cause one or more data files on disk to be written after the end of the ISO image. A SUN Disk Label will be written into the first 512 bytes of the ISO image which lists this image as partition 1 and the given disk_paths as partition 2 up to 8.

 

The disk files should contain suitable boot images for SUN SPARC systems.

 

The pseudo disk_path "..." causes that all empty partition entries become copies of the last non-empty entry. If no other disk_path is given before "..." then all partitions describe the ISO image. In this case, the boot loader code has to be imported by option -G.

-sparc-boot disk_path[,disk_path ...]

Alias of -B.

-sparc-label text

Set the ASCII label text of a SUN Disk Label.

--grub2-sparc-core iso_rr_path

Cause the content address and size of the given data file in the image to be written after the SUN Disk Label. Both numbers are counted in bytes. The address is written as 64 bit big-endian number to byte 0x228. The size is written as 32 bit big-endian number to byte 0x230.

-hppa-cmdline text

Set the PALO command line for HP-PA. Up to 1023 characters are permitted by default. With -hppa-hdrversion 4 the limit is 127.

 

Note that the first five -hppa options are mandatory, if any of the -hppa options is given. Only option -hppa-hdrversion is allowed to be missing.

-hppa-bootloader iso_rr_path

Designate the given path as HP-PA bootloader file.

-hppa-kernel-32 iso_rr_path

Designate the given path as HP-PA 32 bit kernel file.

-hppa-kernel-64 iso_rr_path

Designate the given path as HP-PA 64 bit kernel file.

-hppa-ramdisk iso_rr_path

Designate the given path as HP-PA RAM disk file.

-hppa-hdrversion number

Choose between PALO header version 5 (default) and version 4. For the appropriate value see in PALO source code: PALOHDRVERSION.

Character sets:

Character sets should not matter as long as only english alphanumeric characters are used for file names or as long as all writers and readers of the medium use the same character set. Outside these constraints it may be necessary to let xorriso convert byte codes. A conversion from input character set to the output character set is performed when an ISO image gets written. Vice versa there is a conversion from output character set to the input character set when an ISO image gets loaded. The sets can be defined by options -input-charset and -output-charset, if needed.

-input-charset character_set_name

Set the character set from which to convert disk file names when inserting them into the ISO image.

-output-charset character_set_name

Set the character set from which to convert names of loaded ISO images and to which to convert names when writing ISO images.

Jigdo Template Extraction:

From man genisoimage: "Jigdo is a tool to help in the distribution of large files like CD and DVD images; see http://atterer.net/jigdo/ 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." If the use of libjte was enabled at compile time of xorriso, then xorrisofs can produce a .jigdo and a .template file together with a single-session ISO image. If not, then Jigdo options will cause a FAILURE event, which normally leads to program abort. One may determine the ability for Jigdo by:
$ xorrisofs -version 2>&1 | grep '^libjte' && echo YES The .jigdo file contains checksums and symbolic file addresses. The .template file contains the compressed ISO image with reference tags instead of the content bytes of the listed files. Input for this process are the normal arguments for a xorrisofs session with no image loaded, and a .md5 file which lists those data files which may be listed in the .jigdo file and externally referenced in the .template file. Each designated file is represented in the .md5 file by a single text line: MD5 as 32 hex digits, 2 blanks, size as 12 decimal digits or blanks, 2 blanks, symbolic file address The file address in an .md5 line has to bear the same basename as the disk_path of the file which it shall match. The directory path of the file address is decisive for To=From mapping, not for file recognition. After To=From mapping, the file address gets written into the .jigdo file. Jigdo restore tools will convert these addresses into really reachable data source addresses from which they can read. If the list of jigdo parameters is not empty, then padding will be counted as part of the ISO image.

-jigdo-jigdo disk_path

Set the disk_path for the .jigdo file with the checksums and download addresses for filling the holes in .template.

-jigdo-template disk_path

Set the disk_path for the .template file with the holed and compressed ISO image copy.

-jigdo-min-file-size size

Set the minimum size for a data file to be listed in the .jigdo file and being a hole in the .template file. size may be a plain number counting bytes, or a number with appended letter "k", "m", "g" to count KiB (1024 bytes), MiB (1024 KiB), or GiB (1024 MiB).

-jigdo-force-md5 disk_path_pattern

adds a regular expression pattern which will get compared with the absolute disk_path of any data file that was not found in the .md5 list. A match causes a MISHAP event, which normally does not abort the program run but finally causes a non-zero exit value of the program.

-jigdo-exclude disk_path_pattern

Add a regular expression pattern which will get compared with the absolute disk_path of any data file. A match causes the file to stay in .template in any case.

-jigdo-map To=From

Add a string pair of the form To=From to the parameter list. If a data file gets listed in the .jigdo file, then it is referred by the file address from its line in the .md5 file. This file address gets checked whether it begins with the From string. If so, then this string will be replaced by the To string and a ':' character, before it goes into the .jigdo file. The From string should end by a '/' character.

-md5-list disk_path

Set the disk_path where to find the .md5 input file.

-jigdo-template-compress "gzip"|"bzip2"

Choose one of "bzip2" or "gzip" for the compression of the template file. The jigdo file is put out uncompressed.

-checksum_algorithm_iso list_of_names

Choose one or more of "md5", "sha1", "sha256", "sha512" for the auxiliary "# Image Hex" checksums in the .jigdo file. The list_of_names may e.g. look like "md5,sha1,sha512". Value "all" chooses all available algorithms. Note that MD5 stays always enabled.

-checksum_algorithm_template list_of_names

Choose the algorithms for the "# Template Hex" checksums in the .jigdo file. The rules for list_of_names are the same as with -checksum_algorithm_iso.

Miscellaneous options:

-print-size

Print to stdandard output the foreseeable number of 2048 byte blocks in the emerging ISO image. Do not produce this image.

 

The result depends on several settings.

 

If option --emul-toc is given, then padding (see -pad) is not counted as part of the image size. In this case either use -no-pad or add 150 (= 300 KiB) to the resulting number.

 

If mkisofs emulation ends after option -print-size, then the properties of the most recently specified boot image file cannot be edited by subsequent xorriso commands.

--no_rc

Only if used as first argument this option prevents reading and interpretation of startup files. See section FILES below.

-help

 

List supported options to stderr. Original mkisofs options bear their original mkisofs description texts.

-quiet

 

Suppress most messages of the program run, except those which indicate problems or errors.

-gui

 

Increase the frequency of pacifier messages while writing an ISO image.

-log-file disk_path

 

Truncate file disk_path to 0 size and redirect to it all messages which would normally appear on stderr. -log-file with empty text as disk_path re-enables output to stderr.

-v

 

Enable the output of informational program messages.

-verbose

Alias of -v.

-version

Print to standard output a text that begins with

 

"mkisofs 2.01-Emulation Copyright (C)"

 

and to standard error the version information of xorriso.

 

EXAMPLES

FILES

SEE ALSO

For generic xorriso command mode

xorriso(1)

For the cdrecord emulation of xorriso

xorrecord(1)

For mounting xorriso generated ISO 9660 images (-t iso9660)

mount(8)

Other programs which produce ISO 9660 images

mkisofs(8), genisoimage(8)

Programs which burn sessions to optical media

growisofs(1), cdrecord(1), wodim(1), cdrskin(1), xorriso(1)

ACL and xattr

getfacl(1), setfacl(1), getfattr(1), setfattr(1)

MD5 checksums

md5sum(1)

On FreeBSD the commands for xattr and MD5 differ

getextattr(8), setextattr(8), md5(1)

BUGS

To report bugs, request help, or suggest enhancements for xorriso, please send electronic mail to the public list <bug-xorriso@gnu.org>. If more privacy is desired, mail to <scdbackup@gmx.net>. Please describe what you expect xorriso to do, the program arguments resp. commands by which you tried to achieve it, the messages of xorriso, and the undesirable outcome of your program run. Expect to get asked more questions before solutions can be proposed.

AUTHOR

Thomas Schmitt <scdbackup@gmx.net> for libburnia-project.org

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 2011 - 2014 Thomas Schmitt Permission is granted to distribute this text freely. It shall only be modified in sync with the technical properties of xorriso. If you make use of the license to derive modified versions of xorriso then you are entitled to modify this text under that same license.

CREDITS

xorrisofs is in part based on work by Vreixo Formoso who provides libisofs together with Mario Danic who also leads the libburnia team. Vladimir Serbinenko contributed the HFS+ filesystem code and related knowledge. Compliments towards Joerg Schilling whose cdrtools served me for ten years.