1GROWISOFS(1m)                                                    GROWISOFS(1m)
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NAME

6       growisofs - combined mkisofs frontend/DVD recording program.
7

SYNOPSIS

9       growisofs   [-dry-run]   [-dvd-compat]  [-overburn]  [-speed=1]  -[Z|M]
10       /dev/dvd <mkisofs-options>
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12

DESCRIPTION

14       growisofs was originally designed as a frontend to mkisofs  to  facili‐
15       tate  appending  of  data  to ISO9660 volumes residing on random-access
16       media such as DVD+RW, DVD-RAM, plain files, hard  disk  partitions.  In
17       the  course  of  development  general purpose DVD recording support was
18       implemented, and as of now growisofs supports  not  only  random-access
19       media,  but  even mastering of multisession DVD media such as DVD+R and
20       DVD-R/-RW, as well as Blu-ray  Disc.  In  addition  growisofs  supports
21       first-/single-session  recording  of arbitrary pre-mastered image (for‐
22       matted as UDF, ISO9660 or any other file system, if formatted  at  all)
23       to all supported DVD media types.
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25

OPTIONS

27       -Z /dev/dvd
28              Burn  an  initial session to the selected device. A special form
29              of this option is recognized to support burning of  pre-mastered
30              images. See EXAMPLES section for further details.
31
32       -M /dev/dvd
33              Merge a new session to an existing one.
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35       -version
36              Print version information and invoke mkisofs, also with -version
37              option.
38
39       -dvd-compat
40              Provide maximum  media  compatibility  with  DVD-ROM/-Video.  In
41              write-once  DVD+R  or DVD-R context this results in unappendable
42              recording (closed disk). In DVD+RW context it instructs the log‐
43              ical unit to explicitly burn [otherwise optional] lead-out.
44
45       -dry-run
46              At  dry-run  growisofs  performs  all  the  steps  till, but not
47              including the first write  operation.  Most  notably  check  for
48              "overburn" condition is performed, which implies that mkisofs is
49              invoked and terminated prematurely.
50
51       -overburn
52              Normally single layer DVD media can accommodate up  to  approxi‐
53              mately 4.700.000.000 bytes (in marketing speech 4.7GB). In other
54              words a DVD can contain about 4.377 GiB or 4482 MiB.  Same  kind
55              of   arithmetics   applies   to   Blu-ray   Disc   capacity   of
56              25.000.000.000 bytes. Anyway, growisofs won't start without this
57              option, if "overburn" condition appears to be unavoidable.
58
59       -speed=N
60              An  option  to  control recording velocity. Most commonly you'll
61              use -speed=1 with "no-name"  media,  if  default  speed  setting
62              messes  up  the  media.  Keep in mind that N essentially denotes
63              speed closest to N*1385KBps in DVD or N*4496KBps in Blu-ray Disc
64              case  among  those  offered by unit for currently mounted media.
65              The list can be found  in  dvd+rw-mediainfo  output.  Note  that
66              Blu-ray Disc recordings are commonly performed at ~1/2 of adver‐
67              tised speed, because of defect management being in effect.
68
69       <mkisofs-options>
70              More options can be found in the manpage for mkisofs.
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72
73       There  are  several  undocumented   options   commonly   denoted   with
74       -use-the-force-luke prefix. Some of them serve debugging purposes. Some
75       require certain knowledge about recording process  or  even  OS  kernel
76       internals and as being such can induce confusing behaviour. Some are to
77       be used in very specific situations better recognized by front-ends  or
78       automated  scripts. Rationale behind leaving these options undocumented
79       is that those few users who would actually need to  use  them  directly
80       can  as  well  consult  the source code or obtain specific instructions
81       elsewhere.
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83

DIFFERENCES WITH RUNNING MKISOFS DIRECTLY

85       When using growisofs you may not use the -o option for an output  file.
86       growisofs dumps the image directly to the media;
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88       You  don't  have to specify the -C option to create a higher level ses‐
89       sion on a multisession disk, growisofs will construct one for you;
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91       Otherwise everything that  applies  to  [multisession]  mastering  with
92       mkisofs applies to growisofs as well.  growisofs needs at least mkisofs
93       version 1.14, version  2.0  is  required  for  multisession  write-once
94       recordings.
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96

EXAMPLES

98       Actual  device  names vary from one operating system to another. We use
99       /dev/dvd as a collective name or as symbolic link to the actual  device
100       if  you  wish.  Under  Linux  it will most likely be an ide-scsi device
101       such as "/dev/sr0." Under NetBSD/OpenBSD it has to be a character  SCSI
102       CD-ROM  device  such as "/dev/rcd0c." Under Solaris it also has to be a
103       character  SCSI/ATAPI  CD-ROM  device,  e.g.   "/dev/rdsk/c0t1d0s2"  or
104       "/vol/dev/aliases/cdrom0." And likewise in HP-UX, IRIX and Mac OS X...
105
106       To  master and burn an ISO9660 volume with Joliet and Rock-Ridge exten‐
107       sions on a DVD or Blu-ray Disc:
108
109            growisofs -Z /dev/dvd -R -J /some/files
110
111       To append more data to same media:
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113            growisofs -M /dev/dvd -R -J /more/files
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115       Make sure to use the same options for both  initial  burning  and  when
116       appending data.
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118       To finalize the multisession DVD maintaining maximum compatibility:
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120            growisofs -M /dev/dvd=/dev/zero
121
122       To use growisofs to write a pre-mastered ISO-image to a DVD:
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124            growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/dvd=image.iso
125
126       where  image.iso represents an arbitrary object in the filesystem, such
127       as file, named pipe or device entry. Nothing is growing here  and  com‐
128       mand name is not intuitive in this context.
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130

NOTES

132       If  executed under sudo(8) growisofs refuses to start. This is done for
133       the following reason. Naturally growisofs has to access the data set to
134       be recorded to optical media, either indirectly by letting mkisofs gen‐
135       erate ISO9660 layout on-the-fly or directly if a pre-mastered image  is
136       to  be  recorded.  Being  executed under sudo(8), growisofs effectively
137       grants sudoers read access to any file in the file system.  The  situa‐
138       tion  is intensified by the fact that growisofs parses MKISOFS environ‐
139       ment variable in order to determine alternative path  to  mkisofs  exe‐
140       cutable  image. This means that being executed under sudo(8), growisofs
141       effectively grants sudoers right to execute  program  of  their  choice
142       with  elevated  privileges.  If you for any reason still find the above
143       acceptable and are willing to take the consequences, then consider run‐
144       ning following wrapper script under sudo(8) in place for real growisofs
145       binary.
146
147            #!/bin/ksh
148            unset SUDO_COMMAND
149            export MKISOFS=/path/to/trusted/mkisofs
150            exec growisofs "$@"
151
152       But note that the recommended alternative to the above "workaround"  is
153       actually  to install growisofs set-root-uid, in which case it will drop
154       privileges prior accessing data or executing mkisofs in order  to  pre‐
155       clude unauthorized access to the data.
156
157       If  the  media  already  carries isofs and growisofs is invoked with -Z
158       option non-interactively, e.g. through cron, it shall fail with "FATAL:
159       /dev/dvd  already carries isofs!" Note that only ISO9660 is recognized,
160       you can perfectly zap e.g. an UDF filesystem non-interactively.  Recom‐
161       mendation  is to prepare media for unattended usage by re-formatting or
162       nullifying first 64KB in advance.
163
164       "Overburn" protection in pre-mastered image  context  works  only  with
165       plain  files  and ISO9660 formatted volumes. E.g. [given that /dev/root
166       is an ext2 formatted file system larger than 4.7GB]  /dev/dvd=/dev/root
167       is bound to produce corrupted recording.
168
169       Note that DVD+RW re-formatting procedure does not substitute for blank‐
170       ing. If you want to nullify the media, e.g. for privacy reasons, do  it
171       explicitly with 'growisofs -Z /dev/dvd=/dev/zero'.
172
173       Playback  of  re-writable  DVD  media, both DVD+RW and DVD-RW, might be
174       limited in legacy DVD-ROM/-Video units. In most cases this  is  due  to
175       lower reflectivity of such media.
176
177       Even  though growisofs supports it, playback of multisession write-once
178       DVD might be limited to the first session for two reasons:
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180
181       ·      not all DVD-ROM players are capable of multi-border DVD-R  play‐
182              back,  even less are aware of DVD+R multisessioning, burner unit
183              therefore might be the only one  in  your  vicinity  capable  of
184              accessing files written at different occasions;
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186       ·      OS might fail to mount multisession DVD for various reasons;
187
188       The  above  is  not  applicable to DVD+RW, DVD-RW Restricted Overwrite,
189       DVD-RAM or Blu-ray Disc, as volumes are grown within a single session.
190
191       When growisofs "runs into" blank Blu-ray Disc media, BD-RE or BD-R,  it
192       gets pre-formatted with minimal spare area size of 256MB.
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194       A  DVD-RW  accepts  two  disc  modes:  the Sequential Recording and the
195       Restricted Overwrite. If a DVD-RW medium is in the later one,  it  will
196       behave  much  like  DVD+RW.   By default DVD-RW discs are in Sequential
197       Recording mode, but can be put into  Restricted  Overwrite  mode  using
198       dvd+rw-format.  See dvd+rw-format (1) for more info.
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200

SEE ALSO

202       Most   up-to-date   information   on   dvd+rw-tools   is  available  at
203       http://fy.chalmers.se/~appro/linux/DVD+RW/.
204
205       mkisofs(1), dvd+rw-format(1)
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207

AUTHORS

209       Andy Polyakov <appro@fy.chalmers.se> stands for programming and on-line
210       information.
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212       This  manpage  is  currently  maintained  by Huub Reuver <h_reuver@man‐
213       tell.xs4all.nl>.
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LICENSE

217       growisofs is distributed under GNU GPL.
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222growisofs 7.1                     1 Mar 2008                     GROWISOFS(1m)
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