1GROWISOFS(1m) GROWISOFS(1m)
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6 growisofs - combined mkisofs frontend/DVD recording program.
7
9 growisofs [-dry-run] [-dvd-compat] [-overburn] [-speed=1] -[Z|M]
10 /dev/dvd <mkisofs-options>
11
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.
24
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 -M /dev/dvd
33 Merge a new session to an existing one.
34 -version
36 Print version information and invoke mkisofs, also with -version
37 option.
38 -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 -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 -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 -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 <mkisofs-options>
70 More options can be found in the manpage for mkisofs.
71 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.
82
85 When using growisofs you may not use the -o option for an output file.
86 growisofs dumps the image directly to the media;
87 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;
90 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.
95
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/scd0." 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 To master and burn an ISO9660 volume with Joliet and Rock-Ridge exten‐
107 sions on a DVD or Blu-ray Disc:
108 growisofs -Z /dev/dvd -R -J /some/files
110 To append more data to same media:
112 growisofs -M /dev/dvd -R -J /more/files
114 Make sure to use the same options for both initial burning and when
116 appending data.
117 To finalize the multisession DVD maintaining maximum compatibility:
119 growisofs -M /dev/dvd=/dev/zero
121 To use growisofs to write a pre-mastered ISO-image to a DVD:
123 growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/dvd=image.iso
125 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.
129
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 #!/bin/ksh
148 unset SUDO_COMMAND
149 export MKISOFS=/path/to/trusted/mkisofs
150 exec growisofs "$@"
151 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 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 "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 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 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 Even though growisofs supports it, playback of multisession write-once
178 DVD might be limited to the first session for two reasons:
179 · 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;
185 · OS might fail to mount multisession DVD for various reasons;
187 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 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.
193
196 Most up-to-date information on dvd+rw-tools is available at
197 http://fy.chalmers.se/~appro/linux/DVD+RW/.
198 The manpage for mkisofs.
200
203 Andy Polyakov <appro@fy.chalmers.se> stands for programming and on-line
204 information.
205 This manpage is currently maintained by Huub Reuver <h_reuver@man‐
207 tell.xs4all.nl>.
208
211 growisofs is distributed under GNU GPL.
212growisofs 7.1 1 Mar 2008 GROWISOFS(1m)