growisofs(1)

NAME

   growisofs - combined genisoimage frontend/DVD recording program.

SYNOPSIS

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

DESCRIPTION

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

OPTIONS

   -Z /dev/dvd
          Burn  an  initial session to the selected device. A special form
          of this option is recognized to support burning of  pre-mastered
          images. See EXAMPLES section for further details.

   -M /dev/dvd
          Merge a new session to an existing one.

   -version
          Print  version  information  and  invoke  genisoimage, also with
          -version option.

   -dvd-compat
          Provide maximum  media  compatibility  with  DVD-ROM/-Video.  In
          write-once  DVD+R  or DVD-R context this results in unappendable
          recording (closed disk). In  DVD+RW  context  it  instructs  the
          logical unit to explicitly burn [otherwise optional] lead-out.

   -dry-run
          At  dry-run  growisofs  performs  all  the  steps  till, but not
          including the first write  operation.  Most  notably  check  for
          "overburn"   condition   is   performed,   which   implies  that
          genisoimage is invoked and terminated prematurely.

   -overburn
          Normally  single  layer  DVD  media  can   accommodate   up   to
          approximately  4.700.000.000  bytes (in marketing speech 4.7GB).
          In other words a DVD can contain about 4.377 GiB  or  4482  MiB.
          Same  kind  of  arithmetics  applies to Blu-ray Disc capacity of
          25.000.000.000 bytes. Anyway, growisofs won't start without this
          option, if "overburn" condition appears to be unavoidable.

   -speed=N
          An  option  to  control recording velocity. Most commonly you'll
          use -speed=1 with "no-name"  media,  if  default  speed  setting
          messes  up  the  media.  Keep in mind that N essentially denotes
          speed closest to N*1385KBps in DVD or N*4496KBps in Blu-ray Disc
          case  among  those  offered by unit for currently mounted media.
          The list can be found  in  dvd+rw-mediainfo  output.  Note  that
          Blu-ray  Disc  recordings  are  commonly  performed  at  ~1/2 of
          advertised speed, because of defect management being in effect.

   <genisoimage-options>
          More options can be found in the manpage for genisoimage.

   There  are  several  undocumented   options   commonly   denoted   with
   -use-the-force-luke prefix. Some of them serve debugging purposes. Some
   require certain knowledge about recording process  or  even  OS  kernel
   internals and as being such can induce confusing behaviour. Some are to
   be used in very specific situations better recognized by front-ends  or
   automated  scripts. Rationale behind leaving these options undocumented
   is that those few users who would actually need to  use  them  directly
   can  as  well  consult  the source code or obtain specific instructions
   elsewhere.

DIFFERENCES WITH RUNNING GENISOIMAGE DIRECTLY

   When using growisofs you may not use the -o option for an output  file.
   growisofs dumps the image directly to the media;

   You  don't  have  to  specify  the  -C  option to create a higher level
   session on a multisession disk, growisofs will construct one for you;

   Otherwise everything that  applies  to  [multisession]  mastering  with
   genisoimage  applies  to  growisofs  as well.  growisofs needs at least
   mkisofs version 1.14, version 2.0 is required for  multisession  write-
   once recordings or genisoimage.

EXAMPLES

   Actual  device  names vary from one operating system to another. We use
   /dev/dvd as a collective name or as symbolic link to the actual  device
   if  you  wish.  Under  Linux  it will most likely be an ide-scsi device
   such as "/dev/scd0." Under NetBSD/OpenBSD it has to be a character SCSI
   CD-ROM  device  such as "/dev/rcd0c." Under Solaris it also has to be a
   character  SCSI/ATAPI  CD-ROM  device,  e.g.   "/dev/rdsk/c0t1d0s2"  or
   "/vol/dev/aliases/cdrom0." And likewise in HP-UX, IRIX and Mac OS X...

   To  master  and  burn  an  ISO9660  volume  with  Joliet and Rock-Ridge
   extensions on a DVD or Blu-ray Disc:

        growisofs -Z /dev/dvd -R -J /some/files

   To append more data to same media:

        growisofs -M /dev/dvd -R -J /more/files

   Make sure to use the same options for both  initial  burning  and  when
   appending data.

   To finalize the multisession DVD maintaining maximum compatibility:

        growisofs -M /dev/dvd=/dev/zero

   To use growisofs to write a pre-mastered ISO-image to a DVD:

        growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/dvd=image.iso

   where  image.iso represents an arbitrary object in the filesystem, such
   as file, named pipe or  device  entry.  Nothing  is  growing  here  and
   command name is not intuitive in this context.

NOTES

   If  executed under sudo(8) growisofs refuses to start. This is done for
   the following reason. Naturally growisofs has to access the data set to
   be  recorded to optical media, either indirectly by letting genisoimage
   generate ISO9660 layout on-the-fly or directly if a pre-mastered  image
   is  to be recorded. Being executed under sudo(8), growisofs effectively
   grants sudoers read  access  to  any  file  in  the  file  system.  The
   situation  is intensified by the fact that growisofs parses GENISOIMAGE
   environment  variable  in  order  to  determine  alternative  path   to
   genisoimage  executable  image.  This  means  that being executed under
   sudo(8), growisofs effectively grants sudoers right to execute  program
   of  their  choice with elevated privileges. If you for any reason still
   find the above acceptable and are willing  to  take  the  consequences,
   then  consider  running following wrapper script under sudo(8) in place
   for real growisofs binary.

        #!/bin/ksh
        unset SUDO_COMMAND
        export GENISOIMAGE=/path/to/trusted/genisoimage
        exec growisofs "$@"

   But note that the recommended alternative to the above "workaround"  is
   actually  to install growisofs set-root-uid, in which case it will drop
   privileges prior accessing data or executing genisoimage  in  order  to
   preclude unauthorized access to the data.

   If  the  media  already  carries isofs and growisofs is invoked with -Z
   option non-interactively, e.g. through cron, it shall fail with "FATAL:
   /dev/dvd  already carries isofs!" Note that only ISO9660 is recognized,
   you  can  perfectly  zap  e.g.  an  UDF  filesystem  non-interactively.
   Recommendation  is  to  prepare  media  for  unattended  usage  by  re-
   formatting or nullifying first 64KB in advance.

   "Overburn" protection in pre-mastered image  context  works  only  with
   plain  files  and ISO9660 formatted volumes. E.g. [given that /dev/root
   is an ext2 formatted file system larger than 4.7GB]  /dev/dvd=/dev/root
   is bound to produce corrupted recording.

   Note  that  DVD+RW  re-formatting  procedure  does  not  substitute for
   blanking. If you want to nullify the media, e.g. for  privacy  reasons,
   do it explicitly with 'growisofs -Z /dev/dvd=/dev/zero'.

   Playback  of  re-writable  DVD  media, both DVD+RW and DVD-RW, might be
   limited in legacy DVD-ROM/-Video units. In most cases this  is  due  to
   lower reflectivity of such media.

   Even  though growisofs supports it, playback of multisession write-once
   DVD might be limited to the first session for two reasons:

   *      not all  DVD-ROM  players  are  capable  of  multi-border  DVD-R
          playback,  even  less are aware of DVD+R multisessioning, burner
          unit therefore might be the only one in your vicinity capable of
          accessing files written at different occasions;

   *      OS might fail to mount multisession DVD for various reasons;

   The  above  is  not  applicable to DVD+RW, DVD-RW Restricted Overwrite,
   DVD-RAM or Blu-ray Disc, as volumes are grown within a single session.

   When growisofs "runs into" blank Blu-ray Disc media, BD-RE or BD-R,  it
   gets pre-formatted with minimal spare area size of 256MB.

SEE ALSO

   Most   up-to-date   information   on   dvd+rw-tools   is  available  at
   http://fy.chalmers.se/~appro/linux/DVD+RW/.

   The manpage for genisoimage.

AUTHORS

   Andy Polyakov <appro@fy.chalmers.se> stands for programming and on-line
   information.

   This    manpage    is    currently    maintained    by    Huub   Reuver
   <h_reuver@mantell.xs4all.nl>.

LICENSE

   growisofs is distributed under GNU GPL.

---

More Linux Commands

---