


GROWISOFS(1m)                                       GROWISOFS(1m)


NAME
       growisofs - combined mkisofs frontend/DVD recording program.

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


DESCRIPTION
       growisofs was originally designed as a frontend to mkisofs  to  facili-
       tate  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 (for-
       matted 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 mkisofs, 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 log-
              ical 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 mkisofs is
              invoked and terminated prematurely.

       -overburn
              Normally single layer DVD media can accommodate up  to  approxi-
              mately 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.




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GROWISOFS(1m)                                       GROWISOFS(1m)


       -speed=N
              An  option  to  control recording velocity. Most commonly you'll
              use -speed=1 with "no-name" media,  if  default  speed  settings
              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.

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


       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 MKISOFS 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 ses-
       sion on a multisession disk, growisofs will construct one for you;

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


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  exten-
       sions on a DVD or Blu-ray Disc:

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

       To append more data to same media:




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GROWISOFS(1m)                                       GROWISOFS(1m)


            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 com-
       mand 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 mkisofs gen-
       erate  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 situa-
       tion is intensified by the fact that growisofs parses MKISOFS  environ-
       ment  variable  in  order to determine alternative path to mkisofs exe-
       cutable 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 run-
       ning following wrapper script under sudo(8) in place for real growisofs
       binary.

            #!/bin/ksh
            unset SUDO_COMMAND
            export MKISOFS=/path/to/trusted/mkisofs
            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 mkisofs in order to pre-
       clude 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. Recom-
       mendation 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



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GROWISOFS(1m)                                       GROWISOFS(1m)


       is bound to produce corrupted recording.

       Note that DVD+RW re-formatting procedure does not substitute for blank-
       ing.  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:


       o      not  all DVD-ROM players are capable of multi-border DVD-R play-
              back, 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;

       o      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 mkisofs.


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

       This manpage is currently  maintained  by  Huub  Reuver  <h_reuver@man-
       tell.xs4all.nl>.


LICENSE
       growisofs is distributed under GNU GPL.












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