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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  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 de-
     velopment general purpose DVD recording support was implemented, and as  of
     now  growisofs supports not only random-access media, but even mastering of
     multi-session DVD media such as DVD+R and DVD-R/-RW. 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 mkisofs, also with -version op-
	    tion.

     -dvd-compat
	    Provide  maximum  media  compatibility   with   DVD-ROM/-Video.   In
	    write-once	context  (DVD+R  and DVD-R) 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"  condi-
	    tion  is performed, which implies that mkisofs is invoked and termi-
	    nated prematurely.

     -overburn
	    Normally 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. Growisofs won't start without this op-
	    tion, 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"  DVD-R[W] media, if default speed settings
	    messes up the media. Keep in mind that N essentially  denotes  speed
	    closest  to  N*1385KBps  among  those  offered by unit for currently
	    mounted media. The list can be found in dvd+rw-mediainfo output.

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

     There're	several   undocumented	  options    commonly	 denoted    with
     -use-the-force-luke prefix. Some of them serve debugging purposes. Some re-
     quire 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 session on
     a multi session disk, growisofs will construct one for you;

     Otherwise everything that applies to [multi-session] mastering with mkisofs
     applies to growisofs as well.  growisofs needs  at  least	mkisofs  version
     1.14, version 2.0 is required for multi-session 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  de-
     vice  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 and IRIX...

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

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

     To append more data to same DVD:

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

     Make sure to use the same options for both  inital  burning  and  following
     sessions.

     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  DVD	media,	either	indirectly  by	letting mkisofs 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 sudo-
     ers read access to any file in the file system. The situation  is	intensi-
     fied  by the fact that growisofs parses MKISOFS environment variable in or-
     der to determine alternative path to mkisofs 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 MKISOFS=/path/to/trusted/mkisofs
	  exec growisofs "$@"

     But  note that the recommended alternative to the above "workaround" is ac-
     tually to install growisofs set-root-uid, in which case it will drop privi-
     leges prior accessing data or executing mkisofs in order to preclude  unau-
     thorized 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 per-
     fectly zap e.g. an UDF filesystem non-interactively.

     "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  explic-
     itly 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 reflec-
     tivity of such media.

     Even though growisofs supports it, playback of multi-session 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 multi-sessioning, burner unit therefore
	    might  be  the  only one in your vicinity capable of accessing files
	    written at different occasions;

     *	    OS might fail to mount multi-session DVD for various reasons;

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

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 in-
     formation.

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

LICENSE
     growisofs is distributed under GNU GPL.

growisofs 5.20			  15 July 2004			   GROWISOFS(1m)

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