Writing UNIX Filesystems CD-ROMs

Writing UNIX Filesystem CD-ROMs

This is the current version of the writing procedure written by Professor John Canny. Commercial software is in the process of being installed (GEAR) as well as mkisofs being put onto SWW. so you won't have to go hunting for it. Until that happens, this procedure will work just as well.

Download mkisofs-1.11.tar.gz to a UNIX box near you and compile it. Its available from:
ftp://tsx-11.mit.edu/pub/linux/packages/mkisofs/mkisofs-1.11.tar.gz
Run "mkisofs -rT -o foo.iso foo/".
- foo/ will become the root directory of the CD (ie. if there are 2 files, foo/bar and foo/baz, the CD's root directory will contain the 2 files, bar and baz, not the directory foo/.
- The -r option tells mkisofs to use Rockridge extensions and to fiddle with permissions where appropriate. (There is also a -R option which doesn't do said fiddling ... check the man page that comes with the distribution if you want the details).
- The -T option causes mkisofs to build a translation table from ISO 8.3 filenames to Rockridge filenames so you can find your files when in 8.3 universes (of course if that won't happen, you can save a lot of time and a small amount of space if you don't use -T).
FTP the iso file image to one of the machines in 564 Soda.
Download file2cd.exe. It's available at:
http://www.mainstream.net/~jarnold/cdrom/download.html
as FRE32V24.ZIP (this is a bundle of freeware CD-R authoring tools for MS-DOS prompts under Windows 95 and Windows NT ... look at README.ZIP for even more details).
Open an MS-DOS Prompt and fire up file2cd. The command line should be something like:
the /POSTGAP switch is needed to insure the leadout gap is correct since a foreign utility was used to generate the iso image.
And that's it. No interpretation of the iso image is done... file2cd simply drops it on the disc. Mount the CD on your favorite UNIX box and use symlinks, long filenames, and all the other Rockridge extensions you've come to expect from UNIX cdroms.