Creating Data CD from filesystem

Contributed by AmitChakradeo and others who aren't quite as vain.

• Create iso image first:

      mkisofs -J -r -o filename.iso input_directory
  

Where:

    -J: Use Joliet extensions
    -r: Use Rock Ridge extensions (good for keeping file permissions and owners)
    -o: Output filename

See below for more useful options.

• Test iso image (optional):

      mkdir /tmp/testcd
      mount -t iso9660 -o ro,loop/dev/loop0 filename.iso /tmp/testcd
      mount -t iso9660 -o loop filename.iso /tmp/testcd
  
      if all okay, 'umount /tmp/testcd'
  

• Write image to drive:

      cdrecord -v -data filename.iso
  

You can set options for cdrecord in /etc/default/cdrecord

Typically if would look something like this:

     # drive name=09device  speed   fifosize  driveropts
     cdrom         0,0,0   24      -1        ""

See the man page for setting it up.

Additional mkisofs options of interest

• -a -- all files. Normally, mkisofs ignores files that contain # or ~ characters (as these are normally backup files on *nix systems). This option will include files that contain # and/or ~ in their names.
• -A application-id -- If you're providing an application on this CD, you can indicate the application name with this option.
• -P publisher-id -- Usually the name, mailing address, and phone number, and website of the entity that is creating this CD.
• -p preparer-id -- usually the name, email, and mailing address of the person preparing the CD.