CDRECORD(1) Schily´s USER COMMANDS CDRECORD(1)NAME
cdrecord - record audio or data Compact Discs from a master
SYNOPSIS
cdrecord [ general options ] dev=device [ track options ]
track1...trackn
DESCRIPTION
Cdrecord is used to record data or audio Compact Discs on an Orange
Book CD-Recorder.
The device refers to scsibus/target/lun of the CD-Recorder. Communica‐
tion on SunOS is done with the SCSI general driver scg. Other operat‐
ing systems are using a library simulation of this driver. Possible
syntax is: dev= scsibus,target,lun or dev= target,lun. In the latter
case, the CD-Recorder has to be connected to the default SCSI bus of
the machine. Scsibus, target and lun are integer numbers. Some oper‐
ating systems or SCSI transport implementations may require to specify
a filename in addition. In this case the corect syntax for the device
is: dev= devicename:scsibus,target,lun or dev= devicename:target,lun.
If the name of the device node that has been specified on such a system
referres to exactly one SCSI device, a shorthand in the form dev= devi‐
cename:@ or dev= devicename:@,lun may be used instead of dev= device‐
name:scsibus,target,lun.
To make cdrecord portable to all UNIX platforms, the syntax dev= devi‐
cename:scsibus,target,lun is preferred as is hides OS specific knowl‐
edge about device names from the user. A specific OS must not neces‐
sarily support a way to specify a real device file name nor a way to
specify scsibus,target,lun.
Scsibus 0 is the default SCSI bus on the machine. Watch the boot mes‐
sages for more information or look into /var/adm/messages for more
information about the SCSI configuration of your machine. If you have
problems to figure out what values for scsibus,target,lun should be
used, try the -scanbus option of cdrecord described below.
If a file /etc/default/cdrecord exists, the parameter to the dev=
option may also be a drive name label in said file (see FILES section).
On SVr4 compliant systems, cdrecord uses the the real time class to get
the highest scheduling priotity that is possible (higher than all ker‐
nel processes). On systems with POSIX real time scheduling cdrecord
uses real time scheduling too, but may not be able to gain a priority
that is higher than all kernel processes.
In Track At Once mode, each track corresponds to a single file that
contains the prepared data for that track. If the argument is `-',
standard input is used for that track. Only one track may be taken
from stdin.
GENERAL OPTIONS
General options must be before any track file name or track option.
-version
Print version information and exit.
-v Increment the level of general verbosity by one. This is used
e.g. to display the progress of the writing process.
-V Increment the verbose level in respect of SCSI command transport
by one. This helps to debug problems during the writing
process, that occur in the CD-Recorder. If you get incomprehen‐
sible error messages you should use this flag to get more
detailed output. -VV will show data buffer content in addition.
Using -V or -VV slows down the process and may be the reason for
a buffer underrun. Using
-debug Print additional debug messages. This may help to find out prob‐
lems with sector sizes and sector types. Using -debug slows
down the process and may be the reason for a buffer underrun.
-force Force to continue on some errors. This option currently imple‐
ments some tricks that will allow you to blank bad CD-RW disks.
-dummy The CD-Recorder will go through all steps of the recording
process, but the laser is turned off during this procedure. It
is recommended to run several tests before actually writing to a
Compact Disk, if the timing and load response of the system is
not known.
-dao Set Disk At Once mode. This currently only works with MMC
drives that support non raw Session At Once mode.
-multi Allow multi session CD's to be made. This flag needs to be
present on all sessions of a multi session disk, except you want
to create a session that will be the last session on the media.
The fixation will be done in a way that allows the CD-Recorder
to append additional sessions later. This is done by generation
a TOC with a link to the next program area. The so generated
media is not 100% compatible to manufactured CD's (except for
CDplus). Use only for recording of multi session CD's. If this
option is present, the default track type is CD-ROM XA mode 2.
The Sony drives have no hardware support for CD-ROM XA mode 2.
You have to specify the -data option in order to create multi
session disks on these drives. As long as cdrecord does not
have a coder for converting data sectors to audio sectors, you
need to force CD-ROM sectors by including the -data option if
you like to record a multisession disk in DAO/SAO mode. Not all
drives allow multisession CD's in DAO/SAO mode.
-msinfo
Retrieve multi session info in a form suitable for mkisofs-1.10
or later.
This option makes only sense with a CD that contains at least
one closed session and is appendable (not finally closed yet).
Some drives create error messages if you try to get the multi
session info for a disk that is not suitable for this operation.
-toc Retrieve and print out the table of content or PMA of a CD.
With this option, cdrecord will work with CD-R drives and with
CD-ROM drives.
-atip Retrieve and print out the ATIP (absolute Time in Pregroove)
info of a CD recordable or CD rewritable media. With this
option, cdrecord will try to retrieve the ATIP info. If the
actual drive does not support to read the ATIP info, it may be
that only a reduced set of information records or even nothing
is displayed. Only a limited number of MMC compliant drives sup‐
port to read the ATIP info.
If cdrecord is able to retrieve the lead-in start time for the
first session, it will try to decode and print the manufacturer
info from the media.
-fix The disk will only be fixated (i.e. a TOC for a CD-Reader will
be written). This may be used, if for some reason the disk has
been written but not fixated. This option currently does not
work with old TEAC drives (CD-R50S and CD-R55S).
-nofix Do not fixate the disk after writing the tracks. This may be
used to create an audio disk in steps. An un-fixated disk can
usually not be used on a non CD-writer type drive but there are
audio CD players that will be able to play such a disk.
-waiti Wait for input to become available on standard input before try‐
ing to open the SCSI driver. This allows cdrecord to read it's
input from a pipe even when writing additional sessions to a
multi session disk. When writing another session to a multi
session disk, mkisofs needs to read the old session from the
device before writing output. This cannot be done if cdrecord
opens the SCSI driver at the same time.
-load Load the media and exit. This only works with a tray loading
mechanism but seems to be useful when using the Kodak disk
transporter.
-eject Eject disk after doing the work. Some Devices (e.g. Philips)
need to eject the medium before creating a new disk. Doing a
-dummy test and immediately creating a real disk would not work
on these devices.
speed=#
Set the speed factor of the writing process to #. # is an inte‐
ger, representing a multiple of the audio speed. This is about
150 KB/s for CD-ROM and about 172 KB/s for CD-Audio. If no
speed option is present, cdrecord will try to get the speed
value from the CDR_SPEED environment. If your drive has prob‐
lems with speed=2 or speed=4, you should try speed=0.
blank=type
Blank a CD-RW and exit or blank a CD-RW before writing. The
blanking type may be one of:
help Display a list of possible blanking types.
all Blank the entire disk. This may take a long time.
fast Minimally blank the disk. This results in erasing
the PMA, the TOC and the pregap.
track Blank a track.
unreserve Unreserve a reserved track.
trtail Blank the tail of a track.
unclose Unclose last session.
session Blank the last session.
If used together with the -force flag, this option may be used to blank
CD-RW disks that otherwise cannot be blanked. Note that you may need to
specify blank=all because some drives will not continue with certain
types of bad CD-RW disks. Note also that cdecord does it's best if the
-force flag is used but it finally depends on the drive's firmware
whether the blanking operation will succeed or not.
fs=# Set the fifo (ring buffer) size to #. You may use the same
method as in dd(1), sdd(1) or star(1). The number representing
the size is taken in bytes unless otherwise specified. If a
number is followed directly by the letter `b', `k', `m', `s' of
`f', the size is multiplied by 512, 1024, 1024*1024, 2048 or
2352. If the size consists of numbers separated by `x' or `*',
multiplication of the two numbers is performed. Thus fs=10x63k
will specify a fifo size of 630 kBytes.
The size specified by the fs= argument includes the shared mem‐
ory that is needed for administration. This is at least one page
of memory. If no fs= option is present, cdrecord will try to
get the fifo size value from the CDR_FIFOSIZE environment. The
default fifo size is currently 4 MB.
The fifo is used to increase buffering for the real time writing
process. It allows to run a pipe from mkisofs directly into
cdrecord. If the fifo is active and a pipe from mkisofs into
cdrecord is used to create a CD, cdrecord will abort prior to do
any modifications on the disk if mkisofs dies before it starts
writing. The recommended fifo size is between 4 and 32 MBytes.
As a rule of thumb, the fifo size should be at least equal to
the size of the internal buffer of the CD-Recorder and no more
than half of the physical amount of RAM available in the
machine. If the fifo size is big enough, the fifo statistics
will print a fifo empty count of zero and the fifo min fill is
not below 20%. It is not wise to use too much space for the
fifo. If you need more than 8 MB to write a CD on an idle
machine, your machine is either underpowered, has hardware prob‐
lems or is mis-configured. The sun4c architecture (e.g. a
Sparcstation-2) has only MMU page table entries for 16 MBytes
per process. Using more than 14 MBytes for the fifo may cause
the operating system in this case to spend much time to con‐
stantly reload the MMU tables. Newer machines from Sun do not
have this MMU hardware problem. I have no information on PC-
hardware reflecting this problem.
If you have buffer underruns or similar problems and observe a
zero fifo empty count, you have hardware problems. The fifo size
in this case is sufficient.
dev=target
Sets the SCSI target for the CD-Recorder, see notes above. A
typical device specification is dev=6,0 . If a filename must be
provided together with the numerical target specification, the
filename is implementation specific. The correct filename in
this case can be found in the system specific manuals of the
target operating system. On a FreeBSD system without CAM sup‐
port, you need to use the control device (e.g. /dev/rcd0.ctl).
A correct device specification in this case may be
dev=/dev/rcd0.ctl:@ .
On Linux, drives connected to a parallel port adapter are mapped
to a virtual SCSI bus. Different adapters are mapped to differ‐
ent targets on this virtual SCSI bus.
If no dev option is present, cdrecord will try to get the device
from the CDR_DEVICE environment.
If the argument to the dev= option does not contain the charac‐
ters ',', '/', '@' or ':', it is interpreted as an label name
that may be found in the file /etc/default/cdrecord (see FILES
section).
timeout=#
Set the default SCSI command timeout value to #. The default
SCSI command timeout is the minimum timeout used for sending
SCSI commands. If a SCSI command fails due to a timeout, you
may try to raise the default SCSI command timeout above the
timeout value of the failed command. If the command runs cor‐
rectly with a raised command timeout, please report the better
timeout value and the corresponding command to the author of the
program. If no timeout option is present, a default timeout of
40 seconds is used.
driver=name
Allows to use a user supplied driver name for the device. To
get a list of possible drivers use driver=help. The reason for
the existence of this option is to allow users to use cdrecord
with drives that are similar to supported drives but not known
directly by cdrecord. Use this option with extreme care. If a
wrong driver is used for a device, the possibility of creating
corrupted disks is high. The minimum problem related to a wrong
driver is that the -speed or -dummy will not work.
There are two special driver entries in the list: cdr_simul and
dvd_simul. These driver entries are designed to make timing
tests at any speed or timing tests for drives that do not sup‐
port the -dummy option. The simulation drivers implement a
drive with a buffer size of 1MB that can be changed via the
CDR_SIMUL_BUFSIZE environment variable. The simultaion driver
correctly simulates even a buffer underrun condition. If the
-dummy option is present, the simultaion is not aborted in case
of a buffer underrun.
driveropts=option list
Set driver specific options. The options are specified a comma
separated list. To get a list of valid options use
driveropts=help together with the -checkdrive option. Currently
only the burnproof option is implemented to support Buffer
Underrun Proof writing with drives that use the Sanyo BURN-Proof
technology.
-checkdrive
Checks if a driver for the current drive is present and exit.
If the drive is a known drive, cdrecord uses exit code 0.
-prcap Print the drive capabilities for SCSI-3/mmc compliant drives as
obtained from mode page 0x2A. Values marked with kB use 1000
bytes as kilo-byte, values marked with KB use 1024 bytes as
Kilo-byte.
-inq Do an inquiry for the drive, print the inquiry info and exit.
-scanbus
Scan all SCSI devices on all SCSI busses and print the inquiry
strings. This option may be used to find SCSI address of the CD-
Recorder on a system. The numbers printed out as labels are
computed by: bus * 100 + target
-reset Try to reset the SCSI bus where the CD recorder is located. This
works not on all operating systems.
-ignsize
Ignore the known size of the medium. This options should be used
with extreme care, it exists only for debugging purposes don't
use it for other reasons. It is not needed to write disks with
more than the nominal capacity.
-useinfo
Use *.inf files to overwrite audio options. If this option is
used, the pregap size information is read from the *.inf file
that is associated with the file that contains the audio data
for a track.
defpregap=#
Set the default pre-gap size for all tracks except track number
1. This option currently only makes sense with the TEAC drive
when creating track-at-once disks without the 2 second silence
before each track.
This option may go away in future.
-packet
Set Packet writing mode. This is an experimental interface.
pktsize=#
Set the paket size to #, forces fixed packet mode. This is an
experimental interface.
-noclose
Do not close the current track, useful only when in packet writ‐
ing mode. This is an experimental interface.
mcn=med_cat_nr
Set the Media Catalog Number of the CD to med_cat_nr.
TRACK OPTIONS
Track options may be mixed with track file names.
isrc=ISRC_number
Set the International Standard Recording Number for the next
track to ISRC_number.
index=list
Sets an index list for the next track. In index list is a comma
separated list of numbers that are counting from index 1. The
first entry in this list must contain a 0, the following numbers
must be an ascending list of numbers (counting in 1/75 seconds)
that represent the start of the indices. An index list in the
form: 0,7500,15000 sets index 1 to the start of the track, index
2 100 seconds from the start of the track and index 3 200 sec‐
onds from the start of the track.
-audio If this flag is present, all subsequent tracks are written in
CD-DA (similar to Red Book) audio format. The file with data
for this tracks should contain stereo, 16-bit digital audio with
44100 samples/s. The byte order should be the following: MSB
left, LSB left, MSB right, LSB right, MSB left and so on. The
track should be a multiple of 2352 bytes. It is not possible to
put the master image of an audio track on a raw disk because
data will be read in multiple of 2352 bytes during the recording
process.
If a filename ends in .au or .wav the file is considered to be a
structured audio data file. Cdrecord assumes that the file in
this case is a Sun audio file or a Microsoft .WAV file and
extracts the audio data from the files by skipping over the non-
audio header information. In all other cases, cdrecord will
only work correctly if the audio data stream does not have any
header. Because many structured audio files do not have an
integral number of blocks (1/75th second) in length, it is often
necessary to specify the -pad option as well. cdrecord recog‐
nizes that audio data in a .WAV file is stored in Intel (little-
endian) byte order, and will automatically byte-swap the data if
the CD recorder requires big-endian data. Cdrecord will reject
any audio file that does not match the Red Book requirements of
16-bit stereo samples in PCM coding at 44100 samples/second.
Using other structured audio data formats as input to cdrecord
will usually work if the structure of the data is the structure
described above (raw pcm data in big-endian byte order). How‐
ever, if the data format includes a header, you will hear a
click at the start of a track.
If neither -data nor -audio have been specified, cdrecord
defaults to -audio for all filenames that end in .au or .wav and
to -data for all other files.
-swab If this flag is present, audio data is assumed to be in byte-
swapped (little-endian) order. Some types of CD-Writers e.g.
Yamaha, Sony and the new SCSI-3/mmc drives require audio data to
be presented in little-endian order, while other writers require
audio data to be presented in the big-endian (network) byte
order normally used by the SCSI protocol. Cdrecord knows if a
CD-Recorder needs audio data in big- or little-endian order, and
corrects the byte order of the data stream to match the needs of
the recorder. You only need the -swab flag if your data stream
is in Intel (little-endian) byte order.
Note that the verbose output of cdrecord will show you if swap‐
ping is necessary to make the byte order of the input data fit
the required byte order of the recorder. Cdrecord will not show
you if the -swab flag was actually present for a track.
-data If this flag is present, all subsequent tracks are written in
CD-ROM mode 1 (Yellow Book) format. The data is a multiple of
2048 bytes. The file with track data should contain an ISO-9660
or Rock Ridge filesystem image (see mkisofs for more details).
If the track data is an ufs filesystem image, fragment size
should be set to 2 KB or more to allow CR-drives with 2 KB sec‐
tor size to to be used for reading.
-data is the default, if no other flag is present.
If neither -data nor -audio have been specified, cdrecord
defaults to -audio for all filenames that end in .au or .wav and
to -data for all other files.
-mode2 If this flag is present, all subsequent tracks are written in
CD-ROM mode 2 format. The data is a multiple of 2048 bytes.
-xa1 If this flag is present, all subsequent tracks are written in
CD-ROM XA mode 1 format. The data is a multiple of 2048 bytes.
-xa2 If this flag is present, all subsequent tracks are written in
CD-ROM XA mode 2 format. The data is a multiple of 2048 bytes.
-cdi If this flag is present, all subsequent tracks are written in
CDI format. The data is a multiple of 2048 bytes.
-isosize
Use the ISO-9660 file system size as the size of the next track.
This option is needed if you want to read the image of a track
from a raw disk partition or on a master CD. In the first case
the option -isosize is needed to limit the size of the CD to the
size of the ISO filesystem. In the second case the option -iso‐
size is needed to prevent cdrecord from reading the two run out
blocks that are appended by each CD-recorder in track at once
mode. These two run out blocks cannot be read and would cause a
buffer under run that would cause a defective copy. Do not use
this option if cdrecord reads the track data from stdin. This
option currently cannot be used to determine the size of a file
system if the multi session option is present.
-pad If the track is a data track, 15 sectors of zeroed data will be
added to the end of this and each subsequent data track. In
this case, the -pad option is superseded by the padsize= option.
It will remain however as a shorthand for padsize=15s. If the
-pad option refers to an audio track, cdrecord will pad the
audio data to be a multiple of 2352 bytes. The audio data pad‐
ding is done with binary zeroes which is equal to absolute
silence.
-pad remains valid until disabled by -nopad.
padsize=#
Set the amount of data to be appended as padding to the next
track to #. Opposed to the behavior of the -pad option, the
value for padsize= is reset to zero for each new track. See fs=
option for possible arguments. Use this option if your CD-drive
is not able to read the last sectors of a track or if you want
to be able to read the CD on a Linux system with the ISO-9660
filesystem read ahead bug. If an empty file is used for track
data, this option may be used to create a disk that is entirely
made of padding.
-nopad Do not pad the following tracks - the default.
-shorttrack
Allow all subsequent tracks to violate the Read Book track
length standard which requires a minimum track length of 4 sec‐
onds. This option is only useful when used in DAO mode. Not
all drives support this feature. The drive must be accept the
resulting CUE sheet.
-noshorttrack
Re-enforce the Red Book track lenght standard. Tracks must be at
least 4 seconds.
pregap=#
Set the pre-gap size for the next track. This option currently
only makes sense with the TEAC drive when creating track-at-once
disks without the 2 second silence before each track.
This option may go away in future.
-preemp
If this flag is present, all TOC entries for subsequent audio
tracks will indicate that the audio data has been sampled with
50/15 �sec preemphasis. The data, however is not modified dur‐
ing the process of transferring from file to disk. This option
has no effect on data tracks.
-nopreemp
If this flag is present, all TOC entries for subsequent audio
tracks will indicate that the audio data has been mastered with
linear data - this is the default.
tsize=#
If the master image for the next track has been stored on a raw
disk, use this option to specify the valid amount of data on
this disk. If the image of the next track is stored in a regular
file, the size of that file is taken to determine the length of
this track. If the track contains an ISO 9660 filesystem image
use the -isosize option to determine the length of that filesys‐
tem image.
In Disk at Once mode and with some drives that use the TEAC pro‐
gramming interface, even in Track at Once mode, cdrecord needs
to know the size of each track before starting to write the
disk. Cdrecord now checks this and aborts before starting to
write. If this happens you will need to run mkisofs -print-size
before and use the output as an argument to the tsize= option of
cdrecord.
See fs= option for possible arguments.
EXAMPLES
For all examples below, it will be assumed that the CD-Recorder is con‐
nected to the primary SCSI bus of the machine. The SCSI target id is
set to 2.
To record a pure CD-ROM at double speed, using data from the file cdim‐
age.raw:
cdrecord -v speed=2 dev=2,0 cdimage.raw
To create an image for a ISO 9660 filesystem with Rock Ridge exten‐
sions:
mkisofs -R -o cdimage.raw /home/joerg/master/tree
To check the resulting file before writing to CD on Solaris:
mount -r -F fbk -o type=hsfs /dev/fbk0:cdimage.raw /mnt
On Linux:
mount cdimage.raw -r -t iso9660 -o loop /mnt
Go on with:
ls -lR /mnt
umount /mnt
If the overall speed of the system is sufficient and the structure of
the filesystem is not too complex, cdrecord will run without creating
an image of the ISO 9660 filesystem. Simply run the pipeline:
mkisofs -R /master/tree | cdrecord -v fs=6m speed=2 dev=2,0 -
The recommended minimum fifo size for running this pipeline is 4
MBytes. As the default fifo size is 4 MB, the fs= option needs only be
present if you want to use a different fifo size. If your system is
loaded, you should run mkisofs in the real time class too. To raise
the priority of mkisofs replace the command
mkisofs -R /master/tree
by
priocntl -e -c RT -p 59 mkisofs -R /master/tree
on Solaris and by
nice --18 mkisofs -R /master/tree
on systems that don't have UNIX International compliant realtime sched‐
uling.
Cdrecord runs at priority 59 on Solaris, you should run mkisofs at no
more than priority 58. On other systems, you should run mkisofs at no
less than nice --18.
Creating a CD-ROM without file system image on disk has been tested on
a Sparcstation-2 with a Yamaha CDR-400. It did work up to quad speed
when the machine was not loaded. A faster machine may be able to han‐
dle quad speed also in the loaded case.
To record a pure CD-DA (audio) at single speed, with each track con‐
tained in a file named track01.cdaudio, track02.cdaudio, etc:
cdrecord -v speed=1 dev=2,0 -audio track*.cdaudio
To check if it will be ok to use double speed for the example above.
Use the dummy write option:
cdrecord -v -dummy speed=2 dev=2,0 -audio track*.cdaudio
To record a mixed-mode CD with an ISO 9660 filesystem from cdimage.raw
on the first track, the other tracks being audio tracks from the files
track01.cdaudio, track02.cdaudio, etc:
cdrecord -v -dummy dev=2,0 cdimage.raw -audio track*.cdaudio
To handle drives that need to know the size of a track before starting
to write, first run
mkisofs -R -q -print-size /master/tree
and then run
mkisofs -R /master/tree | cdrecord speed=2 dev=2,0 tsize=XXXs -
where XXX is replaced by the output of the previous run of mkisofs.
To copy an audio CD in the most accurate way, first run
cdda2wav -v255 -D2,0 -B -Owav
and then run
cdrecord -v dev=2,0 -dao -useinfo *.wav
ENVIRONMENT
CDR_DEVICE
This may either hold a device identifier that is suitable to the
open call of the SCSI transport library or a label in the file
/etc/default/cdrecord.
CDR_SPEED
Sets the default speed value for writing (see also -speed
option).
CDR_FIFOSIZE
Sets the default size of the FIFO (see also fs=# option).
FILES
/etc/default/cdrecord
Default values can be set for the following options in
/etc/default/cdrecord. For example: CDR_FIFOSIZE=8m or
CDR_SPEED=2
CDR_DEVICE
This may either hold a device identifier that is suitable
to the open call of the SCSI transport library or a label
in the file /etc/default/cdrecord that allows to identify
a specific drive on the system.
CDR_SPEED
Sets the default speed value for writing (see also -speed
option).
CDR_FIFOSIZE
Sets the default size of the FIFO (see also fs=# option).
Any other label
is an identifier for a specific drive on the system.
Such an identifier may not contain the characters ',',
'/', '@' or ':'.
Each line that follows a label contains a TAB separates
list of items. Currently, three items are recognized:
the SCSI ID of the drive, the default speed that should
be used for this drive and the default FIFO size that
should be used for this drive. The values for speed and
fifosize may be set to -1 to tell cdrecord to use the
global defaults. A typical line may look this way:
teac1= 0,5,0 4 8m
yamaha= 1,6,0 -1-1
This tells cdrecord that a drive named teac1 is at scsi‐
bus 0, target 5, lun 0 and should be used with speed 4
and a FIFO size of 8 MB. A second drive may be found at
scsibus 1, target 6, lun 0 and uses the default speed and
the default FIFO size.
SEE ALSOmkisofs(1), scg(7), fbk(7).
NOTES
On Solaris you need to stop the volume management if you like to use
the USCSI fallback SCSI transport code. Even things like cdrecord
-scanbus will not work if the volume management is running.
Disks made in Track At Once mode are not suitable as a master for
direct mass production by CD manufacturers. You will need the disk at
once option to record such disks. Nevertheless the disks made in Track
At Once will normally be read in all CD players. Some old audio CD
players however may produce a two second click between two audio
tracks.
The minimal size of a track is 4 seconds or 300 sectors. If you write
smaller tracks, the CD-Recorder will add dummy blocks. This is not an
error, even though the SCSI-error message looks this way.
Cdrecord has been tested on an upgraded Philips CDD-521 recorder at
single and double speed on a SparcStation 20/502 with no problems,
slower computer systems should work also. The newer Philips/HP/Plas‐
mon/Grundig drives as well as Yamaha CDR-100 and CDR-102 work also. The
Plasmon RF-4100 work, but has not tested in multi session. A Philips
CDD-521 that has not been upgraded will not work. The Sony CDU-924 has
been tested, but does not support XA-mode2 in hardware. The sony
therefore cannot create conforming multi session disks. The Ricoh
RO-1420C works, but some people seem to have problems to use them with
speed=2, try speed=0 in this case.
The Yamaha CDR-400 and all new SCSI-3/mmc conforming drives are sup‐
ported in single and multi-session.
You should run several tests in all supported speeds of your drive with
the -dummy option turned on if you are using cdrecord on an unknown
system. Writing a CD is a realtime process. NFS will not always
deliver constantly the needed data rates. If you want to use cdrecord
with CD-images that are located on a NFS mounted filesystem, be sure
that the fifo size is big enough. I used cdrecord with with medium
load on a SS20/502 and even at quad speed on a Sparcstation-2 which was
heavily loaded, but it is recommended to leave the system as lightly
loaded as possible while writing a CD. If you want to make sure that
buffer underrungs are not caused by your source disk, you may use the
command
cdrecord -dummy dev=2,0 padsize=600m /dev/null
to create a disk that is entirely made of dummy data. Cdrecord needs
to run as root to get access to the /dev/scg? device nodes and to be
able to lock itself into memory.
If you don't want to allow users to become root on your system,
cdrecord may safely be installed suid root. This allows all users or a
group of users with no root privileges to use cdrecord. Cdrecord in
this case checks, if the real user would have been able to read the
specified files. To give all user access to use cdrecord, enter:
chown root /usr/local/bin/cdrecord
chmod 4711 /usr/local/bin/cdrecord
To give a restricted group of users access to cdrecord enter:
chown root /usr/local/bin/cdrecord
chgrp cdburners /usr/local/bin/cdrecord
chmod 4710 /usr/local/bin/cdrecord
and add a group cdburners on your system.
Never give write permissions for non root users to the /dev/scg?
devices unless you would allow anybody to read/write/format all your
disks.
You should not connect old drives that do not support disconnect/recon‐
nect to either the SCSI bus that is connected to the CD-Recorder or the
source disk.
A Compact Disc can have no more than 99 tracks.
When creating a disc with both audio and data tracks, the data should
be on track 1 otherwise you should create a CDplus disk which is a
multi session disk with the first session containing the audio tracks
and the following session containing the data track.
Many operating systems are not able to read more than a single data
track, or need special software to do so.
More information on the SCSI command set of a HP CD-Recorder can be
found at:
http://www.hp.com/isgsupport/cdr/index.html
If you have more information or SCSI command manuals for currently
unsupported CD-Recorders please contact the author.
The Philips CDD 521 CD-Recorder (even in the upgraded version) has sev‐
eral firmware bugs. Some of them will force you to power cycle the
device or to reboot the machine.
When using cdrecord with the broken Linux SCSI generic driver. You
should note that cdrecord uses a hack, that tries to emulate the func‐
tionality of the scg driver. Unfortunately, the sg driver on Linux has
several severe bugs:
· It cannot see if a SCSI command could not be sent at all.
· It cannot get the SCSI status byte. Cdrecord for that reason
cannot report failing SCSI commands in some situations.
· It cannot get real DMA count of transfer. Cdrecord cannot tell
you if there is an DMA residual count.
· It cannot get number of bytes valid in auto sense data.
Cdrecord cannot tell you if device transfers no sense data at
all.
· It fetches to few data in auto request sense (CCS/SCSI-2/SCSI-3
needs >= 18).
The fifo percent output is computed just after a block of data has been
written to the CD-Recorder. For this reason, there will never be 100%
fifo fill, while the fifo is in streaming mode.
DIAGNOSTICS
You have 9 seconds to type ^C to abort cdrecord after you see the mes‐
sage:
Starting to write CD at speed %d in %s mode for %s session.
A typical error message for a SCSI command looks like:
cdrecord: I/O error. test unit ready: scsi sendcmd: no error
CDB: 00 20 00 00 00 00
status: 0x2 (CHECK CONDITION)
Sense Bytes: 70 00 05 00 00 00 00 0A 00 00 00 00 25 00 00 00 00 00
Sense Key: 0x5 Illegal Request, Segment 0
Sense Code: 0x25 Qual 0x00 (logical unit not supported) Fru 0x0
Sense flags: Blk 0 (not valid)
The first line gives information about the transport of the command.
The text after the first colon gives the error text for the system call
from the view of the kernel. It usually is: I/O error unless other
problems happen. The next words contain a short description for the
SCSI command that fails. The rest of the line tells you if there were
any problems for the transport of the command over the SCSI bus. fatal
error means that it was not possible to transport the command (i.e. no
device present at the requested SCSI address).
The second line prints the SCSI command descriptor block for the failed
command.
The third line gives information on the SCSI status code returned by
the command, if the transport of the command succeeds. This is error
information from the SCSI device.
The fourth line is a hex dump of the auto request sense information for
the command.
The fifth line is the error text for the sense key if available, fol‐
lowed by the segment number that is only valid if the command was a
copy command. If the error message is not directly related to the cur‐
rent command, the text deferred error is appended.
The sixth line is the error text for the sense code and the sense qual‐
ifier if available. If the type of the device is known, the sense data
is decoded from tables in scsierrs.c . The text is followed by the
error value for a field replaceable unit.
The seventh line prints the block number that is related to the failed
command and text for several error flags. The block number may not be
valid.
The following message is not an error:
Track 01: Total bytes read/written: 2048/2048 (1 sectors).
cdrecord: I/O error. flush cache: scsi sendcmd: no error
CDB: 35 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
status: 0x2 (CHECK CONDITION)
Sense Bytes: F0 00 05 80 00 00 27 0A 00 00 00 00 B5 00 00 00 00 00
Sense Key: 0x5 Illegal Request, Segment 0
Sense Code: 0xB5 Qual 0x00 (dummy data blocks added) Fru 0x0
Sense flags: Blk -2147483609 (valid)
It simply notifies, that a track that is smaller than the minimum size
has been expanded to 300 sectors.
BUGS
Cdrecord has even more options than ls.
Cdrecord currently only warns if the input data will not fit on the
disk. If you don't abort the command you will get unpredictable
results.
There should be an option to write index numbers for audio tracks.
There should be a recover option to make disks usable, that have been
written during a power failure.
CREDITS
Bill Swartz (Bill_Swartz@twolf.com)
For helping me with the TEAC driver support
Aaron Newsome (aaron.d.newsome@wdc.com)
For letting me develop Sony support on his drive
Eric Youngdale (eric@andante.jic.com)
For supplying mkisofs
Gadi Oxman (gadio@netvision.net.il)
For tips on the ATAPI standard
Finn Arne Gangstad (finnag@guardian.no)
For the first FIFO implementation.
Dave Platt (dplatt@feghoot.ml.org)
For creating the experimental packet writing support,
the first implementation of CD-RW blanking support, the
first .wav file decoder and many nice discussions on
cdrecord.
Chris P. Ross (cross@eng.us.uu.net)
For the first implementation os a BSDI SCSI rtansport.
Grant R. Guenther (grant@torque.net)
For creating the first parallel port transport implemen‐
tation for Linux.
Kenneth D. Merry (ken@kdm.org)
for providing the CAM port for FreeBSD together with
Michael Smith (msmith@freebsd.org)
MAILING LISTS
If you want to actively take part on the development of cdrecord, you
may join the cdwriting mailing list by sending mail to:
other-cdwrite-request@lists.debian.org
and include the word subscribe in the body. The mail address of the
list is:
cdwrite@lists.debian.org
AUTHOR
Joerg Schilling
Seestr. 110
D-13353 Berlin
Germany
Additional information can be found on:
http://www.fokus.gmd.de/usr/schilling/cdrecord.html
Mail bugs and suggestions to:
joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de or js@cs.tu-berlin.de or
schilling@fokus.gmd.de
Joerg Schilling Version 1.8.1 CDRECORD(1)