CDRECORD(1) Schily´s USER COMMANDS CDRECORD(1)NAME
cdrecord - record audio or data Compact Disks or Digital Versatile
Disks 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 or to write DVD media on a DVD-Recorder.
The device refers to scsibus/target/lun of the CD/DVD-Recorder. Commu‐
nication on SunOS is done with the SCSI general driver scg. Other
operating systems are using a library simulation of this driver. Pos‐
sible syntax is: dev= scsibus,target,lun or dev= target,lun. In the
latter case, the CD/DVD-Recorder has to be connected to the default
SCSI bus of the machine. Scsibus, target and lun are integer numbers.
Some operating systems or SCSI transport implementations may require to
specify a filename in addition. In this case the correct syntax for
the device is: dev= devicename:scsibus,target,lun or dev= device‐
name:target,lun. If the name of the device node that has been speci‐
fied on such a system refers to exactly one SCSI device, a shorthand in
the form dev= devicename:@ or dev= devicename:@,lun may be used instead
of dev= devicename:scsibus,target,lun.
To access remote SCSI devices, you need to prepend the SCSI device name
by a remote device indicator. The remote device indicator is either
REMOTE:user@host: or REMOTE:host:
A valid remote SCSI device name may be: REMOTE:user@host: to allow
remote SCSI bus scanning or REMOTE:user@host:1,0,0 to access the SCSI
device at host connected to SCSI bus # 1,target 0 lun 0.
Cdrecord is completely based on SCSI commands but this is no problem as
all CD/DVD writers ever made use SCSI commands for the communication.
Even ATAPI drives are just SCSI drives that inherently use the ATA
packet interface as SCSI command transport layer build into the IDE
(ATA) transport. You may need to specify an alternate transport layer
on the command line if your OS does not implement a fully integrated
kernel driver subsystem that allows to access any drive using SCSI com‐
mands via a single unique user interface.
To access SCSI devices via alternate transport layers, you need to
prepend the SCSI device name by a transport layer indicator. The
transport layer indicator may be something like USCSI: or ATAPI:. To
get a list of supported transport layers for your platform, use dev=
HELP:
To make cdrecord portable to all UNIX platforms, the syntax dev= devi‐
cename:scsibus,target,lun is preferred as it hides OS specific knowl‐
edge about device names from the user. A specific OS may not necessar‐
ily support a way to specify a real device file name nor a way to spec‐
ify 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 real time class to get the
highest scheduling priority that is possible (higher than all kernel
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 order to be able to use the SCSI transport subsystem of the OS, run
at highest priority and lock itself into core cdrecord either needs to
be run as root, needs to be installed suid root or must be called via
RBACs pfexec mechanism.
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. In the other write modes, the direct file to track rela‐
tion may not be implemented. In -clone mode, a single file contains
all data for the whole disk. To allow DVD writing on platforms that do
not implement large file support, cdrecord concatenates all file argu‐
ments to a single track when writing to DVD media.
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/DVD-Recorder. If you get incom‐
prehensible 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.
debug=#, -d
Set the misc debug value to # (with debug=#) or increment the
misc debug level by one (with -d). If you specify -dd, this
equals to debug=2. This may help to find problems while opening
a driver for libscg as well as with sector sizes and sector
types. Using -debug slows down the process and may be the rea‐
son for a buffer underrun.
kdebug=#, kd=#
Tell the scg-driver to modify the kernel debug value while SCSI
commands are running.
-silent, -s
Do not print out a status report for failed SCSI commands.
-force Force to continue on some errors. Be careful when using this
option. Cdrecord implements several checks that prevent you
from doing unwanted things like damaging CD-RW media by improper
drives. Many of the sanity checks are disabled when the -force
option is used.
This option also implements some tricks that will allow you to
blank bad CD-RW disks.
-immed Tell cdrecord to set the SCSI IMMED flag in certain commands
(load/eject/blank/close_track/close_session). This can be use‐
ful on broken systems with ATAPI harddisk and CD/DVD writer on
the same bus or with SCSI systems that don't use discon‐
nect/reconnect. These systems will freeze while blanking or
fixating a CD/DVD or while a DVD writer is filling up a session
to the minimum amount (approx. 800 MB). Setting the -immed flag
will request the command to return immediately while the opera‐
tion proceeds in background, making the bus usable for the other
devices and avoiding the system freeze. This is an experimental
feature which may work or not, depending on the model of the
CD/DVD writer. A correct solution would be to set up a correct
cabling but there seem to be notebooks around that have been set
up the wrong way by the manufacturer. As it is impossible to
fix this problem in notebooks, the -immed option has been added.
A second experimental feature of the -immed flag is to tell
cdrecord to try to wait short times while writing to the media.
This is expected to free the IDE bus if the CD/DVD writer and
the data source are connected to the same IDE cable. In this
case, the CD/DVD writer would otherwise usually block the IDE
bus for nearly all the time making it impossible to fetch data
from the source drive. See also minbuf= and -v option.
Use both features at your own risk. If it turns out that it
would make sense to have a separate option for the wait feature,
write to the author and convince him.
minbuf=value
The # minbuf= option allows to define the minimum drive buffer
fill ratio for the experimental ATAPI wait mode that is intended
to free the IDE bus to allow hard disk and CD/DVD writer to be
on the same IDE cable. As the wait mode currently only works
when the verbose option -v has been specified, cdrecord implies
the verbose option in case the -immed or minbuf= option have
been specified. Valid values for minbuf= are between 25 and 95
for 25%...95% minimum drive buffer fill ratio.
-dummy The CD/DVD-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 or Digital Versatile Disk, if the timing and load
response of the system is not known.
-clone Tells cdrecord to handle images created by readcd -clone. The
-clone may only be used in conjunction with with the -raw96r or
with the -raw16 option. Using -clone together with -raw96r is
preferred as it allows to write all subchannel data. The option
-raw16 should only be used with drives that do not support to
write in -raw96r mode.
-dao
-sao Set SAO (Session At Once) mode which is usually called Disk At
Once mode. This currently only works with MMC drives that sup‐
port Session At Once mode. Note that cdrecord needs to know the
size of each track in advance for this mode (see the mkisofs
-print-size option and the EXAMPLES section for more informa‐
tion).
-tao Set TAO (Track At Once) writing mode. This is the default write
mode in previous cdrecord versions. With most drives, this
write mode is required for multi session recording.
-raw Set RAW writing mode. Using this option defaults to -raw96r.
Note that cdrecord needs to know the size of each track in
advance for this mode (see the mkisofs -print-size option and
the EXAMPLES section for more information).
-raw96r
Select Set RAW writing mode with 2352 byte sectors plus 96 bytes
of raw P-W subchannel data resulting in a sector size of 2448
bytes. This is the preferred raw writing mode as it gives best
control over the CD writing process. If you find any problems
with the layout of a disk or with sub channel content (e.g.
wrong times on the display when playing the CD) and your drive
supports to write in -raw96r or -raw16 mode, you should give it
a try. There are several CD writers with bad firmware that
result in broken disks when writing in TAO or SAO mode. Writing
data disks in raw mode needs significantly more CPU time than
other write modes. If your CPU is too slow, this may result in
buffer underruns. Note that cdrecord needs to know the size of
each track in advance for this mode (see the mkisofs -print-size
option and the EXAMPLES section for more information).
-raw96p
Select Set RAW writing mode with 2352 byte sectors plus 96 bytes
of packed P-W subchannel data resulting in a sector size of 2448
bytes. This is the less preferred raw writing mode as only a
few recorders support it and some of these recorders have bugs
in the firmware implementation. Don't use this mode if your
recorder supports -raw96r or -raw16. Writing data disks in raw
mode needs significantly more CPU time than other write modes.
If your CPU is too slow, this may result in buffer underruns.
Note that cdrecord needs to know the size of each track in
advance for this mode (see the mkisofs -print-size option and
the EXAMPLES section for more information).
-raw16 Select Set RAW writing mode with 2352 byte sectors plus 16 bytes
of P-Q subchannel data resulting in a sector size of 2368 bytes.
If a recorder does not support -raw96r, this is the preferred
raw writing mode. It does not allow to write CD-Text or
CD+Graphics but it is the only raw writing mode in cheap CD
writers. As these cheap writers in most cases do not support
-dao mode. Don't use this mode if your recorder supports
-raw96r. Writing data disks in raw mode needs significantly
more CPU time than other write modes. If your CPU is too slow,
this may result in buffer underruns. Note that cdrecord needs
to know the size of each track in advance for this mode (see the
mkisofs -print-size option and the EXAMPLES section for more
information).
-multi Allow multi session CDs 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/DVD-
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 CDs
(except for CDplus). Use only for recording of multi session
CDs. If this option is present, the default track type is CD-
ROM XA mode 2 form 1 and the sector size is 2048 bytes. The XA
sector subheaders will be created by the drive. The Sony drives
have no hardware support for CD-ROM XA mode 2 form 1. 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 SAO mode. Not all drives allow
multisession CDs in 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 Pre-groove)
info of a CD/DVD recordable or CD/DVD re-writable 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. DVD media does not have ATIP information
but there is equivalent prerecorded information that is read out
and printed.
-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.
-lock Load the media, lock the door 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, about 172 KB/s for CD-Audio and about
1385 kB/s for DVD media. If no speed option is present,
cdrecord will try to get a drive specific speed value from the
file /etc/default/cdrecord and if it cannot find one, it will
try to get the speed value from the CDR_SPEED environment and
later from the CDR_SPEED= entry in /etc/default/cdrecord. If no
speed value could be found, cdrecord uses a drive specific
default speed. The default for all new (MMC compliant) drives
is to use the maximum supported by the drive. If you use
speed=0 with a MMC compliant drive, cdrecord will switch to the
lowest possible speed for drive and medium. If you are using an
old (non MMC) drive that has problems 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.
Not all drives support all blanking types. It may be necessary to use
blank=all if a drive reports a specified command as being invalid. 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 cdrecord 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.
-format
Format a CD-RW/DVD-RW/DVD+RW disc. Formatting is currently only
implemented for DVD+RW media. A 'maiden' DVD+RW media needs to
be formatted before you may write to it. However, as cdrecord
autodetects the need for formatting in this case and auto for‐
mats the medium before it starts writing, the -format option is
only needed if you like to forcibly reformat a DVD+RW medium.
fs=# Set the FIFO (ring buffer) size to #. You may use the same syn‐
tax 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' or `f',
the size is multiplied by 512, 1024, 1024*1024, 2048 or 2352.
If the size consists of numbers separated by `x' or `*', multi‐
plication 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 128 MBytes.
As a rule of thumb, the FIFO size should be at least equal to
the size of the internal buffer of the CD/DVD-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 at a speed less
than 20x from an image on a local file system on an idle
machine, your machine is either underpowered, has hardware prob‐
lems or is mis-configured. If you like to write DVDs or to
write CDs at higher speed, it makes sense to use at least 16 MB
for the FIFO.
On old and small machines, you need to be more careful with the
FIFO size. If your machine has less than 256 MB of physical
RAM, you should not set up a FIFO size that is more than 32 MB.
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 constantly 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.
Old Linux systems for non x86 platforms have broken definitions
for the shared memory size. You need to fix them and rebuild the
kernel or manually tell cdrecord to use a smaller FIFO.
If you have buffer underruns or similar problems (like a con‐
stantly empty drive buffer) and observe a zero fifo empty count,
you have hardware problems that prevents the data from flowing
fast enough from the kernel memory to the drive. The FIFO size
in this case is sufficient, but you should check for a working
DMA setup.
ts=# Set the maximum transfer size for a single SCSI command to #.
The syntax for the ts= option is the same as for cdrecord fs=#
or sdd bs=#.
If no ts= option has been specified, cdrecord defaults to a
transfer size of 63 kB. If libscg gets lower values from the
operating system, the value is reduced to the maximum value that
is possible with the current operating system. Sometimes, it
may help to further reduce the transfer size or to enhance it,
but note that it may take a long time to find a better value by
experimenting with the ts= option.
dev=target
Sets the SCSI target for the CD/DVD-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).
gracetime=#
Set the grace time before starting to write to # seconds. Val‐
ues below 2 seconds are not allowed.
timeout=#
Set the default SCSI command timeout value to # seconds. The
default SCSI command timeout is the minimum timeout used for
sending SCSI commands. If a SCSI command fails due to a time‐
out, you may try to raise the default SCSI command timeout above
the timeout value of the failed command. If the command runs
correctly with a raised command timeout, please report the bet‐
ter 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 the user to manually select a driver for the device. The
reason for the existence of the driver=name option is to allow
users to use cdrecord with drives that are similar to supported
drives but not known directly by cdrecord. All drives made
after 1997 should be MMC standard compliant and thus supported
by one of the MMC drivers. It is most unlikely that cdrecord is
unable to find the right driver automatically. 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.
The following driver names are supported:
help To get a list of possible drivers together with a short
description.
mmc_cd The generic SCSI-3/mmc CD-ROM driver is auto-selected
whenever cdrecord finds a MMC compliant drive that does
not identify itself to support writing at all, or that
only identifies to support media or write modes not
implemented in cdrecord.
mmc_cd_dvd
The generic SCSI-3/mmc CD/DVD driver is auto-selected
whenever cdrecord finds a MMC-2 or MMC-3 compliant drive
that seems to support more than one medium type and the
tray is open or no medium could be found to select the
right driver. This driver tries to close the tray,
checks the medium found in the tray and then branches to
the driver that matches the current medium.
mmc_cdr
The generic SCSI-3/mmc CD-R/CD-RW driver is auto-selected
whenever cdrecord find a MMC compliant drive that only
supports to write CDs or a multi system drive that con‐
tains a CD as the current medium.
mmc_cdr_sony
The generic SCSI-3/mmc CD-R/CD-RW driver is auto-selected
whenever cdrecord would otherwise select the mmc_cdr
driver but the device seems to be made by Sony. The
mmc_cdr_sony is definitely needed for the Sony CDU 928 as
this drive does not completely implement the MMC standard
and some of the MMC SCSI commands have to be replaced by
Sony proprietary commands. It seems that all Sony drives
(even newer ones) still implement the Sony proprietary
SCSI commands so it has not yet become a problem to use
this driver for all Sony drives. If you find a newer Sony
drive that does not work with this driver, please report.
mmc_dvd
The generic SCSI-3/mmc-2 DVD-R/DVD-RW driver is auto-
selected whenever cdrecord finds a MMC-2 or MMC-3 compli‐
ant drive that supports to write DVDs and an appropriate
medium is loaded. There is no Track At Once mode for DVD
writers.
mmc_dvdplus
The generic SCSI-3/mmc-3 DVD+R/DVD+RW driver is auto-
selected whenever one of the DVD+ media types that are
incompatible to each other is found. It checks media and
then branches to the driver that matches the current
medium.
mmc_dvdplusr
The generic SCSI-3/mmc-3 DVD+R driver is auto-selected
whenever a DVD+R medium is found in an appropriate
writer. Note that for unknown reason, the DVD-Plus
alliance does not like that there is a simulation mode
for DVD+R media. The author of cdrecord tries to con‐
vince manufacturers to implement a simulation mode for
DVD+R and implement support. DVD+R only supports one
write mode that is somewhere between Track At Once and
Packet writing; this mode is selected in cdrecord via a
the -dao/-sao option.
mmc_dvdplusrw
The generic SCSI-3/mmc-3 DVD+RW driver is auto-selected
whenever a DVD+RW medium is found in an appropriate
writer. As DVD+RW media needs to be formatted before
it's first use, cdrecord auto-detects this media state
and performs a format before it starts to write. Note
that for unknown reason, the DVD-Plus alliance does not
like that there is a simulation mode nor a way to erase
DVD+RW media. DVD+RW only supports one write mode that
is close to Packet writing; this mode is selected in
cdrecord via a the -dao/-sao option.
cw_7501
The driver for Matsushita/Panasonic CW-7501 is auto-
selected when cdrecord finds this old pre MMC drive.
Cdrecord supports all write modes for this drive type.
kodak_pcd_600
The driver for Kodak PCD-600 is auto-selected when
cdrecord finds this old pre MMC drive which has been the
first high speed (6x) CD writer for a long time. This
drive behaves similar to the Philips CDD-521 drive.
philips_cdd521
The driver for Philips CDD-521 is auto-selected when
cdrecord finds a Philips CDD-521 drive (which is the
first CD writer ever made) or one of the other drives
that are known to behave similar to this drive. All
Philips CDD-521 or similar drives (see other drivers in
this list) do not support Session At Once recording.
philips_cdd521_old
The driver for Philips old CDD-521 is auto-selected when
cdrecord finds a Philips CDD-521 with very old firmware
which has some known limitations.
philips_cdd522
The driver for Philips CDD-522 is auto-selected when
cdrecord finds a Philips CDD-522 which is the successor
of the 521 or one of it's variants with Kodak label.
Cdrecord does not support Session At Once recording with
these drives.
philips_dumb
The driver for Philips CDD-521 with pessimistic assump‐
tions is never auto-selected. It may be used by hand
with drives that behave similar to the Philips CDD-521.
pioneer_dws114x
The driver for Pioneer DW-S114X is auto-selected when
cdrecord finds one of the old non MMC CD writers from
Pioneer.
plasmon_rf4100
The driver for Plasmon RF 4100 is auto-selected when
cdrecord finds this specific variant of the Philips
CDD-521.
ricoh_ro1060c
The driver for Ricoh RO-1060C is auto-selected when
cdrecord finds this drive. There is no real support for
this drive yet.
ricoh_ro1420c
The driver for Ricoh RO-1420C is auto-selected when
cdrecord finds a drive with this specific variant of the
Philips CDD-521 command set.
scsi2_cd
The generic SCSI-2 CD-ROM driver is auto-selected when‐
ever cdrecord finds a pre MMC drive that does not support
writing or a pre MMC writer that is not supported by
cdrecord.
sony_cdu924
The driver for Sony CDU-924 / CDU-948 is auto-selected
whenever cdrecord finds one of the old pre MMC CD writers
from Sony.
teac_cdr50
The driver for Teac CD-R50S, Teac CD-R55S, JVC XR-W2010,
Pinnacle RCD-5020 is auto-selected whenever one of the
drives is found that is known to the non MMC command set
used by TEAC and JVC. Note that many drives from JVC
will not work because they do not correctly implement the
documented command set and JVC has been unwilling to fix
or document the bugs. There is no support for the Ses‐
sion At Once write mode yet.
tyuden_ew50
The driver for Taiyo Yuden EW-50 is auto-selected when
cdrecord finds a drive with this specific variant of the
Philips CDD-521 command set.
yamaha_cdr100
The driver for Yamaha CDR-100 / CDR-102 is auto-selected
when cdrecord finds one of the old pre MMC CD writers
from Yamaha. There is no support for the Session At Once
write mode yet.
cdr_simul
The simulation CD-R driver allows to run timing and speed
tests with parameters that match the behavior of CD writ‐
ers.
dvd_simul
The simulation DVD-R driver allows to run timing and
speed tests with parameters that match the behavior of
DVD writers.
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 1 MB that can be changed via the
CDR_SIMUL_BUFSIZE environment variable. The simulation driver
correctly simulates even a buffer underrun condition. If the
-dummy option is present, the simulation 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. If you
like to set driver options without running a typical cdrecord
task, you need to use the -setdropts option in addition, other‐
wise the command line parser in cdrecord will complain. Cur‐
rently implemented driver options are:
burnfree
Turn the support for Buffer Underrun Free writing on.
This only works for drives that support Buffer Underrun
Free technology. This may be called: Sanyo BURN-Proof,
Ricoh Just-Link, Yamaha Lossless-Link or similar.
The default is to turn BURN-Free off, regardless of the
defaults of the drive.
noburnfree
Turn the support for Buffer Underrun Free writing off.
varirec=value
Turn on the Plextor VariRec writing mode. The mandatory
parameter value is the laser power offset and currently
may be selected from -2, -1, 0, 1, 2. In addition, you
need to set the write speed to 4 in order to allow
VariRec to work.
audiomaster
Turn on the Yamaha Audio Master Q. R. feature which usu‐
ally should result in high quality CDs that have less
reading problems in Hi-Fi players. As this is imple‐
mented as a variant of the Session at Once write mode, it
will only work if you select SAO write mode and there is
no need to turn it off. The Audio Master mode will work
with a limited speed but may also be used with data CDs.
In Audio Master mode, the pits on the CD will be written
larger then usual so the capacity of the medium is
reduced when turning this feature on. A 74 minute CD
will only have a capacity of 63 minutes if Audio Master
is active and the capacity of a 80 minute CD will be
reduced to 68 minutes.
forcespeed
Normally, modern drives know the highest possible speed
for different media and may reduce the speed in order to
grant best write quality. This technology may be called:
Plextor PowerRec, Ricoh Just-Speed, Yamaha Optimum Write
Speed Control or similar. Some drives (e.g. Plextor,
Ricoh and Yamaha) allow to force the drive to use the
selected speed even if the medium is so bad that the
write quality would be poor. This option tells such a
drive to force to use the selected speed regardless of
the medium quality.
Use this option with extreme care and note that the drive
should know better which medium will work at full speed.
The default is to turn forcespeed off, regardless of the
defaults of the drive.
noforcespeed
Turn off the force speed feature.
speedread
Some ultra high speed drives such as 48x and faster
drives from Plextor limit the read speed for unknown
media to e.g. 40x in order to avoid damaged disks and
drives. Using this option tells the drive to read any
media as fast as possible. Be very careful as this may
cause the media to break in the drive while reading,
resulting in a damaged media and drive!
nospeedread
Turn off unlimited read speed.
singlesession
Turn the drive into a single session only drive. This
allows to read defective or non-compliant (illegal) media
with extremely non-standard additional (broken/illegal)
TOC entries in the TOC from the second or higher session.
Some of these disks become usable if only the information
from the first session is used. You need to enable Sin‐
gle Session mode before you insert the defective disk!
nosinglesession
Turn off single session mode. The drive will again behave
as usual.
hidecdr
Hide the fact that a medium might be a recordable medium.
This allows to make CD-Rs look like CD-ROMs and applica‐
tions believe that the media in the drive is not a CD-R.
nohidecdr
Turn off hiding CD-R media.
tattooinfo
Use this option together with -checkdrive to retrieve the
image size information for the Yamaha DiskT@2 feature.
The images always have a line length of 3744 pixel. Line
number 0 (radius 0) is mapped to the center of the disk.
If you know the inner and outer radius you will be able
to create a pre distorted image that later may appear
undistorted on the disk.
tattoofile=name
Use this option together with -checkdrive to write an
image prepared for the Yamaha DiskT@2 feature to the
medium. The file must be a file with raw image B&W data
(one byte per pixel) in a size as retrieved by a previous
call to tattoofile=name . If the size of the image
equals the maximum possible size (3744 x 320 pixel),
cdrecord will use the first part of the file. This first
part then will be written to the leftover space on the
CD.
Note that the image must be mirrored to be readable from
the pick up side of the CD.
-setdropts
Set the driveropts specified by driveropts=option list, the
speed of the drive and the dummy flag and exit. This allows
cdrecord to set drive specific parameters that are not directly
used by cdrecord like e.g. single session mode, hide cdr and
similar. It is needed in case that driveropts=option list
should be called without planning to run a typical cdrecord
task.
-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/DVD-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.
-abort Try to send an abort sequence to the drive. If you use cdrecord
only, this should never be needed; but other software may leave
a drive in an unusable condition. Calling cdrecord -reset may
be needed if a previous write has been interrupted and the soft‐
ware did not tell the drive that it will not continue to write.
-overburn
Allow cdrecord to write more than the official size of a medium.
This feature is usually called overburning and depends on the
fact that most blank media may hold more space than the official
size. As the official size of the lead-out area on the disk is
90 seconds (6750 sectors) and a disk usually works if there are
at least 150 sectors of lead out, all media may be overburned by
at least 88 seconds (6600 sectors). Most CD recorders only do
overburning in SAO or RAW mode. Known exceptions are TEAC CD-
R50S, TEAC CD-R55S and the Panasonic CW-7502. Some drives do
not allow to overburn as much as you might like and limit the
size of a CD to e.g. 76 minutes. This problem may be circum‐
vented by writing the CD in RAW mode because this way the drive
has no chance to find the size before starting to burn. There
is no guarantee that your drive supports overburning at all.
Make a test to check if your drive implements the feature.
-ignsize
Ignore the known size of the medium. This option 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. This option implies -overburn.
-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.
If used together with the -audio option, cdrecord may be used to
write audio CDs from a pipe from cdda2wav if you call cdrecord
with the *.inf files as track parameter list instead of using
audio files. The audio data is read from stdin in this case.
See EXAMPLES section below. Cdrecord first verifies that stdin
is not connected to a terminal and runs some heuristic consis‐
tency checks on the *.inf files and then sets the track lengths
from the information in the *.inf files.
If you like to write from stdin, make sure that cdrecord is
called with a large enough FIFO size, reduce the write speed to
a value below the read speed of the source drive and switch the
burn-free option for the recording drive on.
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 packet 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.
-text Write CD-Text information based on information taken from a file
that contains ascii information for the text strings. Cdrecord
supports CD-Text information based on the content of the *.inf
files created by cdda2wav and CD-Text information based on the
content from a CUE sheet file. If a CUE sheet file contains
both (binary CDTEXTFILE and text based SONGWRITER) entries, then
the information based on the CDTEXTFILE entry will win.
You need to use the -useinfo option in addition in order to tell
cdrecord to read the *.inf files or cuefile=filename in order to
tell cdrecord to read a CUE sheet file in addition. If you like
to write your own CD-Text information, edit the *.inf files or
the CUE sheet file with a text editor and change the fields that
are relevant for CD-Text.
textfile=filename
Write CD-Text based on information found in the binary file
filename. This file must contain information in a data format
defined in the SCSI-3 MMC-2 standard and in the Red Book. The
four byte size header that is defined in the SCSI standard is
optional and allows to make the recognition of correct data less
ambiguous. This is the best option to be used to copy CD-Text
data from existing CDs that already carry CD-Text information.
To get data in a format suitable for this option use cdrecord
-vv -toc to extract the information from disk. If both,
textfile=filename and CD-Text information from *.inf or *.cue
files are present, textfile=filename will overwrite the other
information.
cuefile=filename
Take all recording related information from a CDRWIN compliant
CUE sheet file. No track files are allowed when this option is
present and the option -dao is currently needed in addition.
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 size 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 CD-drives with 2 KB
sector size to be used for reading.
-data is the default, if no other flag is present and the file
does not appear to be of one of the well known audio file types.
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 size is a multiple of 2336 bytes.
-xa If this flag is present, all subsequent tracks are written in
CD-ROM XA mode 2 form 1 format. The data size is a multiple of
2048 bytes. The XA sector sub headers will be created by the
drive. With this option, the write mode is the same as with the
-multi option.
-xa1 If this flag is present, all subsequent tracks are written in
CD-ROM XA mode 2 form 1 format. The data size is a multiple of
2056 bytes. The XA sector sub headers are part of the user data
and have to be supplied by the application that prepares the
data to be written.
-xa2 If this flag is present, all subsequent tracks are written in
CD-ROM XA mode 2 form 2 format. The data is a multiple of 2324
bytes. The XA sector sub headers will be created by the drive.
-xamix If this flag is present, all subsequent tracks are written in a
way that allows a mix of CD-ROM XA mode 2 form 1/2 format. The
data size is a multiple of 2332 bytes. The XA sector sub head‐
ers are part of the user data and have to be supplied by the
application that prepares the data to be written. The CRC and
the P/Q parity ECC/EDC information (depending on the sector
type) have to be supplied by the application that prepares the
data to be written.
-cdi If this flag is present, the TOC type for the disk is set to
CDI. This only makes sense with XA disks.
-isosize
Use the ISO-9660 file system size as the size of the next track.
This option is needed if you want cdrecord to directly read the
image of a track from a raw disk partition or from a TAO 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 -isosize 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 underrun that would cause a
defective copy. Do not use this option on files created by
mkisofs and in case cdrecord reads the track data from stdin.
In the first case, you would prevent cdrecord from writing the
amount of padding that has been appended by mkisofs and in the
latter case, it will not work because stdin is not seekable.
If -isosize is used for a track, cdrecord will automatically add
padding for this track as if the -pad option has been used but
the amount of padding may be less than the padding written by
mkisofs. Note that if you use -isosize on a track that contains
Sparc boot information, the boot information will be lost.
Note also that this option 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.
Cdrecord assumes a sector size of 2048 bytes for the padsize=
option, independent from the real sector size and independent
from the write mode. The megabytes mentioned in the verbose
mode output however are counting the output sector size which is
e.g. 2448 bytes when writing in RAW/RAW96 mode. See fs= option
for possible arguments. To pad the equivalent of 20 minutes on
a CD, you may write padsize=20x60x75s. 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. This may e.g. be used to find out how
much overburning is possible with a specific media.
-nopad Do not pad the following tracks - the default.
-shorttrack
Allow all subsequent tracks to violate the Red Book track length
standard which requires a minimum track length of 4 seconds.
This option is only useful when used in SAO or RAW mode. Not
all drives support this feature. The drive must accept the
resulting CUE sheet or support RAW writing.
-noshorttrack
Re-enforce the Red Book track length 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 microsec pre-emphasis. The data, however is not modified
during 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.
-copy If this flag is present, all TOC entries for subsequent audio
tracks of the resulting CD will indicate that the audio data has
permission to be copied without limit. This option has no
effect on data tracks.
-nocopy
If this flag is present, all TOC entries for subsequent audio
tracks of the resulting CD will indicate that the audio data has
permission to be copied only once for personal use - this is the
default.
-scms If this flag is present, all TOC entries for subsequent audio
tracks of the resulting CD will indicate that the audio data has
no permission to be copied anymore.
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 (with `s' appended) as an argument to
the tsize= option of cdrecord (e.g. tsize=250000s).
See fs= option for possible arguments.
EXAMPLES
For all examples below, it will be assumed that the CD/DVD-Recorder is
connected 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 real-time
scheduling.
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 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 dev=2,0 -vall cddb=0 -B -Owav
and then run
cdrecord dev=2,0 -v -dao -useinfo -text *.wav
This will try to copy track indices and to read CD-Text information
from disk. If there is no CD-Text information, cdda2wav will try to
get the information from freedb.org instead.
To copy an audio CD from a pipe (without intermediate files), first run
cdda2wav dev=1,0 -vall cddb=0 -info-only
and then run
cdda2wav dev=1,0 -no-infofile -B -Oraw - | \
cdrecord dev=2,0 -v -dao -audio -useinfo -text *.inf
This will get all information (including track size info) from the
*.inf files and then read the audio data from stdin.
If you like to write from stdin, make sure that cdrecord is called with
a large enough FIFO size (e.g. fs=128m), reduce the write speed to a
value below the read speed of the source drive (e.g. speed=12), and
switch the burn-free option for the recording drive on by adding
driveropts=burnfree.
To set drive options without writing a CD (e.g. to switch a drive to
single session mode), run
cdrecord dev=1,0 -setdropts driveropts=singlesession
If you like to do this when no CD is in the drive, call
cdrecord dev=1,0 -force -setdropts driveropts=singlesession
To copy a CD in clone mode, first read the master CD using:
readcd dev=b,t,l -clone f=somefile
or (in case the CD contains many sectors that are unreadable by inten‐
tion) by calling:
readcd dev=1,0 -clone -nocorr f=somefile
will create the files somefile and somefile.toc. Then write the CD
using:
cdrecord dev=1,0 -raw96r -clone -v somefile
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).
CDR_FORCERAWSPEED
If this environment variable is set, cdrecord will allow you to
write at the full RAW encoding speed a single CPU supports.
This will create high potential of buffer underruns. Use with
care.
CDR_FORCESPEED
If this environment variable is set, cdrecord will allow you to
write at the full DMA speed the system supports. There is no
DMA reserve for reading the data that is to be written from
disk. This will create high potential of buffer underruns. Use
with care.
RSH If the RSH environment is present, the remote connection will
not be created via rcmd(3) but by calling the program pointed to
by RSH. Use e.g. RSH=/usr/bin/ssh to create a secure shell
connection.
Note that this forces cdrecord to create a pipe to the rsh(1)
program and disallows cdrecord to directly access the network
socket to the remote server. This makes it impossible to set up
performance parameters and slows down the connection compared to
a root initiated rcmd(3) connection.
RSCSI If the RSCSI environment is present, the remote SCSI server will
not be the program /opt/schily/sbin/rscsi but the program
pointed to by RSCSI. Note that the remote SCSI server program
name will be ignored if you log in using an account that has
been created with a remote SCSI server program as login shell.
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 separated
list of items. Currently, four items are recognized: the
SCSI ID of the drive, the default speed that should be
used for this drive, the default FIFO size that should be
used for this drive and drive specific options. The val‐
ues for speed and fifosize may be set to -1 to tell
cdrecord to use the global defaults. The value for
driveropts may be set to "" if no driveropts are used. A
typical line may look this way:
teac1= 0,5,0 4 8m ""
yamaha= 1,6,0 -1-1 burnfree
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 ALSOcdda2wav(1), readcd(1), scg(7), fbk(7), mkisofs(8), rcmd(3), ssh(1).
NOTES
Not all options described in this manual may be supported by the GPL
variant of cdrecord. Cdrecord issues a warning if an attempt is made to
use an option that has been disabled in the GPL variant.
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 real-time 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 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
underruns 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/DVD-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/DVD-Recorder. For this reason, there will never be
100% FIFO fill ratio 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)
cmd finished after 0.002s timeout 40s
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 eight line reports the timeout set up for this command and the time
that the command really needed to complete.
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)
cmd finished after 0.002s timeout 40s
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.
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 of a BSDI SCSI transport.
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)
Heiko Eiszfeldt (heiko@hexco.de)
for making libedc_ecc available (needed to write RAW
data sectors).
MAILING LISTS
If you want to actively take part on the development of cdrecord, you
may join the developer mailing list via this URL:
http://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/cdrecord-developers
The mail address of the list is: cdwrite@other.debian.org
AUTHOR
Joerg Schilling
Seestr. 110
D-13353 Berlin
Germany
Additional information can be found on:
http://www.fokus.fhg.de/usr/schilling/cdrecord.html
If you have support questions, send them to:
cdrecord-support@berlios.de
or cdwrite@other.debian.org
If you have definitely found a bug, send a mail to:
cdrecord-developers@berlios.de
or schilling@fokus.fhg.de
To subscribe, use:
http://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/cdrecord-developers
or http://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/cdrecord-support
The old cdwrite mailing list may be joined by sending mail to:
cdwrite-request@other.debian.org
and including the word subscribe in the body. The mail address of the
list is:
cdwrite@other.debian.org
Joerg Schilling Version 2.0 CDRECORD(1)
