/usr/man/man.1/dvdrecord.1
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. Communication on SunOS is done with the SCSI gen-
eral driver scg. Other operating 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/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 implemen-
tations may require to specify a filename in addition. In
this case the correct syntax for the device is: dev=
devicename:scsibus,target, or dev= devicename:target,lun.
If the name of the device node that has been specified 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,
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 commands via a single unique user inter-
face.
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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= devicename:scsibus,target, is preferred as it hides OS
specific knowledge about device names from the user. A
specific OS may not necessarily 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 messages for more information or look into
/var/adm/messages for more information about the SCSI confi-
guration 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 relation may not be imple-
mented. 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 arguments to a single track when writing to DVD media.
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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 incomprehensible 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 incre-
ment 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 reason 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 com-
mands.
-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 useful on broken systems with ATAPI hard-
disk and CD/DVD writer on the same bus or with SCSI
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systems that don't use disconnect/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 operation proceeds in background, making the
bus usable for the other devices and avoiding the sys-
tem 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 manufac-
turer. 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
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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 support 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 information).
-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 ses-
sion 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 sec-
tor size of 2448 bytes. This is the preferred raw
writing mode as it gives best control over the CD writ-
ing 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 sup-
ports 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 under-
runs. 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
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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 signifi-
cantly 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 gen-
erated 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 ses-
sion 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
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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 support 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 trying to open the SCSI driver. This allows
cdrecord to read it's input from a pipe even when writ-
ing 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
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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 integer, 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
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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 oth-
erwise 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 formats 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 syntax as in dd(1), sdd(1) or star(1). The number
representing the size is taken in bytes unless other-
wise specified. If a number is followed directly by
the letter `b', `k', `m', `s' or `f', the size is mul-
tiplied by 512, 1024, 1024*1024, 2048 or 2352. If the
size consists of numbers separated by `x' or `*', mul-
tiplication 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 memory 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
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speed less than 20x from an image on a local file sys-
tem on an idle machine, your machine is either under-
powered, has hardware problems 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 constantly 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
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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 different 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
characters ',', '/', '@' 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. Values 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 timeout, 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 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 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 sup-
ported 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.
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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 contains 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 com-
pletely 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 compliant drive that supports to write DVDs
and an appropriate medium is loaded. There is no
Track At Once mode for DVD writers.
mmc_dvdplus
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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 convince manufacturers to imple-
ment 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 Phi-
lips 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
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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 limi-
tations.
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
assumptions 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
whenever 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.
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teac_cdr50
The driver for Teac CD-R50S, Teac CD-R55S, JVC
XR-W2010, Pinnacle RCD-5020 is auto-selected when-
ever 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 docu-
mented command set and JVC has been unwilling to
fix or document the bugs. There is no support for
the Session 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 writers.
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 support 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 con-
dition. If the -dummy option is present, the simula-
tion 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 run-
ning a typical cdrecord task, you need to use the -set-
dropts option in addition, otherwise the command line
parser in cdrecord will complain. Currently imple-
mented driver options are:
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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 man-
datory 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.
gigarec=value
Manage the Plextor GigaRec writing mode. The man-
datory parameter value is the disk capacity ratio
compared to normal recording and currently may be
selected from 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 1.0, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4.
If values < 1.0 are used, then the effect is simi-
lar to the Yamaha Audio Master Q. R. feature. If
values > 1.0 are used, then the disk capacity is
increased.
Not all drives support all GigaRec values. When a
drive uses the GigaRec feature, the write speed is
limited to 8x.
audiomaster
Turn on the Yamaha Audio Master Q. R. feature
which usually should result in high quality CDs
that have less reading problems in Hi-Fi players.
As this is implemented 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
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Normally, modern drives know the highest possible
speed for different media and may reduce the speed
in order to grant best write quality. This tech-
nology 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 for-
cespeed 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 fas-
ter drives from Plextor limit the read speed for
unknown media to e.g. 40x in order to avoid dam-
aged 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 addi-
tional (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
Single Session mode before you insert the defec-
tive 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-
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ROMs and applications 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 undis-
torted 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 possi-
ble 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 read-
able 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. sin-
gle 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.
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-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 software 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 excep-
tions 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 circumvented 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 capa-
city. 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.
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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 parame-
ter 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 con-
nected to a terminal and runs some heuristic con-
sistency 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 inter-
face.
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 writing mode. This is an experimental inter-
face.
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
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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 seconds 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,
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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 con-
sidered 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 recognizes 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). However, 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 nor-
mally 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 swapping is necessary to make the byte order of the
input data fit the required byte order of the recorder.
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Cdrecord will not show you if the -swab flag was actu-
ally 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 filesys-
tem 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 sup-
plied 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 headers 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
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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 automat-
ically 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 infor-
mation, 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 super-
seded 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 padding 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
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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 how-
ever 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 transfer-
ring 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.
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-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
filesystem image.
In Disk at Once mode and with some drives that use the
TEAC programming 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 cdimage.raw:
cdrecord -v speed=2 dev=2,0 cdimage.raw
To create an image for a ISO 9660 filesystem with Rock Ridge
extensions:
mkisofs -R -o cdimage.raw /home/joerg/master/tree
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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 filesys-
tem. 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 handle quad speed also in the
loaded case.
To record a pure CD-DA (audio) at single speed, with each
track contained in a file named track01.cdaudio,
track02.cdaudio, etc:
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cdrecord -v speed=1 dev=2,0 -audio track*.cdaudio
To check if it will be ok to use double speed for the exam-
ple 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.
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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 intention) 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 suit-
able 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.
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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 connec-
tion 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 ini-
tiated 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 sys-
tem. Such an identifier may not contain the
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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 values 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
scsibus 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 ALSO
cdda2wav(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 mas-
ter 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.
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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/Plasmon/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 supported 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 sys-
tem, 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
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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/reconnect to either the SCSI bus that is con-
nected 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 ses-
sion containing the data track.
Many operating systems are not able to read more than a sin-
gle 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 ver-
sion) has several 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 functionality of the scg driver.
Unfortunately, the sg driver on Linux has several severe
bugs:
o It cannot see if a SCSI command could not be sent at
all.
o It cannot get the SCSI status byte. Cdrecord for that
reason cannot report failing SCSI commands in some
situations.
o It cannot get real DMA count of transfer. Cdrecord can-
not tell you if there is an DMA residual count.
o It cannot get number of bytes valid in auto sense data.
Cdrecord cannot tell you if device transfers no sense
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data at all.
o 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 rea-
son, 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 message:
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 avail-
able, followed by the segment number that is only valid if
the command was a copy command. If the error message is not
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directly related to the current command, the text deferred
error is appended.
The sixth line is the error text for the sense code and the
sense qualifier 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 replace-
able 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
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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 tran-
sport implementation 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
Joerg Schilling Last change: Version 2.0 36
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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 Last change: Version 2.0 37
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