1= isolinux(1) = 2:doctype: manpage 3:revdate: 2013-06-12 4:author: H. Peter Anvin 5:author-email: hpa@zytor.com 6:editor1: Gene Cumm 7:editor1-email: gene.cumm@gmail.com 8:editor1-revlast: 2013-06-12 9 10 11== NAME == 12isolinux - The Syslinux derivative ISOLINUX for ISO9660 CD/DVD media 13 14 15== SYNOPSIS == 16[verse] 17*mkisofs* -o 'isoimage' \ 18 -b 'isolinux/isolinux.bin' -c 'isolinux/boot.cat' \ 19 -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table \ 20 'root-of-iso-tree' 21 22 23== DESCRIPTION == 24ISOLINUX is a boot loader for Linux/i386 that operates off ISO 9660/El 25Torito CD-ROMs in "no emulation" mode. This avoids the need to create 26an "emulation disk image" with limited space (for "floppy emulation") 27or compatibility problems (for "hard disk emulation".) 28 29To create an image, create a directory called "isolinux/" (or, if you 30prefer, "boot/isolinux/") underneath the root directory of your ISO image 31master file tree. Copy isolinux.bin, a config file called 32"isolinux.cfg" (see *syslinux.cfg*(5) for details on the configuration file), 33and all necessary files (kernels, initrd, display files, etc.) into this 34directory, then use the above command to create your ISO image (add 35additional options as appropriate, such as -J or -R). If you named the 36directory boot/isolinux that should of course be + 37 -b boot/isolinux/isolinux.bin -c boot/isolinux/boot.cat. 38 39 40== CONFIG FILE DIRECTORY == 41 42ISOLINUX will search for the config file directory in the order 43/boot/isolinux, /isolinux, /. The first directory that exists is 44used, even if it contains no files. Therefore, please make sure that 45these directories don't exist if you don't want ISOLINUX to use them. 46 47 48== HYBRID CD-ROM/HARD DISK MODE == 49 50Starting in version 3.72, ISOLINUX supports a "hybrid mode" which can 51be booted from either CD-ROM or from a device which BIOS considers a 52hard disk or ZIP disk, e.g. a USB key or similar. 53 54To enable this mode, the .iso image should be postprocessed with the 55"isohybrid" script from the utils directory: 56 57 isohybrid filename.iso 58 59This script creates the necessary additional information to be able to 60boot in hybrid mode. It also pads out the image to an even multiple 61of 1 MB. 62 63This image can then be copied using any raw disk writing tool (on Unix 64systems, typically "dd" or "cat") to a USB disk, or written to a 65CD-ROM using standard CD burning tools. 66 67The ISO 9660 filesystem is encapsulated in a partition (which starts 68at offset zero, which may confuse some systems.) This makes it 69possible for the operating system, once booted, to use the remainder 70of the device for persistent storage by creating a second partition. 71 72 73== MISCELLANEOUS == 74Make sure you have a recent enough version of mkisofs. I recommend 75mkisofs 1.13 (distributed with cdrecord 1.9), but 1.12 might work as 76well (not tested.) 77 78ISOLINUX resolves pathnames the following way: 79 80- A pathname consists of names separated by slashes, Unix-style. 81- A leading / means it searches from the root directory; otherwise the 82 search is from the isolinux directory (think of this as the "current 83 directory".) 84- . and .. in pathname searches are not supported. 85- The maximum length of any pathname is 255 characters. 86 87Note that ISOLINUX only uses the "plain" ISO 9660 filenames, i.e. it 88does not support Rock Ridge or Joliet filenames. It can still be used 89on a disk which uses Rock Ridge and/or Joliet extensions, of course. 90Under Linux, you can verify the plain filenames by mounting with the 91"-o norock,nojoliet" option to the mount command. Note, however, that 92ISOLINUX does support "long" (level 2) ISO 9660 plain filenames, so if 93compatibility with short-names-only operating systems like MS-DOS is 94not an issue, you can use the "-l" or "-iso-level 2" option to mkisofs 95to generate long (up to 31 characters) plain filenames. 96 97ISOLINUX does not support discontiguous files, interleaved mode, or 98logical block and sector sizes other than 2048. This should normally 99not be a problem. 100 101ISOLINUX is by default built in two versions, one version with extra 102debugging messages enabled. If you are having problems with ISOLINUX, 103I would greatly appreciate if you could try out the debugging version 104(isolinux-debug.bin) and let me know what it reports. The debugging 105version does not include hybrid mode support (see below.) 106 107 108== SEE ALSO == 109*syslinux.cfg*(5), *syslinux-cli*(1), *lilo*(8), *keytab-lilo.pl*(8), 110*fdisk*(8), *mkfs*(8), *superformat*(1). 111 112 113== AUTHOR == 114This AsciiDoc derived document is a modified version of the original 115*SYSLINUX* documentation by {author} <{author-email}>. The conversion 116to an AsciiDoc was made by {editor1} <{editor1-email}> 117