Provided by: wodim_1.1.11-3.5_amd64 
NAME
wodim - write data to optical disk media
SYNOPSIS
wodim [options] track1...trackn
NOTE
There may be similarities and differences between this program and other disk recording application(s).
See the CREDITS and AUTHORS sections below to learn about the origin of wodim.
DESCRIPTION
wodim 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 is the device file or label offered by the operating system to access the recorder with SCSI
GENERIC (sg) interface. Note that some operating systems may provide separate device nodes for
block-oriented and sg access. For example, on older Linux systems, the sg access was available through
/dev/sg... files while the block oriented access was done through associated (but not identical)
/dev/hd... and /dev/sr... (or /dev/scd... ) files.
In any case, the user running wodim needs read and write access to the particular device file on a Linux
system. It is recommended to be root or install the application as suid-root, because certain versions of
Linux (kernel) limit the set of SCSI commands allowed for non-root users. Even if usage without root
identity is possible in many cases, some device drivers still may fail, show unexplainable problems and
generally the problems become harder to debug. The risk for buffer-underruns is also increased. See the
PROCESS SCHEDULING PRIORITY section below for more details.
There is an alternative way of specifying the device, using the traditional SCSI descriptions in form of
devicetype:bus/target/lun specification. However, the success of this method is not guaranteed since it
requires an adaptation scheme for your architecture, and the numbers may vary depending on the hardware-
internal numbering or on the order of hot-plug device detection. If your operating system does not
provide a sufficient framework for keeping this numbers persistent, don't rely on them. See -scanbus and
--devices options below for details.
There are emulated SCSI compatible device systems, using the SCSI protocols transported over various
hardware/media types. The most known examples is ATAPI ("IDE burners") or USB storage ("external USB
case"). If the pseudo-SCSI b/t/l device address specification is used instead of the native one, you need
to prepend the "devicetype:" description to the emulated "bus/target/lun" device address.
If a file /etc/wodim.conf exists, the parameter to the dev= option may also be a drive name label in that
file (see FILES section).
As a special exception, the device specification can be -1 or just omitted, which invokes automatic
guessing of an appropriate device for the selected operation. However, this guessing is not available
everywhere and is not reliable; it is only available for the user's convenience in simple environments.
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 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, wodim concatenates all file arguments to a single track when writing to DVD
media.
PROCESS SCHEDULING PRIORITY
Wodim tries to get higher process priority using different methods. This is important because the burn
process is usually a realtime task, no long delays should occur while transmitting fresh data to the
recorder. This is especially important on systems with insufficient RAM where swapping can create delays
of many seconds.
A possible workaround on underpowered systems is the use of the burnfree or similar feature, allowing the
recorder to resume.
Root permissions are usually required to get higher process scheduling priority.
On SVr4 compliant systems, wodim 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 wodim 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 wodim either needs to be run as root, needs to be installed suid root or must be called
via RBACs pfexec mechanism.
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 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 libusal 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 usal-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. wodim 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 wodim 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
harddisk and CD/DVD writer on the same bus or with SCSI 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 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 wodim 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, wodim 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 wodim to handle images created by readom -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 support Session At Once mode. Note that wodim needs to know the size
of each track in advance for this mode (see the genisoimage -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 wodim 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 wodim needs to know the
size of each track in advance for this mode (see the genisoimage -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 wodim needs to know the size of each track in advance
for this mode (see the genisoimage -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 wodim needs to know the size of each track in advance for this
mode (see the genisoimage -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 wodim needs to know the size of each track in advance for this mode
(see the genisoimage -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 wodim 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 genisoimage and print it to standard output.
See msifile= option for another version.
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.
msifile=filename
Like -msinfo option but also stores the multi session info in a file.
-toc Retrieve and print out the table of content or PMA of a CD. With this option, wodim 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, wodim 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 wodim 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 wodim to read its input from a pipe even when writing additional sessions to a multi
session disk. When writing another session to a multi session disk, genisoimage needs to read the
old session from the device before writing output. This cannot be done if wodim 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 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, wodim will try to get a drive specific speed value
from the file /etc/wodim.conf 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/wodim.conf. If no speed
value could be found, wodim 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, wodim 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 wodim does its 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 wodim
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 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 `*', multiplication
of the two numbers is performed. Thus fs=10x63k will specify a FIFO size of 630 kBytes.
The size specified by the fs= argument includes the shared memory that is needed for
administration. This is at least one page of memory. If no fs= option is present, wodim 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 genisoimage directly into wodim. If the FIFO is active and a pipe from genisoimage into
wodim is used to create a CD, wodim will abort prior to do any modifications on the disk if
genisoimage 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 problems or is mis-configured. If
you like to write DVDs or 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 wodim 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 wodim fs=# or sdd bs=#.
If no ts= option has been specified, wodim defaults to a transfer size of 63 kB. If libusal 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 . A filename or virtual device name can be passed instead of the symbolic SCSI numbers.
The correct device/filename in this case can be found in the system specific manuals of the target
operating system. On a FreeBSD system without CAM support, 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 and Windows 2000/XP, drives are accessible with their device (or drive) names or with the
symbolic SCSI numbers (not recommended, mapping is not stable and could be completely removed in
the future).
If no dev option is present, wodim 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/wodim.conf (see FILES section).
gracetime=#
Set the grace time before starting to write to # seconds. Values below 2 seconds are not
recommended to give the kernel or volume management a chance to learn the new state.
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 wodim with drives that are similar to supported drives
but not known directly by wodim. All drives made after 1997 should be MMC standard compliant and
thus supported by one of the MMC drivers. It is most unlikely that wodim 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 wodim 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 wodim.
mmc_cd_dvd
The generic SCSI-3/mmc CD/DVD driver is auto-selected whenever wodim 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 wodim 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 wodim 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 wodim 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
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 wodim tries to convince
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 wodim 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 its first use,
wodim 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 wodim via a the -dao/-sao option.
cw_7501
The driver for Matsushita/Panasonic CW-7501 is auto-selected when wodim finds this old pre
MMC drive. wodim supports all write modes for this drive type.
kodak_pcd_600
The driver for Kodak PCD-600 is auto-selected when wodim 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 wodim 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 wodim 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 wodim finds a Philips CDD-522 which is
the successor of the 521 or one of its variants with Kodak label. wodim 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 wodim finds one of the old non MMC CD
writers from Pioneer.
plasmon_rf4100
The driver for Plasmon RF 4100 is auto-selected when wodim finds this specific variant of
the Philips CDD-521.
ricoh_ro1060c
The driver for Ricoh RO-1060C is auto-selected when wodim finds this drive. There is no
real support for this drive yet.
ricoh_ro1420c
The driver for Ricoh RO-1420C is auto-selected when wodim 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 wodim finds a pre MMC drive that
does not support writing or a pre MMC writer that is not supported by wodim.
sony_cdu924
The driver for Sony CDU-924 / CDU-948 is auto-selected whenever wodim 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 Session At Once write mode yet.
tyuden_ew50
The driver for Taiyo Yuden EW-50 is auto-selected when wodim 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 wodim 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 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 wodim task, you need to use the -setdropts option in addition,
otherwise the command line parser in wodim will complain. Currently 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, which is available on most drives manufactured in
this millennium. This may be called: Sanyo BURN-Proof, Ricoh Just-Link, Yamaha Lossless-
Link or similar.
This option is deprecated and is mentioned here for documentation purposes only. The BURN-
Free feature is enabled by default if the drive supports it. However, use of BURN-Free may
cause decreased burning quality. Therefore it can be useful to disable it for certain
purposes, eg. when creating a master copy for mass CD production.
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.
gigarec=value
Manage the Plextor GigaRec writing mode. The mandatory 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 similar 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
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 Single 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 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 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), wodim 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 wodim to set drive specific parameters that are not directly used by wodim
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 wodim task.
-checkdrive
Checks if a driver for the current drive is present and exit. If the drive is a known drive,
wodim 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. If some device types are invisible, try
using dev=ATA: or similar option to give a hint about the device type you are looking for. The
numbers printed out as labels are computed by: bus * 100 + target. On platforms and device
systems without persistent SCSI number management the results are not reliable. Use the .B
--devices option instead.
--devices
Look for useable devices using the system specific functions, eg. probing with usual device nodes
in /dev/*, and display the detections using symbolic device names in OS specific syntax.
-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 wodim only, this should never be needed;
but other software may leave a drive in an unusable condition. Calling wodim -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 wodim 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 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 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, wodim may be used to write audio CDs from a pipe from
icedax if you call wodim 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. wodim first
verifies that stdin is not connected to a terminal and runs some heuristic consistency 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 wodim 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 writing 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. wodim supports CD-Text information based on the content of the *.inf files
created by icedax 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 wodim to read the *.inf files or
cuefile=filename in order to tell wodim 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 wodim -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, 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.
wodim 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, wodim 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. wodim 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. wodim 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 wodim 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, wodim 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. wodim 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 wodim will show you if swapping is necessary to make the byte
order of the input data fit the required byte order of the recorder. wodim 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 genisoimage 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, wodim 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 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 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 wodim 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 wodim 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 genisoimage and in case wodim reads the track data from
stdin. In the first case, you would prevent wodim from writing the amount of padding that has
been appended by genisoimage and in the latter case, it will not work because stdin is not
seekable.
If -isosize is used for a track, wodim 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
genisoimage. 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,
wodim 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 option, the value for padsize= is reset to zero for each new track. wodim 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 filesystem
image.
In Disk at Once mode and with some drives that use the TEAC programming interface, even in Track
at Once mode, wodim needs to know the size of each track before starting to write the disk. wodim
now checks this and aborts before starting to write. If this happens you will need to run
genisoimage -print-size before and use the output (with `s' appended) as an argument to the tsize=
option of wodim (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:
wodim -v speed=2 dev=2,0 cdimage.raw
To create an image for a ISO 9660 filesystem with Rock Ridge extensions:
genisoimage -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,
wodim will run without creating an image of the ISO 9660 filesystem. Simply run the pipeline:
genisoimage -R /master/tree | wodim -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 genisoimage in the real time class too. To raise the priority of genisoimage
replace the command
genisoimage -R /master/tree
by
priocntl -e -c RT -p 59 genisoimage -R /master/tree
on Solaris and by
nice --18 genisoimage -R /master/tree
on systems that don't have UNIX International compliant real-time scheduling.
wodim runs at priority 59 on Solaris, you should run genisoimage at no more than priority 58. On other
systems, you should run genisoimage 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:
wodim -v speed=1 dev=/dev/cdrw -audio track*.cdaudio
To check if it will be ok to use double speed for the example above. Use the dummy write option:
wodim -v -dummy speed=2 dev=/dev/cdrw -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:
wodim -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
genisoimage -R -q -print-size /master/tree
and then run
genisoimage -R /master/tree | wodim speed=2 dev=2,0 tsize=XXXs -
where XXX is replaced by the output of the previous run of genisoimage.
To copy an audio CD in the most accurate way, first run
icedax dev=/dev/cdrom -vall cddb=0 -B -Owav
and then run
wodim dev=/dev/cdrw -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, icedax will try to get the information from freedb.org instead.
To copy an audio CD from a pipe (without intermediate files), first run
icedax dev=1,0 -vall cddb=0 -info-only
and then run
icedax dev=1,0 -no-infofile -B -Oraw - | \
wodim 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 wodim 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 get a CD/DVD drive with BURN-Free feature if it is not available yet.
To set drive options without writing a CD (e.g. to switch a drive to single session mode), run
wodim dev=1,0 -setdropts driveropts=singlesession
If you like to do this when no CD is in the drive, call
wodim dev=1,0 -force -setdropts driveropts=singlesession
To copy a CD in clone mode, first read the master CD using:
readom dev=b,t,l -clone f=somefile
or (in case the CD contains many sectors that are unreadable by intention) by calling:
readom dev=1,0 -clone -nocorr f=somefile
will create the files somefile and somefile.toc. Then write the CD using:
wodim 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/wodim.conf.
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, wodim 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, wodim 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 wodim to create a pipe to the rsh(1) program and disallows wodim 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/wodim.conf
Default values can be set for the following options in /etc/wodim.conf. 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/wodim.conf 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).
CDR_MAXFIFOSIZE
Sets the maximum size of the FIFO (see also fs=# option).
Any other keyword (label) is an identifier (symbolic name) for a specific drive
on the system. Such an identifier may not contain the characters ',', '/', '@' or ':'.
Each line that follows a label contains a whitespace separated list of items. Currently,
four items are recognized: the drive's target specification, 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 wodim to use
the global defaults. target can be -1 to use the auto-guessing of the drive (see above).
The value for driveropts may be omitted or set to "" if no driveropts are used. A typical
line may look this way:
plex760= 0,5,0 12 50m varirec=1
pioneer= /dev/hdd -1 -1
This tells wodim that a drive named plex760 is at scsibus 0, target 5, lun 0 and should be
used with speed 12 and a FIFO size of 50 MB. It also uses some device specific parameter.
A second drive may is accessible via the device file /dev/hdd and uses the default speed
and the default FIFO size.
SEE ALSO
icedax(1), readom(1), genisoimage(1), ssh(1).
NOTES
On Solaris you need to stop the volume management if you like to use the USCSI fallback SCSI transport
code. Even things like wodim -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.
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 wodim on an unknown system. Writing a CD is a real-time process. NFS, CIFS and other
network file systems won't always deliver constantly the needed data rates. If you want to use wodim
with CD-images that are located on a NFS mounted filesystem, be sure that the FIFO size is big enough.
If you want to make sure that buffer underruns are not caused by your source disk, you may use the
command
wodim -dummy dev=2,0 padsize=600m /dev/null
to create a disk that is entirely made of dummy data.
There are also cases where you either need to be root or install wodim executable with suid-root
permissions. First, if you are using a device manufactured before 1999 which requires a non-MMC driver,
you should run wodim in dummy mode before writing data. If you find a problem doing this, please report
it to the cdrkit maintainers (see below).
Second, certain functionality may be unusable because of Linux's SCSI command filtering. When using wodim
for anything except of pure data writing, you should also test the process in dummy mode and report
trouble to the contact address below.
If you still want to run wodim with root permissions, you can set the permissions of the executable to
suid-root. See the additional notes of your system/program distribution or README.suidroot which is part
of the cdrkit source.
You should not connect old drives that do not support disconnect/reconnect 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.
If you have more information or SCSI command manuals for currently unsupported CD/DVD/BR/HD-DVD-
Recorders, please contact the cdrkit maintainers (see below).
Many CD recorders have bugs and often require a firmware update to work correctly. If you experience
problems which cannot be solved or explained by the notes above, please look for instructions on the
homepage of the particular manufacturer.
Some bugs will force you to power cycle the device or to reboot the machine.
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 4 seconds to abort wodim start after you see the message:
Starting to write CD at speed %d in %s mode for %s session. In most shells you can do that by pressing
Ctrl-C.
A typical error message for a SCSI command looks like:
wodim: 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, followed 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 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 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).
wodim: 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
netscsid does not work properly and is generally unmaintained. It is probably not compatible with rscsi
from cdrtools either. Good bugfixes are welcome, talk to Cdrkit maintainers.
cuefile support is very limited, only one file is allowed. For volunteers, see TODO file in the source.
Specifying an audio file multiple times causes corruption of the second track (effectively no data plus
minimum padding).
Some of the bugs may be fixed in Joerg Schilling's cdrtools. See there for details, URL attached below.
CREDITS
Joerg Schilling (schilling@fokus.fhg.de)
For writing cdrecord and libscg which represent the most parts of wodim's code.
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 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 wodim, you may join the developer mailing list
via this URL:
https://alioth.debian.org/mail/?group_id=31006
The mail address of the list is: debburn-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org
AUTHORS
wodim is currently maintained as part of the cdrkit project by its developers. Most of the code and this
manual page was originally written by:
Joerg Schilling
Seestr. 110
D-13353 Berlin
Germany
This application is derived from "cdrecord" as included in the cdrtools package [1] created by Joerg
Schilling, who deserves most of the credit for its success. However, he is not involved into the
development of this spinoff and therefore he shall not be held responsible for any problems caused by it.
Do not refer to this application as "cdrecord", do not try to get support for wodim by contacting the
original authors.
Additional information can be found on:
https://alioth.debian.org/projects/debburn/
If you have support questions, send them to
debburn-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org
If you have definitely found a bug, send a mail to this list or to
submit@bugs.debian.org
writing at least a short description into the Subject and "Package: cdrkit" in the first line of the mail
body.
SOURCES
[1] Cdrtools 2.01.01a08 from May 2006, http://cdrecord.berlios.de
Version 2.0 wodim(1)