mkimage - Create an ISO image from jigdo files

mkimage -j jigdo -t template [options]...

mkimage -t template -z [options]...

mkimage -f md5-list -t template -M missing-list [options]...

mkimage knows how to parse a jigdo template file, commonly used when creating Debian CDs and DVDs. It can be used to actually convert a template file and associated files into an ISO image (hence the name mkimage), or with some command line options it will output useful information about the template file instead.

-t template file

The jigdo .template file is the most important thing that mkimage needs, and must be specified for all operations.

-j jigdo file

The jigdo .jigdo file will normally acompany the .template file. To rebuild the image you must specify at least one of the jigdo file and an MD5 file (-f).

-f MD5 file

A file listing files available locally and their MD5 sums, in jigdo's base64-like format. Can be generated by jigdo-file or jigsum. To rebuild an image you must specify at least one of the MD5 file and a jigdo file (-j).

-m item=path

Used in conjunction with a jigdo file; specify where mkimage should look on the local filesystem to find the files it needs to make an image. (e.g. "Debian=/mirror/debian").

-M missing file

If you're not sure if you have all the files needs to create an image, specify both the jigdo file and an MD5 file along with the template file and -M <file>. mkimage will check to see that all the files are available instead of building the image. Any files that are missing will be listed in the file specified here. See jigit for usage examples.

-v

Make mkimage more verbose. Additional -v arguments will make it more verbose again. Default level is 0 (almost no output). 1 will print progress in % while the image is being created; 2 will list every file and data block that is appended to the image.

-l logfile

mkimage will normally write to stderr when it reports progress. Specify a logfile (or /dev/null) if you want it elsewhere.

-o outfile

mkimage will normally write the ISO image to stdout, ready for piping into cdrecord or to iso-image.pl. Specify an output filename if you want it written to disk instead.

-q

mkimage will normally check the MD5 sum of every file it reads and writes, and will fail if it finds any mismatches. Specify -q to tell it not to. This will normally run more quickly, but can leave you with a broken image so is POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS. Use with care!

-s start offset

Rather than start at the beginning of the image, skip to the specified offset and start output there. Probably only useful in iso-image.pl when resuming a download. Specifying a non-zero offset also implies -q, as it's difficult to check MD5 sums when you're not checking the whole image. -e end offset Rather than end at the end of the image, stop at the specified offset. Probably only useful in iso-image.pl when resuming a download. Specifying an end offset also implies -q, as it's difficult to check MD5 sums when you're not checking the whole image.

-z

Simply parse the template file and print the size of the image that would be generated, in bytes. Only needs the template file to be specified, any other arguments will ignored.

mkimage -f MD5 -j test.jigdo -t test.template -M missing

Read in the files MD5, test.jigdo and test.template and check if all the needed files are available. If any are missing, list them in missing.

mkimage -z -t test.template

Find out how big the ISO image would be from expanding test.template.

mkimage -v -f MD5 -t test.template -o test.iso

Build the iso image in test.iso, using files listed in MD5 to fill in what's needed by the template file test.template. Show progress as the image is built.

jigdo-file(1), jigit(1), jigsum(1) and jigdump(1).

Copyright 2004 Steve McIntyre (steve@einval.com)

mkimage may be copied under the terms and conditions of version 2 of the GNU General Public License, as published by the Free Software Foundation (Cambridge, MA, USA).

Written by Steve McIntyre (steve@einval.com)