Re: Add genisoimage parameter -keep-top-dirs

["Thomas Schmitt" <scdbackup@gmx.net>]

Hi,

Kai Engert wrote:
> I'm attaching a patch to add a new parameter -keep-top-dirs to
> genisoimage.

I guess that you will have to take over upstream maintainership of cdrkit
if you want to get any changes published.

cdrkit was in danger of getting erased from Debian.
John Paul Adrian Glaubitz adopted it as Debian maintainer:
  https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=974914
Afaik, his main motivation is to keep genisoimage alive.
So he would be your natural ally.

I would be your competitor, but not your enemy. :)
(See below for a proposal how to perform your use case with xorriso.)

If you plan to use genisoimage for several more years, then consider
  https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=990468
  "genisoimage: Bad time stamps for post-2027 files"

(The next timestamp bug would be in Linux, where the time value is
squeezed through the 32-bit return value of fs/isofs/util.c function
iso_date(). Rollover will happen in 2038. Solution would be to change
the type of iso_date() and its local variable crtime from int to time64_t.
In 2155 the year field of the ISO 9660 format will overflow.)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

xorriso's command -add can do what you strive for:

  xorriso -for_backup -outdev output.iso -add 2015-* --

In order to burn the ISO directly onto optical medium:

  xorriso -for_backup -outdev /dev/sr0 -add 2015-* --

If the locations of the input file objects are not as simple, then you
could use xorriso commands -cdx and -disk_pattern:

  xorriso -for_backup -outdev output.iso -disk_pattern on \
          -cdx "$HOME"/archive -add '2015-*' -- \
          -cdx /home/guest -add '*-backup' '*-archive' --

Note that in this example the patterns get protected by quotation marks
from being expanded by the shell parser. The expansion will be done by
xorriso in the current -cdx directory, because -disk_pattern is "on".
(Still the -add commands need their terminating "--" arguments.)

I propose to use xorriso command -for_backup. Mainly for getting MD5
checksums which can later be verified by commands like in:

  xorriso -for_backup -indev /dev/sr0 -check_media --

  xorriso -for_backup -indev /dev/sr0 -check_md5_r sorry / --

(Would of course also work with: -indev output.iso )


Have a nice day :)

Thomas