writing to cdrom

[Peter Gillis]

HI,
hp-ux 11.00; RP2470 machine; surestore DVD-ROM in a 5300 rack.
I have been asked to setup a method for storing info on a cd-rw. IOSCAN shows:
HW Path - 0/0/1/0.1.0 and dev files of /dev/dsk/c0t1d0 and /dev/dvd.
I tried just the usual mount command for the cdrom, but it appeared to take ages to complete so killed that. Is there some special commands I need to be using to mount the cdrw and store to it?
Thanks in advance for you rhlp.
Regards Maria.

[Michael Tully]

Hi Maria,

The CD in a HPUX system is not a burner. you'll need some sort of jukebox to do this type of thing. Here is a posting from last year on a similar idea.

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x246f50011d20d6118ff40090279cd0f9,00.html

Have a look at http://www.hp.com/products1/storage/products/archivalprod/index.html for the latest HP storage information.

Regards
Michael
"When I have trouble spelling, it's called fat finger syndrome"

[V.Tamilvanan]

Hi,
I don't think u will be able to write into CDRW by using a DVD-ROM . You can only read from DVD-ROM. Is it a DVD-ROM or DVD-RW ?

[Steven E. Protter]

You can't right to a DVD-ROM drive.

At least not the ones that ship standard in HP-9000 servers.

You can buy a drive that lets you write to CD's. It comes with software.

There is no cdrecord command in HP-UX like in Linux. Additional software is required.

Plextor http://www.plextor.com may have a device that meets your needs.

I actually have one sitting in my desk for lack of the right scsi card and will be happy to give you the web site in the morning.

Some backup to my postion in this thread:
http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x9034eea29889d611abdb0090277a778c,00.html

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0xdfeccdec06f1d61190050090279cd0f9,00.html

Good Luck and Regards,

Steven E. Protter
Call me anything you want, just don't forget to call me to dinner.

SEP

[Michael Tully]

Stupid me should have read your question more closely. duh!!!

Your trying to use an optical jukebox by the look of it. To use these, you still need the software to drive them. If they are (the CD device) mounted in the same fashion then you should be able to write to them just like a windows explorer ?? What software do you have loaded for this? By default the OS does not privide anything ...

Regards
Michael
"When I have trouble spelling, it's called fat finger syndrome"

[Bill Hassell · Accepted solution]

As mentioned, there is no support at all for CD or DVD writing. These discs do NOT have a Unix format--they are very complex (CD's for instance have 3 separate directories in different layouts) so specialized software is needed to record on CD/DVD media. A good starting point is CDrecord at http://www.fokus.gmd.de/research/cc/glone/employees/joerg.schilling/private/cdrecord.html but as you will notice, this is freeware and support is, uhhh, complicated...

Now I've used cdrecord on a Yamaha drive running 10.20 and 11.0 with satisfactory results but you will need to learn a bit about CD recording formats and write a script to perform common tasks. I have a script that will handle CD-R and CD-RW formats and copy HP-UX directories and files to a useable CD for HP-UX (and PCs too). There are a couple of sections that are still under construction but it works.

[Ralph Grothe]

Btw. I realized when browsing through the CD_TABLE_OF_CONTENTS file of an HP-UX application CD set lately that meanwhile HP indeed ships as open source tool for workstations the venerable cdrecord tool.
In HP's collection it sails under the product name CDRW.
Of course in order to make use of it you need a device that is capable of mastering CD-R/RWs (aka CD burner).

Since we don't have this equipment on our HP enterprise servers I make ample use of such a device on a networked Linux PC.

If you don't need to master an image (saves some time), and are happy enough with raw data you even can do such funny things like

ssh root@your.hp.server
cd /filesystem/that/should/go/onCD
tar cf - . | ssh your.linux-box.withcdburner '/usr/bin/cdrecord dev=0,3,0 fs=8m speed=8 -data -'

(n.b. the parameters dev, speed, fs require to fit your situatuation)

Provided you can ensure a decent connection that will prevent buffer underruns, that way you can pipe directly into cdrecord on a remote box with a budget CD burning device.

If you need an ISO image on the CDROM you could install mkisofs on your HP-UX server.
Then master an image on the fly (read manpage of mkisofs) and similarly pipe directly into a remote cdrecord process, without having to provide disk space for the ISO image on the server where it is taken from.
This also works fine.
However, it's safer to store the ISO image before on the server and transfer it to the PC with the burner via scp or similar.
There you have a chance to mount it as a loopback device (under Linux) and see if it is mastered correctly before turning on the laser beam to possibly produce yet another useless CD coaster.

[Peter Gillis]

Thankyou for all your replies. looks like i have a bit of research to do! I will have a look at all the sites suggested to see what I can do, then no doubt I will be back!!
Thanks again.
Maria.