Man page 1 : mkzftree

mkzftree - Create a zisofs/RockRidge compressed file tree

mkzftree [OPTIONS]... INPUT OUTPUT

Takes an input file tree (INPUT) and create a corresponding compressed file tree (OUTPUT) that can be used with an appropriately patched

R mkisofs (8) to create a transparent-compression ISO 9660/Rock Ridge filesystem using the "ZF" compression records.

• -f, --force
      Always compress all files, even if they get larger when compressed.
• -z level, --level level
      Select compression level (1-9, default is 9). Lower compression levels are faster, but typically result in larger output.
• -u, --uncompress
      Uncompress an already compressed tree. This can be used to read a compressed filesystem on a system which cannot read them natively.
• -p parallelism, --parallelism parallelism
      Compress in parallel. The parallelismvalue indicates how many compression threads are allowed to run.
• -x, --one-filesystem
      Do not cross filesystem boundaries, but create directory stubs at mount points.
• -X, --strict-one-filesystem
      Do not cross filesystem boundaries, and do not create directory stubs at mount points.
• -C path, --crib-path path
      Steal ("crib") files from another directory if it looks (based on name, size, type and modification time) like they match entries in the new filesystem. The "crib tree" is usually the compressed version of an older version of the same workload; this thus allows for "incremental rebuilds" of a compressed filesystem tree. The files are hardlinked from the crib tree to the output tree, so if it is desirable to keep the link count correct the crib path should be deleted before running mkisofs. The crib tree must be on the same filesystem as the output tree.
• -l, --local
      Do not recurse into subdirectories, but create the directories themselves.
• -L, --strict-local
      Do not recurse into subdirectories, and do not create directories.
• -F, --file
      Indicates that INPUT may not necessarily be a directory; this allows operation on a single file. Note especially that if -F is specified, and INPUT is a symlink, the symlink itself will be copied rather than whatever it happens to point to.
• -s, --sloppy
      Treat file modes, times and ownership data as less than precious information and don't abort if they cannot be set. This may be useful if running

mkisofs on an input tree you do not own.

• -v, --verbose
      Increase the program verbosity.
• -V value, --verbosity value
      Set the program verbosity to value .
• -q, --quiet
      Issue no messages whatsoever, including error messages. This is the same as specifying "-V 0" .
• -h, --help
      Display a brief help message.
• -w, --version
      Display the release version.

Long options (beginning with --) may not work on all systems. See the message printed out by mkzftree -h to see if this applies to your system.

Inode change times (ctimes) are not copied. This is a system limitation and applies to all file copy programs.

If using the parallel option (-z) the access times (atimes) on directories may or may not be copied. If it is important that the atimes on directories are copied exactly, avoid using -z.

Written by H. Peter Anvin <>.

Copyright © 2001-2002 H. Peter Anvin.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

R mkisofs (8)