CDRWTOOL(1)

💿 CDRWTOOL(1) 💿

okay so bestie, welcome to the General Commands Manual, and this is cdrwtool — she does stuff to your optical media and she does it with main character energy. ✨

---

🌸 NAME 🌸

cdrwtool — perform various actions on a CD-R, CD-RW, and DVD-R

---

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

cdrwtool -d device -i | -g

cdrwtool -d device -s [ write-parameters ]

cdrwtool -d device -q [ write-parameters ]

cdrwtool -d device -m offset [ write-parameters ]

cdwrtool -d device -u blocks [ write-parameters ]

cdrwtool -d device -b b_mode [ write-parameters ]

cdrwtool -d device -c blocks [ write-parameters ]

cdwrtool -d device -f filename [ write-parameters ]

cdwrtool -d device -r track [ write-parameters ]

cdrwtool -h

(and yes, the <cyan>cdwrtool</cyan> spellings up there are exactly how they appear, no cap — we don't fix, we preserve 💅)

---

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

So like, cdwrtool can perform certain actions on a CD-R, a CD-RW, or a DVD-R device. Mainly?? It's blanking the media, formatting it for use with the packet-cd device, and applying an UDF filesystem. it's giving "one tool, three jobs, zero complaints." 🔥

The most common usage is probably the quick setup option:

cdrwtool -d device -q

which will blank the disc, format it as one large track, and write the UDF filesystem structures. literally the whole glow-up in one command 🦋

Other options get and set various parameters of how the device is set up, and provide for different offsets, modes and settings from the defaults.

ngl, the usefulness of most of the options is not explained. the manpage said it, not me. 💀

---

👑 OPTIONS 👑

Main directives 🫶

• -d device — Specify the device to use. eg. /dev/sr0. bestie, tell her where to work.
• -i — Print disc track info.
• -g — Print write parameters.
• -u length — Make a UDF filesystem using length number of blocks.
• -q — Quick setup: blank the disc, format it as one large track and write a UDF filesystem.
• -m offset — Format the disc at offset number of blocks.
• -b mode — Blank the disk using a mode of full or fast.
• -f filename — Write file.
• -c track — Close track.
• -r track — Reserve track.
• -z length — Fixed packet length.
• -s — Set write parameters determined by -l, -w, and -p options for the disc.
• -v version — Specify the udf revision to use. Valid revisions are 0x0201, 0x0200 and 0x0150. If omitted, mkudffs udf-version is 0x0150. (so the default is the oldest one, fyi 🌷)
• -h — Prints a sparse help message. sparse!! she's not gonna hold your hand, she's gonna hand you a vibe check 💀

Write parameters 🎀

• -t speed — Set write speed. (Defaults to 12x ?) — yes the question mark is canon, we keep it 💖
• -l type — Set multi-session field. Either 0 (default), 1, or 3, corresponding to No B0 pointer. Next Session not allowed, B0 pointer = FF:FF:FF. Next session not allowed, and Next session allowed. B0 pointer = next possible program area respectively.
• -w mode — Set write mode. Either mode1 or mode2 (default).
• -p type — Set packet type. Either 0 or 1 (default), corresponding to variable and fixed packet sizes respectively.
• -o offset — Set write offset.

---

💀 BUGS 💀

Many modern drives refuse on the preparations to format new, blanked, or appendable CD-RW media. This causes a message like

Command failed: 55 ... - sense ...

and you're just standing there like 🧍♀️ okay. 😭

The remedy is to use a CD-capable burn program for writing a session and closing the medium. For example by using any of "cdrecord", "wodim", "cdrskin", or "xorriso -as cdrecord" as content of variable prog in:

prog="xorriso -as cdrecord"
drive="/dev/sr0"
dd if=/dev/zero bs=1M count=10 | $prog -v -eject dev="$drive" -

no cap, that's the fix. 🫶

---

🌈 AUTHORS 🌈

• Jens Axboe <axboe@suse.de>
• Ben Fennema
• Some additions by Richard Atterer <atterer@debian.org>
• BUGS note about closing medium by Thomas Schmitt <scdbackup@gmx.net>

---

⭐ AVAILABILITY ⭐

cdrwtool is part of the udftools package and is available from https://github.com/pali/udftools/. go get her 🛍️

---

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

pktsetup(8), cdrecord(1), wodim(1), cdrskin(1), xorriso(1)

---

and that's the whole page, bestie!! 💜 this one's from the udftools era, living in the Commands section of the manual — authored with love back in the day, and yeah the date field's just kinda vibing empty, iconic behavior honestly. periodt. 💅✨🎀