mtools.1(3)
Name
mtools - utilities to access DOS disks in Unix.
Introduction
Mtools is a public domain collection of tools to allow
Unix systems to manipulate MS-DOS files: read, write, and
move around files on an MS-DOS filesystem (typically a
floppy disk). Where reasonable, each program attempts to
emulate the MS-DOS equivalent command. However, unneces-
sary restrictions and oddities of DOS are not emulated.
For instance, it is possible to move subdirectories from
one subdirectory to another.
Mtools is sufficient to give access to MS-DOS filesystems.
For instance, commands such as mdir a: work on the a:
floppy without any preliminary mounting or initialization
(assuming the default `/etc/mtools.conf' works on your
machine). With mtools, one can change floppies too with-
out unmounting and mounting.
Where to get mtools
Mtools can be found at the following places (and their
mirrors):
ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/mtools-3.8.tar.gz
ftp://linux.wauug.org/pub/knaff/mtools/mtools-3.8.tar.gz
ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/utils/disk-management/mtools-3.8.tar.gz
Before reporting a bug, make sure that it has not yet been
fixed in the Alpha patches which can be found at:
http://www.poboxes.com/Alain.Knaff/mtools
ftp://linux.wauug.org/pub/knaff/mtools
Note: It is highly probable that the innet address will
cease to exist after November 1997. The wauug address is
permanent.
These patches are named mtools-version-ddmm.taz, where
version stands for the base version, dd for the day and mm
for the month. Due to a lack of space, I usually leave
only the most recent patch.
There is an mtools mailing list at mtools @
linux.wauug.org . Please send all bug reports to this
list. You may subscribe to the list by sending a message
with 'subscribe mtools @ linux.wauug.org' in its body to
majordomo @ linux.wauug.org . (N.B. Please remove the
spaces around the "@" both times. I left them there in
order to fool spambots.) Announcements of new mtools ver-
sions will also be sent to the list, in addition to the
linux announce newsgroups. The mailing list is archived
at http://linux.wauug.org/hypermail/mtools/latest
Common features of all mtools commands
Options and filenames
MS-DOS filenames are composed of a drive letter followed
by a colon, a subdirectory, and a filename. Only the file-
name part is mandatory, the drive letter and the subdirec-
tory are optional. Filenames without a drive letter refer
to Unix files. Subdirectory names can use either the '/'
or '\' separator. The use of the '\' separator or wild-
cards requires the names to be enclosed in quotes to pro-
tect them from the shell. However, wildcards in Unix file-
names should not be enclosed in quotes, because here we
want the shell to expand them.
The regular expression "pattern matching" routines follow
the Unix-style rules. For example, `*' matches all MS-DOS
files in lieu of `*.*'. The archive, hidden, read-only
and system attribute bits are ignored during pattern
matching.
All options use the - (minus) as their first character,
not / as you'd expect in MS-DOS.
Most mtools commands allow multiple filename parameters,
which doesn't follow MS-DOS conventions, but which is more
user-friendly.
Most mtools commands allow options that instruct them how
to handle file name clashes. See section name clashes, for
more details on these. All commands accept the -V flags
which prints the version, and most accept the -v flag,
which switches on verbose mode. In verbose mode, these
commands print out the name of the MS-DOS files upon which
they act, unless stated otherwise. See section Commands,
for a description of the options which are specific to
each command.
Drive letters
The meaning of the drive letters depends on the target
architectures. However, on most target architectures,
drive A is the first floppy drive, drive B is the second
floppy drive (if available), drive J is a Jaz drive (if
available), and drive Z is a Zip drive (if available). On
those systems where the device name is derived from the
SCSI id, the Jaz drive is assumed to be at Scsi target 4,
and the Zip at Scsi target 5 (factory default settings).
On Linux, both drives are assumed to be the second drive
on the Scsi bus (/dev/sdb). The default settings can be
changes using a configuration file (See section Configura-
tion).
Current working directory
The mcd command (`mcd') is used to establish the device
and the current working directory (relative to the MS-DOS
filesystem), otherwise the default is assumed to be A:/.
However, unlike MS-DOS, there is only one working direc-
tory for all drives, and not one per drive.
VFAT-style long file names
This version of mtools supports VFAT style long filenames.
If a Unix filename is too long to fit in a short DOS name,
it is stored as a VFAT long name, and a companion short
name is generated. This short name is what you see when
you examine the disk with a pre-7.0 version of DOS.
The following table shows some examples of short names:
Long name MS-DOS name Reason for the change
--------- ---------- ---------------------
thisisatest THISIS~1 filename too long
alain.knaff ALAIN~1.KNA extension too long
prn.txt PRN~1.TXT PRN is a device name
.abc ABC~1 null filename
hot+cold HOT_CO~1 illegal character
As you see, the following transformations happen to
derive a short name:
* Illegal characters are replaced by underscores. The
illegal characters are ;+=[]',\"*\\<>/?:|.
* Extra dots, which cannot be interpreted as a main
name/extension separator are removed
* A ~n number is generated,
* The name is shortened so as to fit in the 8+3 limi-
tation
The initial Unix-style file name (whether long or short)
is also called the primary name, and the derived short
name is also called the secondary name.
Example:
mcopy /etc/motd a:Reallylongname
Mtools creates a VFAT entry for Reallylongname, and uses
REALLYLO as a short name. Reallylongname is the primary
name, and REALLYLO is the secondary name.
mcopy /etc/motd a:motd
Motd fits into the DOS filename limits. Mtools doesn't
need to derivate another name. Motd is the primary name,
and there is no secondary name.
In a nutshell: The primary name is the long name, if one
exists, or the short name if there is no long name.
Although VFAT is much more flexible than FAT, there are
still names that are not acceptable, even in VFAT. There
are still some illegal characters left (\"*\\<>/?:|), and
device names are still reserved.
Unix name Long name Reason for the change
--------- ---------- ---------------------
prn prn-1 PRN is a device name
ab:c ab_c-1 illegal character
As you see, the following transformations happen if a
long name is illegal:
* Illegal characters are replaces by underscores,
* A -n number is generated,
Name clashes
When writing a file to disk, its long name (primary name)
or short name may collide with an already existing file or
directory. This may happen for all commands which create
new directory entries, such as mcopy, mmd, mren, mmove,
mwrite and mread. When a name clash happens, mtools asks
you what it should do. It offers several choices:
overwrite
Overwrites the existing file. It is not possible to
overwrite a directory with a file.
rename
Renames the newly created file. Mtools prompts for
the new filename
autorename
Renames the newly created file. Mtools chooses a
name by itself, without prompting
skip Gives up on this file, and moves on to the next (if
any)
To chose one of these actions, type its first letter at
the prompt. If you use a lower case letter, the action
only applies for this file only, if you use an upper case
letter, the action applies to all files, and you won't be
prompted again.
You may also chose actions (for all files) on the command
line, when invoking mtools:
-o Overwrites primary names by default.
-O Overwrites secondary names by default.
-r Renames primary name by default.
-R Renames secondary name by default.
-a Autorenames primary name by default.
-A Autorenames secondary name by default.
-s Skip primary name by default.
-S Skip secondary name by default.
-m Ask user what to do with primary name.
-M Ask user what to do with secondary name.
By default, the user is prompted if the primary name
clashes, and the secondary name is autorenamed.
If a name clash occurs in a Unix directory, mtools only
asks whether to overwrite the file, or to skip it.
Case sensitivity of the VFAT filesystem
The VFAT filesystem is able to remember the case of the
filenames. However, filenames which differ only in case
are not allowed to coexist in the same directory. For
example if you store a file called LongFileName on a VFAT
filesystem, mdir shows this file as LongFileName, and not
as Longfilename. However, if you then try to add LongFile-
name to the same directory, it is refused, because case is
ignored for clash checks.
The VFAT filesystem allows to store the case of a filename
in the attribute byte, if all letters of the filename are
the same case, and if all letters of the extension are the
same case too. Mtools uses this information when display-
ing the files, and also to generate the Unix filename when
mcopying to a Unix directory. This may have unexpected
results when applied to files written using an pre-7.0
version of DOS: Indeed, the old style filenames map to all
upper case. This is different from the behavior of the old
version of mtools which used to generate lower case Unix
filenames.
high capacity formats
Mtools supports a number of formats which allow to store
more data on disk as usual. Due to different operating
system abilities, these formats are not supported on all
OS'es. Mtools recognizes these formats transparently where
supported.
In order to format these disks, you need to use an operat-
ing system specific tool. For Linux, suitable floppy tools
can be found in the fdutils package at the following loca-
tions~:
ftp://linux.wauug.org/pub/knaff/fdutils/.
ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/utils/disk-management/fdutils-*
See the manpages included in that package for further
detail: Use superformat to format all formats except XDF,
and use xdfcopy to format XDF.
More sectors
The oldest method of fitting more data on a disk is to use
more sectors and more tracks. Although the standard format
uses 80 tracks and 18 sectors (on a 3 1/2 high density
disk), it is possible to use up to 83 tracks (on most
drives) and up to 21 sectors. This method allows to store
up to 1743K on a 3 1/2 HD disk. However, 21 sector disks
are twice as slow as the standard 18 sector disks because
the sectors are packed so close together that we need to
interleave them. This problem doesn't exist for 20 sector
formats.
These formats are supported by numerous DOS shareware
utilities such as fdformat and vgacopy. In his infinite
hybris, Bill Gate$ believed that he invented this, and
called it `DMF disks', or `Windows formatted disks'. But
in reality, it has already existed years before! Mtools
supports these formats on Linux, on SunOs and on the DELL
Unix PC.
Bigger sectors
By using bigger sectors it is possible to go beyond the
capacity which can be obtained by the standard 512-byte
sectors. This is because of the sector header. The sector
header has the same size, regardless of how many data
bytes are in the sector. Thus, we save some space by using
fewer, but bigger sectors. For example, 1 sector of 4K
only takes up header space once, whereas 8 sectors of 512
bytes have also 8 headers, for the same amount of useful
data.
This method allows to store up to 1992K on a 3 1/2 HD
disk.
Mtools supports these formats only on Linux.
2m
The 2m format was originally invented by Ciriaco Garcia de
Celis. It also uses bigger sectors than usual in order to
fit more data on the disk. However, it uses the standard
format (18 sectors of 512 bytes each) on the first cylin-
der, in order to make these disks easyer to handle by DOS.
Indeed this method allows to have a standard sized boot-
sector, which contains a description of how the rest of
the disk should be read.
However, the drawback of this is that the first cylinder
can hold less data than the others. Unfortunately, DOS can
only handle disks where each track contains the same
amount of data. Thus 2m hides the fact that the first
track contains less data by using a shadow FAT. (Usually,
DOS stores the FAT in two identical copies, for additional
safety. XDF stores only one copy, and it tells DOS that
it stores two. Thus the same that would be taken up by the
second FAT copy is saved.) This also means that your
should never use a 2m disk to store anything else than a
DOS fs.
Mtools supports these format only on Linux.
XDF
XDF is a high capacity format used by OS/2. It can hold
1840 K per disk. That's lower than the best 2m formats,
but its main advantage is that it is fast: 600 millisec-
onds per track. That's faster than the 21 sector format,
and almost as fast as the standard 18 sector format. In
order to access these disks, make sure mtools has been
compiled with XDF support, and set the use_xdf variable
for the drive in the configuration file. See section Com-
piling mtools and `misc variables', for details on how to
do this. Fast XDF access is only available for Linux ker-
nels which are more recent than 1.1.34.
Mtools supports this format only on Linux.
Caution / Attention distributors: If mtools is compiled on
a Linux kernel more recent than 1.3.34, it won't run on an
older kernel. However, if it has been compiled on an older
kernel, it still runs on a newer kernel, except that XDF
access is slower. It is recommended that distribution
authors only include mtools binaries compiled on kernels
older than 1.3.34 until 2.0 comes out. When 2.0 will be
out, mtools binaries compiled on newer kernels may (and
should) be distributed. Mtools binaries compiled on ker-
nels older than 1.3.34 won't run on any 2.1 kernel or
later.
Exit codes
All the Mtools commands return 0 on success, 1 on utter
failure, or 2 on partial failure. All the Mtools commands
perform a few sanity checks before going ahead, to make
sure that the disk is indeed an MS-DOS disk (as opposed
to, say an ext2 or minix disk). These checks may reject
partially corrupted disks, which might otherwise still be
readable. To avoid these checks, set the MTOOLS_SKIP_CHECK
environmental variable or the corresponding configuration
file variable (see section global variables)
Bugs
An unfortunate side effect of not guessing the proper
device (when multiple disk capacities are supported) is an
occasional error message from the device driver. These
can be safely ignored.
The fat checking code chokes on 1.72 Mb disks mformatted
with pre-2.0.7 mtools. Set the environmental variable
MTOOLS_FAT_COMPATIBILITY (or the corresponding configura-
tion file variable, `global variables') to bypass the fat
checking.
How to configure mtools for your environment
Description
This sections explains the syntax of the configurations
files for mtools. The configuration files are called
`/usr/local/etc/mtools.conf' and `~/.mtoolsrc'. If the
environmental variable MTOOLSRC is set, its contents is
used as the filename for a third configuration file. These
configuration files describe the following items:
* Global configuration flags and variables
* Per drive flags and variables
* Character translation tables
Location of the configuration files
`/usr/local/etc/mtools.conf' is the system-wide configura-
tion file, and `~/.mtoolsrc' is the user's private config-
uration file.
On some systems, the system-wide configuration file is
called `/etc/defaults/mtools.conf' instead.
General configuration file syntax
The configuration files is made up of sections. Each sec-
tion starts with a keyword identifying the section fol-
lowed by a colon. Then follow variable assignments and
flags. Variable assignments take the following form:
name=value
Flags are lone keywords without an equal sign and value
following them. A section either ends at the end of the
file or where the next section begins.
Lines starting with a hash (#) are comments. Newline char-
acters are equivalent to whitespace (except where ending a
comment). The configuration file is case insensitive,
except for item enclosed in quotes (such as filenames).
Default values
For most platforms, mtools contains reasonable compiled-in
defaults for physical floppy drives. Thus, you usually
don't need to bother with the configuration file, if all
you want to do with mtools is to access your floppy
drives. On the other hand, the configuration file is
needed if you also want to use mtools to access your hard
disk partitions and dosemu image files.
Global variables
Global flags may be set to 1 or to 0.
The following global flags are recognized:
MTOOLS_SKIP_CHECK
If this is set to 1, mtools skips most of its san-
ity checks. This is needed to read some Atari disks
which have been made with the earlier ROMs, and
which would not be recognized otherwise.
MTOOLS_FAT_COMPATIBILITY
If this is set to 1, mtools skips the fat size
checks. Some disks have a bigger FAT than they
really need to. These are rejected if this option
is not set.
MTOOLS_LOWER_CASE
If this is set to 1, mtools displays all-upper-case
short filenames as lowercase. This has been done to
allow a behavior which is consistent with older
versions of mtools which didn't know about the case
bits.
MTOOLS_NO_VFAT
If this is set to 1, mtools won't generate VFAT
entries for filenames which are mixed-case, but
otherwise legal dos filenames. This is useful when
working with DOS versions which can't grok VFAT
longnames, such as FreeDos.
MTOOLS_DOTTED_DIR
In a wide directory, prints the short name with a
dot instead of spaces separating the basename and
the extension.
MTOOLS_NAME_NUMERIC_TAIL
If this is set to one (default), generate numeric
tails for all long names (~1). If set to zero,
only generate numeric tails if otherwise a clash
would have happened.
MTOOLS_TWENTY_FOUR_HOUR_CLOCK
If 1, uses the European notation for times (twenty
four hour clock), else uses the UK/US notation
(am/pm)
Example: Inserting the following line into your configura-
tion file instructs mtools to skip the sanity checks:
MTOOLS_SKIP_CHECK=1
Global variables may also be set via the environment:
export MTOOLS_SKIP_CHECK=1
Global string variables may be set to any value:
MTOOLS_DATE_STRING
The format used for printing dates of files. By
default, is dd-mm-yyyy.
Per drive flags and variables
General information
Per drive flags and values may be described in a drive
section. A drive section starts with drive "driveletter" :
Then follow variable-value pairs and flags.
This is a sample drive description:
drive a:
file="/dev/fd0" use_xdf=1
Disk Geometry Configuration
Geometry information describes the physical characteris-
tics about the disk. Its has three purposes:
formatting
The geometry information is written into the boot
sector of the newly made disk. However, you may
also describe the geometry information on the com-
mand line. See section mformat for details.
filtering
On some Unices there are device nodes which only
support one physical geometry. For instance, you
might need a different node to access a disk as
high density or as low density. The geometry is
compared to the actual geometry stored on the boot
sector to make sure that this device node is able
to correctly read the disk. If the geometry doesn't
match, this drive entry fails, and the next drive
entry bearing the same drive letter is tried. See
section multiple descriptions for more details on
supplying several descriptions for one drive let-
ter.
If no geometry information is supplied in the con-
figuration file, all disks are accepted. On Linux
(and on Sparc) there exist device nodes with con-
figurable geometry (`/dev/fd0', `/dev/fd1' etc),
and thus filtering is not needed (and ignored) for
disk drives. (Mtools still does do filtering on
plain files (disk images) in Linux: this is mainly
intended for test purposes, as I don't have access
to a Unix which would actually need filtering).
initial geometry
The geometry information (if available) is also
used to set the initial geometry on configurable
device nodes. This initial geometry is used to read
the boot sector, which contains the real geometry.
If no geometry information is supplied in the con-
figuration file, no initial configuration is done.
On Linux, this is not really needed either, as the
configurable devices are able to auto-detect the
disk type accurately enough (for most common
formats) to read the boot sector.
Wrong geometry information may lead to very bizarre
errors. That's why I strongly recommend that you don't use
geometry configuration unless you actually need it.
The following geometry related variables are available:
cylinders
cylinders
The number of cylinders. (cylinders is the pre-
ferred form, tracks is considered obsolete)
heads The number of heads (sides).
sectors
The number of sectors per track.
Example: the following drive section describes a 1.44M
drive:
drive a:
file="/dev/fd0H1440"
fat_bits=12
cylinders=80 heads=2 sectors=18
The following shorthand geometry descriptions are avail-
able:
1.44m high density 3 1/2 disk. Equivalent to: fat_bits=12
cylinders=80 heads=2 sectors=18
1.2m high density 5 1/4 disk. Equivalent to: fat_bits=12
cylinders=80 heads=2 sectors=15
720k double density 3 1/2 disk. Equivalent to:
fat_bits=12 cylinders=80 heads=2 sectors=9
360k double density 5 1/4 disk. Equivalent to:
fat_bits=12 cylinders=40 heads=2 sectors=9
The shorthand format descriptions may be amended. For
example, 360k sectors=8 describes a 320k disk and is
equivalent to: fat_bits=12 cylinders=40 heads=2 sectors=8
Open Flags
Moreover, the following flags are available:
sync All i/o operations are done synchronously
nodelay
The device or file is opened with the O_NDELAY
flag. This is needed on some non-Linux architec-
tures.
exclusive
The device or file is opened with the O_EXCL flag.
On Linux, this ensures exclusive access to the
floppy drive. On most other architectures, and for
plain files it has no effect at all.
General Purpose Drive Variables
The following general purpose drive variables are avail-
able:
file The name of the file or device holding the disk
image. This is mandatory. The file name should be
enclosed in quotes.
use_xdf
If this is set to a non-zero value, mtools also
tries to access this disk as an XDF disk. XDF is a
high capacity format used by OS/2. This is off by
default. See section XDF for more details.
partition
Tells mtools to treat the drive as a partitioned
device, and to use the given partition. Only pri-
mary partitions are accessible using this method,
and they are numbered from 1 to 4. For logical par-
titions, use the more general offset variable. The
partition variable is intended for removable media
such as Syquests, ZIP drives, and magneto-optical
disks. Although traditional DOS sees Syquests and
magneto-optical disks as `giant floppy disks' which
are unpartitioned, OS/2 and Windows NT treat them
like hard disks, i.e. partioned devices. The parti-
tion flag is also useful DOSEMU hdimages. It is not
recommended for hard disks for which direct access
to partitions is available through mounting.
scsi When set to 1, this option tells mtools to use raw
SCSI I/O instead of the standard read/write calls
to access the device. Currently, this is supported
on HP/UX, Solaris and SunOs. This is needed
because on some architectures, such as SunOs or
Solaris, PC media can't be accessed using the read
and write syscalls, because the OS expects them to
contain a Sun specific "disk label".
As raw Scsi access always uses the whole device,
you need to specify the "partition" flag in addi-
tion
On some architectures, such as Solaris, mtools
needs root privileges to be able to use the scsi=1
option. Thus mtools should be installed set uid
root on Solaris if you want to access Zip/Jaz
drives. Mtools uses its root privileges to open
the device, and to issue the actual SCSI I/O calls.
Moreover, root privileges are only used for drives
described in a system-wide configuration file such
as `/usr/local/etc/mtools.conf', and not for those
described in `~/.mtoolsrc' or `$MTOOLSRC'.
privileged
When set to 1, this instructs mtools to use its
set-uid and set-gid privileges for opening the
given drive. This option is only valid for drives
described in the system-wide configuration files
(such as `/usr/local/etc/mtools.conf', not
`~/.mtoolsrc' or `$MTOOLSRC'). Obviously, this
option is also a no op if mtools is not installed
setuid or setgid. This option is implied by
'scsi=1', but again only for drives defined in sys-
tem-wide configuration files. Privileged may also
be set explicitely to 0, in order to tell mtools
not to use its privileges for a given drive even if
scsi=1 is set.
Mtools only needs to be installed setuid if you use
the privileged or scsi drive variables. If you do
not use these options, mtools works perfectly well
even when not installed setuid root.
vold
Instructs mtools to interpret the device name as a
vold identifier rather than as a filename. The
vold identifier is translated into a real filename
using the media_findname() and media_oldaliases()
functions of the volmgt library. This flag is only
available if you configured mtools with the
--enable-new-vold option before compilation.
nolock
Instruct mtools to not use locking on this drive.
This is needed on systems with buggy locking seman-
tics. However, enabling this makes operation less
safe in cases where several users may access the
same drive at the same time.
offset
Describes where in the file the MS-DOS filesystem
starts. This is useful for logical partitions in
DOSEMU hdimages, and for ATARI ram disks. By
default, this is zero, meaning that the filesystem
starts right at the beginning of the device or
file.
fat_bits
The number of FAT bits. This may be 12 or 16. This
is very rarely needed, as it can almost always be
deduced from information in the boot sector. On the
contrary, describing the number of fat bits may
actually be harmful if you get it wrong. You should
only use it if mtools gets the autodetected number
of fat bits wrong, or if you want to mformat a disk
with a weird number of fat bits.
precmd
On some variants of Solaris, it is necessary to
call 'volcheck -v' before opening a floppy device,
in order for the system to notice that there is
indeed a disk in the drive. precmd="volcheck -v" in
the drive clause establishes the desired behavior.
Only the file variable is mandatory. The other parameters
may be left out. In that case a default value or an
autodetected value is used.
Supplying multiple descriptions for a drive
It is possible to supply multiple descriptions for a
drive. In that case, the descriptions are tried in order
until one is found that fits. Descriptions may fail for
several reasons:
1. because the geometry is not appropriate,
2. because there is no disk in the drive,
3. or because of other problems.
Multiple definitions are useful when using physical
devices which are only able to support one single disk
geometry. Example:
drive a: file="/dev/fd0H1440" 1.44m
drive a: file="/dev/fd0H720" 720k
This instructs mtools to use /dev/fd0H1440 for 1.44m (high
density) disks and /dev/fd0H720 for 720k (double density)
disks. On Linux, this feature is not really needed, as the
/dev/fd0 device is able to handle any geometry.
You may also use multiple drive descriptions to access
both of your physical drives through one drive letter:
drive z: file="/dev/fd0"
drive z: file="/dev/fd1"
With this description, mdir z: accesses your first physi-
cal drive if it contains a disk. If the first drive
doesn't contain a disk, mtools checks the second drive.
When using multiple configuration files, drive descrip-
tions in the files parsed last override descriptions for
the same drive in earlier files. In order to avoid this,
use the drive+ or +drive keywords instead of drive. The
first adds a description to the end of the list (i.e. it
will be tried last), and the first adds it to the start of
the list.
Character set translation tables
If you live in the USA, in Western Europe or in Australia,
you may skip this section.
Why character set translation tables are needed
DOS uses a different character code mapping than Unix.
7-bit characters still have the same meaning, only charac-
ters with the eight bit set are affected. To make matters
worse, there are several translation tables available
depending on the country where you are. The appearance of
the characters is defined using code pages. These code
pages aren't the same for all countries. For instance,
some code pages don't contain upper case accented charac-
ters. On the other hand, some code pages contain charac-
ters which don't exist in Unix, such as certain line-draw-
ing characters or accented consonants used by some Eastern
European countries. This affects two things, relating to
filenames:
upper case characters
In short names, only upper case characters are
allowed. This also holds for accented characters.
For instance, in a code page which doesn't contain
accented uppercase characters, the accented lower-
case characters get transformed into their unac-
cented counterparts.
long file names
Micro$oft has finally come to their senses and uses
a more standard mapping for the long file names.
They use Unicode, which is basically a 32 bit ver-
sion of ASCII. Its first 256 characters are identi-
cal to Unix ASCII. Thus, the code page also affects
the correspondence between the codes used in long
names and those used in short names
Mtools considers the filenames entered on the command line
as having the Unix mapping, and translates the characters
to get short names. By default, code page 850 is used
with the Swiss uppercase/lowercase mapping. I chose this
code page, because its set of existing characters most
closely matches Unix's. Moreover, this code page covers
most characters in use in the USA, Australia and Western
Europe. However, it is still possible to chose a different
mapping. There are two methods: the country variable and
explicit tables.
Configuration using Country
The COUNTRY variable is recommended for people which also
have access to MS-DOS system files and documentation. If
you don't have access to these, I'd suggest you'd rather
use explicit tables instead.
Syntax:
COUNTRY="country[,[codepage], country-file]"
This tells mtools to use a Unix-to-DOS translation table
which matches codepage and an lowercase-to-uppercase table
for country and to use the country-file file to get the
lowercase-to-uppercase table. The country code is most
often the telephone prefix of the country. Refer to the
DOS help page on "country" for more details. The codepage
and the country-file parameters are optional. Please don't
type in the square brackets, they are only there to say
which parameters are optional. The country-file file is
supplied with MS-DOS, and is usually called `COUNTRY.SYS',
and stored in the `C:\DOS' directory. In most cases you
don't need it, as the most common translation tables are
compiled into mtools. So, don't worry if you run a Unix-
only box which lacks this file.
If codepage is not given, a per country default code page
is used. If the country-file parameter isn't given, com-
piled-in defaults are used for the lowercase-to-uppercase
table. This is useful for other Unices than Linux, which
may have no `COUNTRY.SYS' file available online.
The Unix-to-DOS are not contained in the `COUNTRY.SYS'
file, and thus mtools always uses compiled-in defaults for
those. Thus, only a limited amount of code pages are sup-
ported. If your preferred code page is missing, or if you
know the name of the Windows 95 file which contains this
mapping, could you please drop me a line at
Alain.Knaff@poboxes.com.
The COUNTRY variable can also be set using the environ-
ment.
Configuration using explicit translation tables
Translation tables may be described in line in the config-
uration file. Two tables are needed: first the DOS-to-Unix
table, and then the Lowercase-to-Uppercase table. A DOS-
to-Unix table starts with the tounix keyword, followed by
a colon, and 128 hexadecimal numbers. A lower-to-upper
table starts with the fucase keyword, followed by a colon,
and 128 hexadecimal numbers.
The tables only show the translations for characters whose
codes is greater than 128, because translation for lower
codes is trivial.
Example:
tounix:
0xc7 0xfc 0xe9 0xe2 0xe4 0xe0 0xe5 0xe7
0xea 0xeb 0xe8 0xef 0xee 0xec 0xc4 0xc5
0xc9 0xe6 0xc6 0xf4 0xf6 0xf2 0xfb 0xf9
0xff 0xd6 0xdc 0xf8 0xa3 0xd8 0xd7 0x5f
0xe1 0xed 0xf3 0xfa 0xf1 0xd1 0xaa 0xba
0xbf 0xae 0xac 0xbd 0xbc 0xa1 0xab 0xbb
0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0xc1 0xc2 0xc0
0xa9 0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0xa2 0xa5 0xac
0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0xe3 0xc3
0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0xa4
0xf0 0xd0 0xc9 0xcb 0xc8 0x69 0xcd 0xce
0xcf 0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0x7c 0x49 0x5f
0xd3 0xdf 0xd4 0xd2 0xf5 0xd5 0xb5 0xfe
0xde 0xda 0xd9 0xfd 0xdd 0xde 0xaf 0xb4
0xad 0xb1 0x5f 0xbe 0xb6 0xa7 0xf7 0xb8
0xb0 0xa8 0xb7 0xb9 0xb3 0xb2 0x5f 0x5f
fucase:
0x80 0x9a 0x90 0xb6 0x8e 0xb7 0x8f 0x80
0xd2 0xd3 0xd4 0xd8 0xd7 0xde 0x8e 0x8f
0x90 0x92 0x92 0xe2 0x99 0xe3 0xea 0xeb
0x59 0x99 0x9a 0x9d 0x9c 0x9d 0x9e 0x9f
0xb5 0xd6 0xe0 0xe9 0xa5 0xa5 0xa6 0xa7
0xa8 0xa9 0xaa 0xab 0xac 0xad 0xae 0xaf
0xb0 0xb1 0xb2 0xb3 0xb4 0xb5 0xb6 0xb7
0xb8 0xb9 0xba 0xbb 0xbc 0xbd 0xbe 0xbf
0xc0 0xc1 0xc2 0xc3 0xc4 0xc5 0xc7 0xc7
0xc8 0xc9 0xca 0xcb 0xcc 0xcd 0xce 0xcf
0xd1 0xd1 0xd2 0xd3 0xd4 0x49 0xd6 0xd7
0xd8 0xd9 0xda 0xdb 0xdc 0xdd 0xde 0xdf
0xe0 0xe1 0xe2 0xe3 0xe5 0xe5 0xe6 0xe8
0xe8 0xe9 0xea 0xeb 0xed 0xed 0xee 0xef
0xf0 0xf1 0xf2 0xf3 0xf4 0xf5 0xf6 0xf7
0xf8 0xf9 0xfa 0xfb 0xfc 0xfd 0xfe 0xff
The first table maps DOS character codes to Unix character
codes. For example, the DOS character number 129. This is
a u with to dots on top of it. To translate it into Unix,
we look at the character number 1 in the first table (1 =
129 - 128). This is 0xfc. (Beware, numbering starts at 0).
The second table maps lower case DOS characters to upper
case DOS characters. The same lower case u with dots maps
to character 0x9a, which is an uppercase U with dots in
DOS.
Unicode characters greater than 256
If an existing MS-DOS name contains Unicode character
greater than 256, these are translated to underscores or
to characters which are close in visual appearance. For
example, accented consonants are translated into their
unaccented counterparts. This translation is used for mdir
and for the Unix filenames generated by mcopy. Linux does
support Unicode too, but unfortunately too few applica-
tions support it yet to bother with it in mtools. Most
importantly, xterm can't display Unicode yet. If there is
sufficient demand, I might include support for Unicode in
the Unix filenames as well.
Caution: When deleting files with mtools, the underscore
matches all characters which can't be represented in Unix.
Be careful with mdel!
Location of configuration files and parsing order
The configuration files are parsed in the following order:
1. compiled-in defaults
2. `/usr/local/etc/mtools.conf'
3. `/etc/mtools' This is for backwards compatibility
only, and is only parsed if `mtools.conf' doesn't
exist.
4. `~/.mtoolsrc'.
5. `$MTOOLSRC' (file pointed by the MTOOLSRC environ-
mental variable)
Options described in the later files override those
described in the earlier files. Drives defined in earlier
files persist if they are not overridden in the later
files. For instance, drives A and B may be defined in
`/usr/local/etc/mtools.conf' and drives C and D may be
defined in `~/.mtoolsrc' However, if `~/.mtoolsrc' also
defines drive A, this new description would override the
description of drive A in `/usr/local/etc/mtools.conf'
instead of adding to it. If you want to add a new
description to a drive already described in an earlier
file, you need to use either the +drive or drive+ keyword.
Backwards compatibility with old configuration file syntax
The syntax described herein is new for version mtools-3.0.
The old line-oriented syntax is still supported. Each line
beginning with a single letter is considered to be a drive
description using the old syntax. Old style and new style
drive sections may be mixed within the same configuration
file, in order to make upgrading easier. Support for the
old syntax will be phased out eventually, and in order to
discourage its use, I purposefully omit its description
here.
Command list
This section describes the available mtools commands, and
the command line parameters that each of them accepts.
Options which are common to all mtools commands are not
described here, `arguments' for a description of those.
Mattrib
Mattrib is used to change MS-DOS file attribute flags. It
has the following syntax:
mattrib [-a|+a] [-h|+h] [-r|+r] [-s|+s] msdosfile [ msdos-
files ... ]
Mattrib adds attribute flags to an MS-DOS file (with the
`+' operator) or remove attribute flags (with the `-'
operator).
Mattrib supports the following attribute bits:
a Archive bit. Used by some backup programs to indi-
cate a new file.
r Read-only bit. Used to indicate a read-only file.
Files with this bit set cannot be erased by DEL nor
modified.
s System bit. Used by MS-DOS to indicate a operating
system file.
h Hidden bit. Used to make files hidden from DIR.
Mbadblocks
The mbadblocks command is used to scan an MS-DOS floppy
and mark its unused bad blocks as bad. It uses the follow-
ing syntax:
mbadblocks drive:
Mbadblocks scans an MS-DOS floppy for bad blocks. All
unused bad blocks are marked as such in the FAT. This is
intended to be used right after mformat. It is not
intended to salvage bad disks.
Bugs
Mbadblocks should (but doesn't yet :-( ) also try to sal-
vage bad blocks which are in use by reading them repeat-
edly, and then mark them bad.
Mcd
The mcd command is used to change the mtools working
directory on the MS-DOS disk. It uses the following syn-
tax:
mcd [msdosdirectory]
Without arguments, mcd reports the current device and
working directory. Otherwise, mcd changes the current
device and current working directory relative to an MS-DOS
filesystem.
The environmental variable MCWD may be used to locate the
file where the device and current working directory infor-
mation is stored. The default is `$HOME/.mcwd'. Informa-
tion in this file is ignored if the file is more than 6
hours old.
Mcd returns 0 on success or 1 on failure.
Unlike MS-DOS versions of CD, mcd can be used to change to
another device. It may be wise to remove old `.mcwd' files
at logout.
Mcopy
The mcopy command is used to copy MS-DOS files to and from
Unix. It uses the following syntax:
mcopy [-tnvmoOsSrRA] sourcefile targetfile
mcopy [-tnvmoOsSrRA] sourcefile [ sourcefiles... ] targetdirectory
mcopy [-tnvm] MSDOSsourcefile
Mcopy copies the specified file to the named file, or
copies multiple files to the named directory. The source
and target can be either MS-DOS or Unix files.
The use of a drive letter designation on the MS-DOS files,
'a:' for example, determines the direction of the trans-
fer. A missing drive designation implies a Unix file
whose path starts in the current directory. If a source
drive letter is specified with no attached file name (e.g.
mcopy a: .), all files are copied from that drive.
If only a single, MS-DOS source parameter is provided
(e.g. "mcopy a:foo.exe"), an implied destination of the
current directory (`.') is assumed.
A filename of `-' means standard input or standard output,
depending on its position on the command line.
Mcopy accepts the following command line options:
Q When mcopying multiple files, quits as soon as one
copy fails (for example due to lacking storage
space on the target disk)
t Text file transfer. Mcopy translates incoming car-
riage return/line feeds to line feeds.
n No confirmation when overwriting Unix files. Mcopy
doesn't warn the user when overwriting an existing
Unix file. In order to switch off confirmation for
DOS files, use -o.
m Preserve the file modification time. If the target
file already exists, and the -n option is not in
effect, mcopy asks whether to overwrite the file or
to rename the new file (`name clashes') for
details).
Bugs
Unlike MS-DOS, the '+' operator (append) from MS-DOS is
not supported. However, you may use mtype to produce the
same effect:
mtype a:file1 a:file2 a:file3 >>unixfile
mtype a:file1 a:file2 a:file3 | mcopy - a:msdosfile
Mdel
The mdel command is used to delete an MS-DOS file. Its
syntax is:
mdel [-v] msdosfile [ msdosfiles ... ]
Mdel deletes files on an MS-DOS filesystem.
Mdel asks for verification prior to removing a read-only
file.
Mdeltree
The mdeltree command is used to delete an MS-DOS file. Its
syntax is:
mdeltree [-v] msdosdirectory [msdosdirectories...]
Mdeltree removes a directory and all the files and subdi-
rectories it contains from an MS-DOS filesystem. An error
occurs if the directory to be removed does not exist.
Mdir
The mdir command is used to display an MS-DOS directory.
Its syntax is:
mdir [-w] msdosdirectory
mdir [-f] [-w] [-a] msdosfile [ msdosfiles...]
Mdir displays the contents of an MS-DOS directory.
Mdir supports the following command line options:
w Wide output. With this option, mdir prints the
filenames across the page without displaying the
file size or creation date.
a Also list hidden files.
f Fast. Do not try to find out free space. On
larger disks, finding out the amount of free space
takes up some non trivial amount of time, as the
whole FAT must be read in and scanned. The -f flag
bypasses this step. This flag is not needed on
FAT32 filesystems, which store the size
explicitely.
An error occurs if a component of the path is not a direc-
tory.
Mformat
The mformat command is used to add an MS-DOS filesystem to
a low-level formatted diskette. Its syntax is:
mformat [-t cylinders] [-h heads] [-s sectors] [-l vol-
ume_label] [-F] [-I fsVersion] [-S sizecode] [-2
sectors_on_track_0] [-M software_sector_size] [-a] [-X]
[-C] [-H hidden_sectors] [-r root_sectors] [-B boot_sec-
tor] [-k] drive:
Mformat adds a minimal MS-DOS filesystem (boot sector,
FAT, and root directory) to a diskette that has already
been formatted by a Unix low-level format.
The following options are supported: (The S, 2, 1 and M
options may not exist if this copy of mtools has been com-
piled without the USE_2M option)
t The number of cylinders.
h The number of heads (sides).
s The number of sectors per track. If the 2m option
is given, number of 512-byte sector equivalents on
generic tracks (i.e. not head 0 track 0). If the
2m option is not given, number of physical sectors
per track (which may be bigger than 512 bytes).
l An optional volume label.
S The sizecode. The size of the sector is 2 ^ (size-
code + 7).
2 2m format. The parameter to this option describes
the number of sectors on track 0, head 0. This
option is recommended for sectors bigger than nor-
mal.
1 don't use a 2m format, even if the current geometry
of the disk is a 2m geometry.
M software sector size. This parameter describes the
sector size in bytes used by the MS-DOS filesystem.
By default it is the physical sector size.
a If this option is given, an Atari style serial num-
ber is generated. Ataris store their serial number
in the OEM label.
X formats the disk as an XDF disk. See section XDF
for more details. The disk has first to be low-
level formatted using the xdfcopy utility included
in the fdutils package.
C creates the disk image file to install the MS-DOS
filesystem on it. Obviously, this is useless on
physical devices such as floppies and hard disk
partitions.
H number of hidden sectors. This parameter is useful
for formatting hard disk partition, which are not
aligned on track boundaries (i.e. first head of
first track doesn't belong to the partition, but
contains a partition table). In that case the num-
ber of hidden sectors is in general the number of
sectors per cylinder. This is untested.
n serial number
F Format the partition as FAT32 (experimental).
I Sets the fsVersion id when formatting a FAT32
drive. In order to find this out, run minfo on an
existing FAT32 drive, and mail me about it, so I
can include the correct value in future versions of
mtools.
c Sets the size of a cluster (in sectors). If this
cluster size would generate a FAT that too big for
its number of bits, mtools automatically increases
the cluster size, until the FAT is small enough.
r Sets the size of the root directory (in sectors).
Only applicable to 12 and 16 bit FATs.
B Use the bootsector stored in the given file or
device, instead of using its own. Only the geome-
try fields are updated to match the target disks
parameters.
k Keep the existing boot sector as much as possible.
Only the geometry fields are updated to match the
target disks parameters.
To format a diskette at a density other than the default,
you must supply (at least) those command line parameters
that are different from the default.
Mformat returns 0 on success or 1 on failure.
It doesn't record bad block information to the Fat, use
mkmanifest for that.
Mkmanifest
The mkmanifest command is used to create a shell script
(packing list) to restore Unix filenames. Its syntax is:
mkmanifest [ files ]
Mkmanifest creates a shell script that aids in the
restoration of Unix filenames that got clobbered by the
MS-DOS filename restrictions. MS-DOS filenames are
restricted to 8 character names, 3 character extensions,
upper case only, no device names, and no illegal charac-
ters.
The mkmanifest program is compatible with the methods used
in pcomm, arc, and mtools to change perfectly good Unix
filenames to fit the MS-DOS restrictions. This command is
only useful if the target system which will read the
diskette cannot handle vfat long names.
Example
You want to copy the following Unix files to a MS-DOS
diskette (using the mcopy command).
very_long_name
2.many.dots
illegal:
good.c
prn.dev
Capital
Mcopy converts the names to:
very_lon
2xmany.dot
illegalx
good.c
xprn.dev
capital
The command:
mkmanifest very_long_name 2.many.dots illegal: good.c prn.dev Capital >>manifest
would produce the following:
mv very_lon very_long_name
mv 2xmany.dot 2.many.dots
mv illegalx illegal:
mv xprn.dev prn.dev
mv capital Capital
Notice that "good.c" did not require any conversion, so it
did not appear in the output.
Suppose I've copied these files from the diskette to
another Unix system, and I now want the files back to
their original names. If the file "manifest" (the output
captured above) was sent along with those files, it could
be used to convert the filenames.
Bugs
The short names generated by mkmanifest follow the old
convention (from mtools-2.0.7) and not the one from Win-
dows 95 and mtools-3.0.
Minfo
The minfo command prints the parameters of a Dos filesys-
tem, such as number of sectors, heads and cylinders. It
also prints an mformat command line which can be used to
create a similar Dos filesystem on another media. How-
ever, this doesn't work with 2m or Xdf media, and with Dos
1.0 filesystems minfo drive:
Mlabel supports the following option:
v Prints a hexdump of the bootsector, in addition to
the other information
Mlabel
The mlabel command adds a volume label to a disk. Its syn-
tax is: mlabel [-vcs] drive:[new_label]
Mlabel displays the current volume label, if present. If
new_label is not given, and if neither the c nor the s
options are set, it prompts the user for a new volume
label. To delete an existing volume label, press return
at the prompt.
Reasonable care is taken to create a valid MS-DOS volume
label. If an invalid label is specified, mlabel changes
the label (and displays the new label if the verbose mode
is set). Mlabel returns 0 on success or 1 on failure.
Mlabel supports the following options:
c Clears an existing label, without prompting the
user
s Shows the existing label, without prompting the
user.
Mmd
The mmd command is used to make an MS-DOS subdirectory.
Its syntax is:
mmd [-voOsSrRA] msdosdirectory [ msdosdirectories... ]
Mmd makes a new directory on an MS-DOS filesystem. An
error occurs if the directory already exists.
Mmount
The mmount command is used to mount an MS-DOS disk. It is
only available on Linux, as it is only useful if the OS
kernel allows to configure the disk geometry. Its syntax
is:
mmount msdosdrive [mountargs]
Mmount reads the boot sector of an MS-DOS disk, configures
the drive geometry, and finally mounts it passing moun-
targs to mount. If no mount arguments are specified, the
name of the device is used. If the disk is write pro-
tected, it is automatically mounted read only.
Mmove
The mmove command is used to moves or renames an existing
MS-DOS file or subdirectory. mmove [-voOsSrRA] sourcefile
targetfile mmove [-voOsSrRA] sourcefile [ sourcefiles... ]
targetdirectory
Mmove moves or renames an existing MS-DOS file or subdi-
rectory. Unlike the MS-DOS version of MOVE, mmove is able
to move subdirectories.
Mpartition
The mpartition command is used to create MS-DOS filesys-
tems as partitions. This is intended to be used on non-
Linux systems, i.e. systems where fdisk and easy access to
Scsi devices are not available. This command only works
on drives whose partition variable is set.
mpartition -p drive mpartition -r drive mpartition -I
drive mpartition -a drive mpartition -d drive mpartition
-c [-s sectors] [-h heads] [-t cylinders] [-v [-T type]
[-b begin] [-l length] [-f]
Mpartition supports the following operations:
p Prints a command line to recreate the partition for
the drive. Nothing is printed if the partition for
the drive is not defined, or an inconsistency has
been detected. If verbose (-v) is also set, prints
the current partition table.
r Removes the partition described by drive.
I Initializes the partition table, and removes all
partitions.
c Creates the partition described by drive.
a "Activates" the partition, i.e. makes it bootable.
Only one partition can be bootable at a time.
d "Desactivates" the partition, i.e. makes it
unbootable.
If no operation is given, the current settings are
printed.
For partition creations, the following options are avail-
able:
s sectors
The number of sectors per track of the partition
(which is also the number of sectors per track for
the whole drive).
h heads
The number of heads of the partition (which is also
the number of heads for the whole drive). By
default, the geometry information (number of sec-
tors and heads) is figured out from neighbouring
partition table entries, or guessed from the size.
t cylinders
The number of cylinders of the partition (not the
number of cylinders of the whole drive.
b begin
The starting offset of the partition, expressed in
sectors. If begin is not given, mpartition lets the
partition begin at the start of the disk (partition
number 1), or immediately after the end of the pre-
vious partition.
l length
The size (length) of the partition, expressed in
sectors. If end is not given, mpartition figures
out the size from the number of sectors, heads and
cylinders. If these are not given either, it gives
the partition the biggest possible size, consider-
ing disk size and start of the next partition.
The following option is available for all operation which
modify the partition table:
f Usually, before writing back any changes to the
partition, mpartition performs certain consistenct
checks, such as checking for overlaps and proper
alignment of the partitions. If any of these
checks fails, the partition table is not changes.
The -f allows you to override these safeguards.
The following option is available for all operations:
v Together with -p prints the partition table as it
is now (no change operation), or as it is after it
is modified.
vv If the verbosity flag is given twice, mpartition
will print out a hexdump of the partition table
when reading it from and writing it to the device.
Mrd
The mrd command is used to remove an MS-DOS subdirectory.
Its syntax is:
mrd [-v] msdosdirectory [ msdosdirectories... ]
Mrd removes a directory from an MS-DOS filesystem. An
error occurs if the directory does not exist or is not
empty.
Mren
The mren command is used to rename or move an existing MS-
DOS file or subdirectory. Its syntax is:
mren [-voOsSrRA] sourcefile targetfile
Mren renames an existing file on an MS-DOS filesystem.
In verbose mode, Mren displays the new filename if the
name supplied is invalid.
If the first syntax is used (only one sourcefile), and if
the target name doesn't contain any slashes or colons, the
file (or subdirectory) is renamed in the same directory,
instead of being moved to the current mcd directory as
would be the case with mmove. Unlike the MS-DOS version of
REN, mren can be used to rename directories.
Mtoolstest
The mtoolstest command is used to tests the mtools
configuration files. To invoke it, just type mtoolstest
without any arguments. Mtoolstest reads the mtools con-
figuration files, and prints the cumulative configuration
to stdout. The output can be used as a configuration file
itself (although you might want to remove redundant
clauses). You may use this program to convert old-style
configuration files into new style configuration files.
Mtype
The mtype command is used to display contents of an MS-DOS
file. Its syntax is:
mtype [-ts] msdosfile [ msdosfiles... ]
Mtype displays the specified MS-DOS file on the screen.
In addition to the standard options, Mtype allows the fol-
lowing command line options:
t Text file viewing. Mtype translates incoming car-
riage return/line feeds to line feeds.
s Mtype strips the high bit from the data.
The mcd command may be used to establish the device and
the current working directory (relative to MS-DOS), other-
wise the default is A:/.
Mtype returns 0 on success, 1 on utter failure, or 2 on
partial failure.
Unlike the MS-DOS version of TYPE, mtype allows multiple
arguments.
Mzip
The mzip command is used to issue ZIP disk specific com-
mands on Solaris or HPUX. Its syntax is:
mzip [-epqrwx]
Mzip allows the following command line options:
e Ejects the disk.
f Force eject even if the disk is mounted (must be
given in addition to -e).
r Write protect the disk.
w Remove write protection.
p Password write protect.
x Password protect
q Queries the status
To remove the password, set it to one of the passwordless
modes -r or -w: mzip will then ask you for the password,
and unlock the disk. If you have forgotten the password,
you can get rid of it by low-level formatting the disk
(using your SCSI adaptor's BIOS setup).
The ZipTools disk shipped with the drive is also password
protected. On Dos or on a Mac, this password is automati-
cally removed once the ZipTools have been installed. From
various articles posted to Usenet, I learned that the
password for the tools disk is APlaceForYourStuff. Mzip
knows about this password, and tries it first, before
prompting you for a password. Thus mzip -w z: unlocks the
tools disk. The tools disk is formatted in a special way
so as to be usable both in a PC and in a Mac. On a PC,
the Mac filesystem appears as a hidden file named `par-
tishn.mac'. You may erase it to reclaim the 50 Megs of
space taken up by the Mac filesystem.
Xcopy
The xcopy script is used to recursively copy one directory
to another. Its syntax is:
xcopy sourcedirectory targetdirectory
If targetdirectory does not exist, it is created. If it
does exist, the files of sourcedirectory are directly
copied into it, and no subdirectory called sourcedirectory
is created, unlike with cp -rf.
Bugs
This command is a big kludge. A proper implementation
would take a rework of significant parts of mtools, but
unfortunately I don't have the time for this right now.
The main downside of this implementation is that it is
inefficient on some architectures (several successive
calls to mtools, which defeats mtools' caching).
Architecture specific compilation flags
To compile mtools, first invoke ./configure before make.
In addition to the standard autoconfigure flags, there are
two architecture specific flags available.
./configure --enable-xdf
./configure --disable-xdf
Enables support for XDF disks. This is on by
default. See section XDF, for details.
./configure --enable-vold
./configure --disable-vold
Enables support for vold on Solaris. When used in
conjunction with vold, mtools should uses different
device nodes as for direct access.
./configure --enable-new-vold
./configure --disable-new-vold
Enables new support for vold on Solaris. This is
supposed to work more smoothly than the old sup-
port.
Porting mtools to architectures which are not supported yet
This chapter is only interesting for those who want to
port mtools to an architecture which is not yet supported.
For most common systems, default drives are already
defined. If you want to add default drives for a still
unsupported system, run config.guess, to see which identi-
fication autoconf uses for that system. This identifica-
tion is of the form cpu-vendor-os (for example sparc-sun-
sunos). The cpu and the os parts are passed to the com-
piler as preprocessor flags.
The OS part is passed to the compiler in three forms.
1. The complete os name, with dots replaced by under-
scores. sco3.2v2 would yield sco3_2v2
2. The base os name. Sco3.2v2 would yield Sco
3. The base os name plus its major version. Sco3.2v2
would yield Sco3
All three versions are passed, if they are different.
To define the devices, use the entries for the systems
that are already present as templates. In general, they
have the following form:
#if (defined (my_cpu) && defined(my_os))
#define predefined_devices
struct device devices[] = {
{ "/dev/first_drive", 'drive_letter', drive_description},
...
{ "/dev/last_drive", 'drive_letter', drive_description}
}
#define INIT_NOOP
#endif
"/dev/first_drive" is the name of the device or image
file representing the drive. Drive_letter is a letter
ranging from a to z giving access to the drive.
Drive_description describes the type of the drive:
ED312 extra density (2.88M) 3 1/2 disk
HD312 high density 3 1/2 disk
DD312 double density 3 1/2 disk
HD514 high density 5 1/4 disk
DD514 double density 5 1/4 disk
DDsmall
8 sector double density 5 1/4 disk
SS514 single sided double density 5 1/4 disk
SSsmall
single sided 8 sector double density 5 1/4 disk
GENFD generic floppy drive (12 bit FAT)
GENHD generic hard disk (16 bit FAT)
GEN generic device (all parameters match)
ZIPJAZ(flags)
generic ZIP drive using normal access. This uses
partition 4. Flags are any special flags to be
passed to open.
RZIPJAZ(flags)
generic ZIP drive using raw SCSI access. This uses
partition 4. Flags are any special flags to be
passed to open.
Entries may be described in more detail:
fat_bits,open_flags,cylinders,heads,sectors,DEF_ARG
or, if you need to describe an offset (filesystem doesn't
start at beginning of filesystem)
fat_bits, open_flags, cylinders, heads, sectors, offset, DEF_ARG0
fat_bits
is either 12, 16 or 0. 0 means that the device
accepts both types of FAT.
open_flags
may include flags such as O_NDELAY, or O_RDONLY,
which might be necessary to open the device. 0
means no special flags are needed.
cylinders,heads,sectors
describe the geometry of the disk. If cylinders is
0, the heads and sectors parameters are ignored,
and the drive accepts any geometry.
offset
is used if the DOS filesystem doesn't begin at the
start of the device or image file. This is mostly
useful for Atari Ram disks (which contain their
device driver at the beginning of the file) or for
DOS emulator images (which may represent a parti-
tioned device.
Definition of defaults in the devices file should only be
done if these same devices are found on a large number of
hosts of this type. In that case, could you also let me
know about your new definitions, so that I can include
them into the next release. For purely local file, I rec-
ommend that you use the /usr/local/etc/mtools.conf and
~/.mtoolsrc configuration files.
However, the devices files also allows to supply geometry
setting routines. These are necessary if you want to
access high capacity disks.
Two routines should be supplied:
1. Reading the current parameters
static inline int get_parameters(int fd, struct generic_floppy_struct *floppy)
This probes the current configured geometry, and
return it in the structure generic_floppy_struct
(which must also be declared).
Fd is an open file descriptor for the device, and
buf is an already filled in stat structure, which
may be useful.
This routine should return 1 if the probing fails,
and 0 otherwise.
2. Setting new parameters
static inline int set_parameters(int fd, struct generic_floppy_struct *floppy)
struct stat *buf)
This configures the geometry contained in floppy
on the file descriptor fd. Buf is the result of a
stat call (already filled in). This should return
1 if the new geometry cannot be configured, and 0
otherwise.
A certain number of preprocessor macros should also be
supplied:
TRACKS(floppy)
refers to the track field in the floppy structure
HEADS(floppy)
refers to the heads field in the floppy structure
SECTORS(floppy)
refers to the sectors per track field in the floppy
structure
SECTORS_PER_DISK(floppy)
refers to the sectors per disk field in the floppy
structure (if applicable, otherwise leave unde-
fined)
BLOCK_MAJOR
major number of the floppy device, when viewed as a
block device
CHAR_MAJOR
major number of the floppy device, when viewed as a
character device (a.k.a. "raw" device, used for
fsck) (leave this undefined, if your OS doesn't
have raw devices)
For the truly high capacity formats (XDF, 2m, etc), there
is no clean and documented interface yet.
See also
mattrib mbadblocks mcd mcopy mdel mdeltree mdir mformat
mkmanifest mlabel mmd mmount mmove mrd mread mren mtool-
stest mtype mwrite