Create ISO Image From Directory

Occasionally it's useful to create a CD/DVD ISO image from a list of files contained in a directory. For instance, if you're interested in archiving a bunch of files to be later burned to a CD/DVD.

This can be done by using the mkisofs command which stands for 'make ISO filesystem'.

If you have a list of directories like the following:

user@debian:/media/ehd/tmp$ ls -l
total 2802468
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root       4096 2009-12-29 13:01 disc01
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root       4096 2009-12-29 13:01 disc02
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root       4096 2009-12-29 13:02 disc03
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root       4096 2009-12-29 13:03 disc04
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root       4096 2009-12-29 13:05 disc05
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root       4096 2009-12-29 13:06 disc06
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root       4096 2009-12-29 13:08 disc07
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root       4096 2009-12-29 13:09 disc08
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root       4096 2009-12-29 13:10 disc09
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root       4096 2009-12-29 13:10 disc10
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root       4096 2009-12-29 13:12 disc11
user@debian:/media/ehd/tmp$

You can create individual ISO images for each directory by issuing the following command:

$ mkisofs -o disc02.iso -J disc02

The ISO image will preserve the directory structures and file names found under disc02.

Cheers