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

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.