MTOOLS(5) UNIX System V (Dec 5, 1995) MTOOLS(5)
NAME
mtools - table of DOS devices
DESCRIPTION
/etc/mtools.conf and ~/.mtoolsrc are the configuration files
for mtools. These configuration file describes the following
items:
o Global configuration flags and variables
o Per drive flags and variables
o Character translation tables
/etc/mtools.conf is the system-wide configuration file, and
~/.mtoolsrc is the user's private configuration file.
General Syntax
The configuration files is made up of sections. Each section
starts with a keyword identifying the section followed 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
characters 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. 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 variables 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 sanity
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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.
Example: Inserting the following line into your
configuration 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
PER DRIVE FLAGS AND VARIABLES
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.
General Purpose Drive Variables
The following variables are available:
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.
partition
Tells mtools to treat the drive as a partitioned
device, and to use the given partition. Only primary
partitions are accessible using this method, and they
are numbered from 1 to 4. For logical partitions, use
the more general offset variable. The partition
variable is intended for Syquests, ZIP drives, and
DOSEMU hdimages. It is not recommended for hard disks
to which direct access to partitions is available.
scsi When set to 1, this option tells the operating system
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(SunOS or Solaris) that the MS-DOS filesystem exists on
an SCSI device (such as a Jaz or a Zip drive). On
SunOS/Solaris, these devices can't be accessed using
the read and write syscalls, because the OS expects
them to contain a Sun specific "disk label".
Obviously, Zip and Jaz disks don't contain any such
label as they contain PC-style partitions.
On 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 only uses its root privileges when
issuing these SCSI ioctl's. The device file and any
copied files are still opened with the user's rights.
Moreover, mtools drops its root privileges whenever
mtools performs "shell expansion" of a device filename
contained in its configuration files. For example, if
your /etc/mtools.conf file contains a line such as the
following, then the scsi=1 option does not work for
drive e:
drive e: file="$HOME/dosimage"
Other drives are not affected: in the following
example, the scsi=1 option still works for drive d:
drive e: file="$HOME/dosimage"
drive d: file="/dev/zip" scsi=1
However, other lines bearing the same drive number are
affected:
drive e: file="$HOME/dosimage"
drive e: file="/dev/zip" scsi=1
offset
Describes where in the file the MSDOS 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
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MTOOLS(5) UNIX System V (Dec 5, 1995) MTOOLS(5)mtools gets the autodetected number of fat bits wrong,
or if you want to mformat a disk with a weird number of
fat bits.
Only the file option is mandatory. The other parameters may
be left out. In that case a default value or an autodetected
value is used.
Drive Geometry Configuration
Geometry information describes the physical characteristics
about the disk. Its has three purposes:
mformat
The geometry information is written into the boot
sector of the newly made disk. However, you may also
describe the geometry information on the command line.
See mformat(1) for details.
filtering
On some Unices there are device nodes which only
support one physical geometry. 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 the next section
"Supplying multiple descriptions for a drive" for more
details on supplying several descriptions for a drive
letter.
If no geometry information is supplied in the
configuration file, all disks are accepted. On Linux
(and on Sparc) there exist device nodes with
configurable 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 configuration file, no
initial configuration is done. On Linux, this is not
really needed either, as the configurable devices are
able to autodetect the disk type accurately enough (for
most common formats) to read the boot sector.
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Wrong geometry information may lead to very bizarre errors.
That's why I strongly recommend that you don't use geometry
configuration unless you really need it.
The following geometry related variables are available:
cylinders
The number of cylinders.
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
tracks=80 heads=2 sectors=18
The following shorthand geometry descriptions are available:
1.44m
high density 3 1/2 disk. Equivalent to: fat_bits=12
tracks=80 heads=2 sectors=18
1.2m high density 5 1/4 disk. Equivalent to: fat_bits=12
tracks=80 heads=2 sectors=15
720k double density 3 1/2 disk. Equivalent to: fat_bits=12
tracks=80 heads=2 sectors=9
360k double density 5 1/4 disk. Equivalent to: fat_bits=12
tracks=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 tracks=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 architectures.
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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.
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 physical
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 descriptions
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 (will be tried last),
and the first adds it to the start of the list.
CHARACTER TRANSLATION TABLES
If you live in the USA, in Western Europe or in Australia,
you may skip this section.
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Introduction
DOS uses a different character code mapping than Unix. 7-bit
characters still have the same meaning, only characters 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 characters. On the other hand,
some code pages contain characters which don't exist in
Unix, such as certain line-drawing 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 lowercase characters get
transformed into their unaccented 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 version of ASCII.
Its first 256 characters are identical 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 MSDOS 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.sys]"
This tells mtools to use a Unix-to-DOS translation table
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which matches codepage and an lowercase-to-uppercase table
for country and to use the country.sys 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.sys parameters are optional. Please don't type in
the square brackets, they are only there to say which
parameters are optional. The country.sys file is supplied
with MSDOS. 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.sys parameter isn't given, compiled-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 supported. 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@linux.lu .
The COUNTRY variable can also be set using the environment.
Configuration using explicit translation tables
Translation tables may be described in line in the
configuration 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
0xea 0xeb 0xe8 0xef 0xee 0xec
0xc9 0xe6 0xc6 0xf4 0xf6 0xf2
0xff 0xd6 0xdc 0xf8 0xa3 0xd8
0xe1 0xed 0xf3 0xfa 0xf1 0xd1
0xbf 0xae 0xac 0xbd 0xbc 0xa1
0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0xc1
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0xa9 0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0xa2
0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0x5f
0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0x5f
0xf0 0xd0 0xc9 0xcb 0xc8 0x69
0xcf 0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0x5f 0x7c
0xd3 0xdf 0xd4 0xd2 0xf5 0xd5
0xde 0xda 0xd9 0xfd 0xdd 0xde
0xad 0xb1 0x5f 0xbe 0xb6 0xa7
0xb0 0xa8 0xb7 0xb9 0xb3 0xb2
fucase:
0x80 0x9a 0x90 0xb6 0x8e 0xb7
0xd2 0xd3 0xd4 0xd8 0xd7 0xde
0x90 0x92 0x92 0xe2 0x99 0xe3
0x59 0x99 0x9a 0x9d 0x9c 0x9d
0xb5 0xd6 0xe0 0xe9 0xa5 0xa5
0xa8 0xa9 0xaa 0xab 0xac 0xad
0xb0 0xb1 0xb2 0xb3 0xb4 0xb5
0xb8 0xb9 0xba 0xbb 0xbc 0xbd
0xc0 0xc1 0xc2 0xc3 0xc4 0xc5
0xc8 0xc9 0xca 0xcb 0xcc 0xcd
0xd1 0xd1 0xd2 0xd3 0xd4 0x49
0xd8 0xd9 0xda 0xdb 0xdc 0xdd
0xe0 0xe1 0xe2 0xe3 0xe5 0xe5
0xe8 0xe9 0xea 0xeb 0xed 0xed
0xf0 0xf1 0xf2 0xf3 0xf4 0xf5
0xf8 0xf9 0xfa 0xfb 0xfc 0xfd
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 MSDOS 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 applications
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
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matches all characters which can't be represented in Unix.
Be careful before mdel!
LOCATION OF CONFIGURATION FILES AND PARSING
The configuration files are parsed in the following order:
1 compiled-in defaults
2 /etc/mtools.conf
3 /etc/mtools This is for backwards compatibility only,
and is only parsed if mtools.conf doesn't exist.
4 ~/.mtoolsrc.
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
/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 /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
The syntax described herein is new for version mtools-2.5.4.
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.
FILES
/etc/mtools.conf, ~/.mtoolsrc
SEE ALSO
mtools(1)
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