Backup filesystems with mkisofs

Create an ISO image

Create a basic ISO image for Unix, WIN32, Mac:

mkisofs -R -J -hfs -V vollabel -o output.iso dir

Leave out the -hfs if you get the error:

too many files for HFS volume

This example is useful for backing up Unix systems with long filenames and some paths that need excluding:

mkisofs -R \
        -iso-level 4 \
        -m './mnt/*' \
        -m './proc/*' \
        -m './sys/*' \
        -m './dev/*' \
        -V vs1-root \
        -o /mnt/store0/archive/vs1/vs1-root-20080704.iso \
         ./

Mount ISO image using loopback

Mount using loopback:

mount -o loop -t iso9660 output.iso /mnt/dir