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dvd-burning

Transfer of directory structure over network

I am designing a remote CD/DVD burner to address hardware constraints on my machine.

My design works like this: (analogous to a network printer)

  1. Unix-based machine (acts as server) hosts a burner.
  2. Windows-based machine acts as client.
  3. Client prepares data to burn and transfers it to the server.
  4. Server burns the data on CD/DVD.

My question is: what is the best protocol to transfer data over the network (Keeping the same directory hierarchy) between different operating systems?

Solution

  • I would think some kind of archive format would be best. The *nix .tar archive format works well for most things. However, since you are burning CD/DVD disks the native .iso format of the disk may be a good choice.

    You'll likely need to transfer the entire archive prior to burning to prevent buffer under-run issues.

    Edit: You can use mkisofs to create the .iso file from a folder or your CD burner software may be able to output an .iso file.