Accessing the host CD-ROM when the host in Linux

Noted

•/dev/hdc is a device located on the IDE controller.
•/dev/sr0 is a device located on the SCSI controller
•/dev/cdrom is a symlink to either /dev/hdc or /dev/sr0. ESX hosts run a script that automatically sets up /dev/cdrom to be the correct device, thus using /dev/cdrom is appropriate.


To access the local host CD-ROM device when the host is in troubleshooting mode (also known as single user mode or runlevel 1):

1.Ensure that a CD-ROM has been inserted in the CD-ROM drive.
2.Run these commands to create the block device entry for the CDROM in /dev before attempting to mount the CD-ROM:

# cd /dev
# mknod -m660 sr0 b 11 0


3.Run these commands to create a temporary mount point for the CD-ROM and mount the CD-ROM on the host:

# mkdir /mnt/cd
# mount /dev/sr0 /mnt/cd
# cd /mnt/cd

You should now be in the CD-ROM directory and should be able to access the media in it.