Solaris: Reading a CD-ROM

Old versions of Solaris required the user to "mount" a CD-ROM as a new drive whenever a CD-ROM was inserted. Current versions of Solaris provide a tool called the Volume Manager which automatically detects when a CD-ROM or floppy disk has been inserted into the drive, and mounts it automatically.

CD-ROMs are automatically detected when they are inserted, and are mounted on /cdrom/<name_of_media> . The Volume Manager attempts to determine the name_of_media part of the path name from the CD-ROM itself. If it cannot determine a name, the CD-ROM will be mounted on /cdrom/unnamed_cdrom. You can also use the alias path name /cdrom/cdrom0; this will always work, regardless of the value of name_of_media.

To eject the CD-ROM, type

        % eject cdrom

The CD-ROM will be unmounted and ejected from the drive.