joliet · shipping · also Joliet extensions

Joliet

Joliet extends ISO 9660 with a supplementary directory hierarchy containing big-endian UCS-2 filenames.

Related Observatory article: Joliet on hesela.com

A Joliet volume retains a primary ISO 9660 hierarchy for readers that do not recognize the supplementary one. The 1995 specification allows a combined filename and extension budget of 128 bytes, representing 64 UCS-2 characters. UCS-2 on the disc is not UTF-8. [1]

Fallback can expose different names. Joliet name support does not by itself preserve Rock Ridge permissions or symbolic links. Linux offers a nojoliet mount option and separate filename-encoding controls. Recovery checks should include names and required metadata as well as file bytes. [2] [3]

Relations

related
ISO 9660, Rock Ridge, Universal Disk Format (UDF), Optical archival storage

Citations

  1. Ecma International: ECMA-119, 6th edition (2025), Annex C reproducing Joliet version 1 (1995) (accessed 2026-10-21)
  2. Linux v6.18 ISO9660 filesystem documentation: extension, permission and session options (accessed 2026-10-21)
  3. Hesela: optical archival storage and preservation checks (accessed 2026-10-21)
Sources & caveats
  • Annex C of ECMA-119 (2025) faithfully reproduces Microsoft's Joliet version 1 specification dated 22 May 1995.

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Hesela team. Joliet. Hesela. 2026-10-21. https://hesela.dev/terms/joliet/