Question about dd

[anglozaxxon]

I'm setting up a CD server at work which requires the ripping of CDs to ISO format. For this, I'm using the dd utility. It rips fine and everything, but is there anyway to get a status out of it while it's running? Ripping a CD takes a while, and it would be nice to give the user some feedback while it's happening, like a percentage done or an ETA or even a rotating slash (you know: /,-,\,|, etc.).

Maybe I'm not running the right tool for the job. dd works perfectly though and I can use it in a script.

Also, I've run into another problem. I want to be able to mount the ISOs and share them over the network. Sharing's not really a problem, but only root can mount ISOs, which I want to be able to do with a user named iso. I've heard there's a way of writing to fstab so that users can mount stuff. But I want the iso user to be able to manage the whole thing without sudo, su, or root intervention (required for fstab/mounting), which includes creating new ISOs and mounting them.

I'm going to work on the problems by myself, but any help would be much appreciated.

[drakebasher]

Your first question would probably get more response in the 'Linux Programming and Scripting' forum.

As to the second, I think that you will want to make each user a member of the iso group.