1 \input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
7 @settitle GNU Wget @value{VERSION} Manual
8 @c Disable the monstrous rectangles beside overfull hbox-es.
10 @c Use `odd' to print double-sided.
15 @c Remove this if you don't use A4 paper.
19 @c Title for man page. The weird way texi2pod.pl is written requires
20 @c the preceding @set.
22 @c man title Wget The non-interactive network downloader.
24 @dircategory Network Applications
26 * Wget: (wget). The non-interactive network downloader.
30 This file documents the the GNU Wget utility for downloading network
33 @c man begin COPYRIGHT
34 Copyright @copyright{} 1996--2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
36 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
37 this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice
38 are preserved on all copies.
41 Permission is granted to process this file through TeX and print the
42 results, provided the printed document carries a copying permission
43 notice identical to this one except for the removal of this paragraph
44 (this paragraph not being relevant to the printed manual).
46 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
47 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
48 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
49 Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A
50 copy of the license is included in the section entitled ``GNU Free
51 Documentation License''.
56 @title GNU Wget @value{VERSION}
57 @subtitle The non-interactive download utility
58 @subtitle Updated for Wget @value{VERSION}, @value{UPDATED}
59 @author by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} and others
63 Originally written by Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@xemacs.org>.
64 Currently maintained by Micah Cowan <micah@cowan.name>.
67 GNU Info entry for @file{wget}.
72 @vskip 0pt plus 1filll
73 Copyright @copyright{} 1996--2006, Free Software Foundation, Inc.
75 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
76 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
77 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
78 Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A
79 copy of the license is included in the section entitled ``GNU Free
80 Documentation License''.
85 @top Wget @value{VERSION}
87 This manual documents version @value{VERSION} of GNU Wget, the freely
88 available utility for network downloads.
90 Copyright @copyright{} 1996--2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
93 * Overview:: Features of Wget.
94 * Invoking:: Wget command-line arguments.
95 * Recursive Download:: Downloading interlinked pages.
96 * Following Links:: The available methods of chasing links.
97 * Time-Stamping:: Mirroring according to time-stamps.
98 * Startup File:: Wget's initialization file.
99 * Examples:: Examples of usage.
100 * Various:: The stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else.
101 * Appendices:: Some useful references.
102 * Copying this manual:: You may give out copies of Wget and of this manual.
103 * Concept Index:: Topics covered by this manual.
112 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
113 GNU Wget is a free utility for non-interactive download of files from
114 the Web. It supports @sc{http}, @sc{https}, and @sc{ftp} protocols, as
115 well as retrieval through @sc{http} proxies.
118 This chapter is a partial overview of Wget's features.
122 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
123 Wget is non-interactive, meaning that it can work in the background,
124 while the user is not logged on. This allows you to start a retrieval
125 and disconnect from the system, letting Wget finish the work. By
126 contrast, most of the Web browsers require constant user's presence,
127 which can be a great hindrance when transferring a lot of data.
132 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
136 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
137 Wget can follow links in @sc{html} and @sc{xhtml} pages and create local
138 versions of remote web sites, fully recreating the directory structure of
139 the original site. This is sometimes referred to as ``recursive
140 downloading.'' While doing that, Wget respects the Robot Exclusion
141 Standard (@file{/robots.txt}). Wget can be instructed to convert the
142 links in downloaded @sc{html} files to the local files for offline
147 File name wildcard matching and recursive mirroring of directories are
148 available when retrieving via @sc{ftp}. Wget can read the time-stamp
149 information given by both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} servers, and store it
150 locally. Thus Wget can see if the remote file has changed since last
151 retrieval, and automatically retrieve the new version if it has. This
152 makes Wget suitable for mirroring of @sc{ftp} sites, as well as home
157 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
161 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
162 Wget has been designed for robustness over slow or unstable network
163 connections; if a download fails due to a network problem, it will
164 keep retrying until the whole file has been retrieved. If the server
165 supports regetting, it will instruct the server to continue the
166 download from where it left off.
170 Wget supports proxy servers, which can lighten the network load, speed
171 up retrieval and provide access behind firewalls. However, if you are
172 behind a firewall that requires that you use a socks style gateway,
173 you can get the socks library and build Wget with support for socks.
174 Wget uses the passive @sc{ftp} downloading by default, active @sc{ftp}
178 Wget supports IP version 6, the next generation of IP. IPv6 is
179 autodetected at compile-time, and can be disabled at either build or
180 run time. Binaries built with IPv6 support work well in both
181 IPv4-only and dual family environments.
184 Built-in features offer mechanisms to tune which links you wish to follow
185 (@pxref{Following Links}).
188 The progress of individual downloads is traced using a progress gauge.
189 Interactive downloads are tracked using a ``thermometer''-style gauge,
190 whereas non-interactive ones are traced with dots, each dot
191 representing a fixed amount of data received (1KB by default). Either
192 gauge can be customized to your preferences.
195 Most of the features are fully configurable, either through command line
196 options, or via the initialization file @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup
197 File}). Wget allows you to define @dfn{global} startup files
198 (@file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default) for site settings.
203 @item /usr/local/etc/wgetrc
204 Default location of the @dfn{global} startup file.
213 Finally, GNU Wget is free software. This means that everyone may use
214 it, redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
215 Public License, as published by the Free Software Foundation (see the
216 file @file{COPYING} that came with GNU Wget, for details).
226 By default, Wget is very simple to invoke. The basic syntax is:
229 @c man begin SYNOPSIS
230 wget [@var{option}]@dots{} [@var{URL}]@dots{}
234 Wget will simply download all the @sc{url}s specified on the command
235 line. @var{URL} is a @dfn{Uniform Resource Locator}, as defined below.
237 However, you may wish to change some of the default parameters of
238 Wget. You can do it two ways: permanently, adding the appropriate
239 command to @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup File}), or specifying it on
245 * Basic Startup Options::
246 * Logging and Input File Options::
248 * Directory Options::
250 * HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options::
252 * Recursive Retrieval Options::
253 * Recursive Accept/Reject Options::
261 @dfn{URL} is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator. A uniform
262 resource locator is a compact string representation for a resource
263 available via the Internet. Wget recognizes the @sc{url} syntax as per
264 @sc{rfc1738}. This is the most widely used form (square brackets denote
268 http://host[:port]/directory/file
269 ftp://host[:port]/directory/file
272 You can also encode your username and password within a @sc{url}:
275 ftp://user:password@@host/path
276 http://user:password@@host/path
279 Either @var{user} or @var{password}, or both, may be left out. If you
280 leave out either the @sc{http} username or password, no authentication
281 will be sent. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} username, @samp{anonymous}
282 will be used. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} password, your email
283 address will be supplied as a default password.@footnote{If you have a
284 @file{.netrc} file in your home directory, password will also be
287 @strong{Important Note}: if you specify a password-containing @sc{url}
288 on the command line, the username and password will be plainly visible
289 to all users on the system, by way of @code{ps}. On multi-user systems,
290 this is a big security risk. To work around it, use @code{wget -i -}
291 and feed the @sc{url}s to Wget's standard input, each on a separate
292 line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
294 You can encode unsafe characters in a @sc{url} as @samp{%xy}, @code{xy}
295 being the hexadecimal representation of the character's @sc{ascii}
296 value. Some common unsafe characters include @samp{%} (quoted as
297 @samp{%25}), @samp{:} (quoted as @samp{%3A}), and @samp{@@} (quoted as
298 @samp{%40}). Refer to @sc{rfc1738} for a comprehensive list of unsafe
301 Wget also supports the @code{type} feature for @sc{ftp} @sc{url}s. By
302 default, @sc{ftp} documents are retrieved in the binary mode (type
303 @samp{i}), which means that they are downloaded unchanged. Another
304 useful mode is the @samp{a} (@dfn{ASCII}) mode, which converts the line
305 delimiters between the different operating systems, and is thus useful
306 for text files. Here is an example:
309 ftp://host/directory/file;type=a
312 Two alternative variants of @sc{url} specification are also supported,
313 because of historical (hysterical?) reasons and their widespreaded use.
315 @sc{ftp}-only syntax (supported by @code{NcFTP}):
320 @sc{http}-only syntax (introduced by @code{Netscape}):
325 These two alternative forms are deprecated, and may cease being
326 supported in the future.
328 If you do not understand the difference between these notations, or do
329 not know which one to use, just use the plain ordinary format you use
330 with your favorite browser, like @code{Lynx} or @code{Netscape}.
335 @section Option Syntax
336 @cindex option syntax
337 @cindex syntax of options
339 Since Wget uses GNU getopt to process command-line arguments, every
340 option has a long form along with the short one. Long options are
341 more convenient to remember, but take time to type. You may freely
342 mix different option styles, or specify options after the command-line
343 arguments. Thus you may write:
346 wget -r --tries=10 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/ -o log
349 The space between the option accepting an argument and the argument may
350 be omitted. Instead @samp{-o log} you can write @samp{-olog}.
352 You may put several options that do not require arguments together,
359 This is a complete equivalent of:
362 wget -d -r -c @var{URL}
365 Since the options can be specified after the arguments, you may
366 terminate them with @samp{--}. So the following will try to download
367 @sc{url} @samp{-x}, reporting failure to @file{log}:
373 The options that accept comma-separated lists all respect the convention
374 that specifying an empty list clears its value. This can be useful to
375 clear the @file{.wgetrc} settings. For instance, if your @file{.wgetrc}
376 sets @code{exclude_directories} to @file{/cgi-bin}, the following
377 example will first reset it, and then set it to exclude @file{/~nobody}
378 and @file{/~somebody}. You can also clear the lists in @file{.wgetrc}
379 (@pxref{Wgetrc Syntax}).
382 wget -X '' -X /~nobody,/~somebody
385 Most options that do not accept arguments are @dfn{boolean} options,
386 so named because their state can be captured with a yes-or-no
387 (``boolean'') variable. For example, @samp{--follow-ftp} tells Wget
388 to follow FTP links from HTML files and, on the other hand,
389 @samp{--no-glob} tells it not to perform file globbing on FTP URLs. A
390 boolean option is either @dfn{affirmative} or @dfn{negative}
391 (beginning with @samp{--no}). All such options share several
394 Unless stated otherwise, it is assumed that the default behavior is
395 the opposite of what the option accomplishes. For example, the
396 documented existence of @samp{--follow-ftp} assumes that the default
397 is to @emph{not} follow FTP links from HTML pages.
399 Affirmative options can be negated by prepending the @samp{--no-} to
400 the option name; negative options can be negated by omitting the
401 @samp{--no-} prefix. This might seem superfluous---if the default for
402 an affirmative option is to not do something, then why provide a way
403 to explicitly turn it off? But the startup file may in fact change
404 the default. For instance, using @code{follow_ftp = off} in
405 @file{.wgetrc} makes Wget @emph{not} follow FTP links by default, and
406 using @samp{--no-follow-ftp} is the only way to restore the factory
407 default from the command line.
409 @node Basic Startup Options
410 @section Basic Startup Options
415 Display the version of Wget.
419 Print a help message describing all of Wget's command-line options.
423 Go to background immediately after startup. If no output file is
424 specified via the @samp{-o}, output is redirected to @file{wget-log}.
426 @cindex execute wgetrc command
427 @item -e @var{command}
428 @itemx --execute @var{command}
429 Execute @var{command} as if it were a part of @file{.wgetrc}
430 (@pxref{Startup File}). A command thus invoked will be executed
431 @emph{after} the commands in @file{.wgetrc}, thus taking precedence over
432 them. If you need to specify more than one wgetrc command, use multiple
433 instances of @samp{-e}.
437 @node Logging and Input File Options
438 @section Logging and Input File Options
443 @item -o @var{logfile}
444 @itemx --output-file=@var{logfile}
445 Log all messages to @var{logfile}. The messages are normally reported
448 @cindex append to log
449 @item -a @var{logfile}
450 @itemx --append-output=@var{logfile}
451 Append to @var{logfile}. This is the same as @samp{-o}, only it appends
452 to @var{logfile} instead of overwriting the old log file. If
453 @var{logfile} does not exist, a new file is created.
458 Turn on debug output, meaning various information important to the
459 developers of Wget if it does not work properly. Your system
460 administrator may have chosen to compile Wget without debug support, in
461 which case @samp{-d} will not work. Please note that compiling with
462 debug support is always safe---Wget compiled with the debug support will
463 @emph{not} print any debug info unless requested with @samp{-d}.
464 @xref{Reporting Bugs}, for more information on how to use @samp{-d} for
470 Turn off Wget's output.
475 Turn on verbose output, with all the available data. The default output
480 Turn off verbose without being completely quiet (use @samp{-q} for
481 that), which means that error messages and basic information still get
486 @itemx --input-file=@var{file}
487 Read @sc{url}s from @var{file}. If @samp{-} is specified as
488 @var{file}, @sc{url}s are read from the standard input. (Use
489 @samp{./-} to read from a file literally named @samp{-}.)
491 If this function is used, no @sc{url}s need be present on the command
492 line. If there are @sc{url}s both on the command line and in an input
493 file, those on the command lines will be the first ones to be
494 retrieved. The @var{file} need not be an @sc{html} document (but no
495 harm if it is)---it is enough if the @sc{url}s are just listed
498 However, if you specify @samp{--force-html}, the document will be
499 regarded as @samp{html}. In that case you may have problems with
500 relative links, which you can solve either by adding @code{<base
501 href="@var{url}">} to the documents or by specifying
502 @samp{--base=@var{url}} on the command line.
507 When input is read from a file, force it to be treated as an @sc{html}
508 file. This enables you to retrieve relative links from existing
509 @sc{html} files on your local disk, by adding @code{<base
510 href="@var{url}">} to @sc{html}, or using the @samp{--base} command-line
513 @cindex base for relative links in input file
515 @itemx --base=@var{URL}
516 Prepends @var{URL} to relative links read from the file specified with
517 the @samp{-i} option.
520 @node Download Options
521 @section Download Options
525 @cindex client IP address
526 @cindex IP address, client
527 @item --bind-address=@var{ADDRESS}
528 When making client TCP/IP connections, bind to @var{ADDRESS} on
529 the local machine. @var{ADDRESS} may be specified as a hostname or IP
530 address. This option can be useful if your machine is bound to multiple
535 @cindex number of retries
536 @item -t @var{number}
537 @itemx --tries=@var{number}
538 Set number of retries to @var{number}. Specify 0 or @samp{inf} for
539 infinite retrying. The default is to retry 20 times, with the exception
540 of fatal errors like ``connection refused'' or ``not found'' (404),
541 which are not retried.
544 @itemx --output-document=@var{file}
545 The documents will not be written to the appropriate files, but all
546 will be concatenated together and written to @var{file}. If @samp{-}
547 is used as @var{file}, documents will be printed to standard output,
548 disabling link conversion. (Use @samp{./-} to print to a file
549 literally named @samp{-}.)
551 Use of @samp{-O} is @emph{not} intended to mean simply ``use the name
552 @var{file} instead of the one in the URL;'' rather, it is
553 analogous to shell redirection:
554 @samp{wget -O file http://foo} is intended to work like
555 @samp{wget -O - http://foo > file}; @file{file} will be truncated
556 immediately, and @emph{all} downloaded content will be written there.
558 Note that a combination with @samp{-k} is only permitted when
559 downloading a single document, and combination with any of @samp{-r},
560 @samp{-p}, or @samp{-N} is not allowed.
562 @cindex clobbering, file
563 @cindex downloading multiple times
567 If a file is downloaded more than once in the same directory, Wget's
568 behavior depends on a few options, including @samp{-nc}. In certain
569 cases, the local file will be @dfn{clobbered}, or overwritten, upon
570 repeated download. In other cases it will be preserved.
572 When running Wget without @samp{-N}, @samp{-nc}, or @samp{-r},
573 downloading the same file in the same directory will result in the
574 original copy of @var{file} being preserved and the second copy being
575 named @samp{@var{file}.1}. If that file is downloaded yet again, the
576 third copy will be named @samp{@var{file}.2}, and so on. When
577 @samp{-nc} is specified, this behavior is suppressed, and Wget will
578 refuse to download newer copies of @samp{@var{file}}. Therefore,
579 ``@code{no-clobber}'' is actually a misnomer in this mode---it's not
580 clobbering that's prevented (as the numeric suffixes were already
581 preventing clobbering), but rather the multiple version saving that's
584 When running Wget with @samp{-r}, but without @samp{-N} or @samp{-nc},
585 re-downloading a file will result in the new copy simply overwriting the
586 old. Adding @samp{-nc} will prevent this behavior, instead causing the
587 original version to be preserved and any newer copies on the server to
590 When running Wget with @samp{-N}, with or without @samp{-r}, the
591 decision as to whether or not to download a newer copy of a file depends
592 on the local and remote timestamp and size of the file
593 (@pxref{Time-Stamping}). @samp{-nc} may not be specified at the same
596 Note that when @samp{-nc} is specified, files with the suffixes
597 @samp{.html} or @samp{.htm} will be loaded from the local disk and
598 parsed as if they had been retrieved from the Web.
600 @cindex continue retrieval
601 @cindex incomplete downloads
602 @cindex resume download
605 Continue getting a partially-downloaded file. This is useful when you
606 want to finish up a download started by a previous instance of Wget, or
607 by another program. For instance:
610 wget -c ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/ls-lR.Z
613 If there is a file named @file{ls-lR.Z} in the current directory, Wget
614 will assume that it is the first portion of the remote file, and will
615 ask the server to continue the retrieval from an offset equal to the
616 length of the local file.
618 Note that you don't need to specify this option if you just want the
619 current invocation of Wget to retry downloading a file should the
620 connection be lost midway through. This is the default behavior.
621 @samp{-c} only affects resumption of downloads started @emph{prior} to
622 this invocation of Wget, and whose local files are still sitting around.
624 Without @samp{-c}, the previous example would just download the remote
625 file to @file{ls-lR.Z.1}, leaving the truncated @file{ls-lR.Z} file
628 Beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a non-empty file, and
629 it turns out that the server does not support continued downloading,
630 Wget will refuse to start the download from scratch, which would
631 effectively ruin existing contents. If you really want the download to
632 start from scratch, remove the file.
634 Also beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a file which is of
635 equal size as the one on the server, Wget will refuse to download the
636 file and print an explanatory message. The same happens when the file
637 is smaller on the server than locally (presumably because it was changed
638 on the server since your last download attempt)---because ``continuing''
639 is not meaningful, no download occurs.
641 On the other side of the coin, while using @samp{-c}, any file that's
642 bigger on the server than locally will be considered an incomplete
643 download and only @code{(length(remote) - length(local))} bytes will be
644 downloaded and tacked onto the end of the local file. This behavior can
645 be desirable in certain cases---for instance, you can use @samp{wget -c}
646 to download just the new portion that's been appended to a data
647 collection or log file.
649 However, if the file is bigger on the server because it's been
650 @emph{changed}, as opposed to just @emph{appended} to, you'll end up
651 with a garbled file. Wget has no way of verifying that the local file
652 is really a valid prefix of the remote file. You need to be especially
653 careful of this when using @samp{-c} in conjunction with @samp{-r},
654 since every file will be considered as an "incomplete download" candidate.
656 Another instance where you'll get a garbled file if you try to use
657 @samp{-c} is if you have a lame @sc{http} proxy that inserts a
658 ``transfer interrupted'' string into the local file. In the future a
659 ``rollback'' option may be added to deal with this case.
661 Note that @samp{-c} only works with @sc{ftp} servers and with @sc{http}
662 servers that support the @code{Range} header.
664 @cindex progress indicator
666 @item --progress=@var{type}
667 Select the type of the progress indicator you wish to use. Legal
668 indicators are ``dot'' and ``bar''.
670 The ``bar'' indicator is used by default. It draws an @sc{ascii} progress
671 bar graphics (a.k.a ``thermometer'' display) indicating the status of
672 retrieval. If the output is not a TTY, the ``dot'' bar will be used by
675 Use @samp{--progress=dot} to switch to the ``dot'' display. It traces
676 the retrieval by printing dots on the screen, each dot representing a
677 fixed amount of downloaded data.
679 When using the dotted retrieval, you may also set the @dfn{style} by
680 specifying the type as @samp{dot:@var{style}}. Different styles assign
681 different meaning to one dot. With the @code{default} style each dot
682 represents 1K, there are ten dots in a cluster and 50 dots in a line.
683 The @code{binary} style has a more ``computer''-like orientation---8K
684 dots, 16-dots clusters and 48 dots per line (which makes for 384K
685 lines). The @code{mega} style is suitable for downloading very large
686 files---each dot represents 64K retrieved, there are eight dots in a
687 cluster, and 48 dots on each line (so each line contains 3M).
689 Note that you can set the default style using the @code{progress}
690 command in @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the
691 command line. The exception is that, when the output is not a TTY, the
692 ``dot'' progress will be favored over ``bar''. To force the bar output,
693 use @samp{--progress=bar:force}.
696 @itemx --timestamping
697 Turn on time-stamping. @xref{Time-Stamping}, for details.
699 @cindex server response, print
701 @itemx --server-response
702 Print the headers sent by @sc{http} servers and responses sent by
705 @cindex Wget as spider
708 When invoked with this option, Wget will behave as a Web @dfn{spider},
709 which means that it will not download the pages, just check that they
710 are there. For example, you can use Wget to check your bookmarks:
713 wget --spider --force-html -i bookmarks.html
716 This feature needs much more work for Wget to get close to the
717 functionality of real web spiders.
721 @itemx --timeout=@var{seconds}
722 Set the network timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. This is equivalent
723 to specifying @samp{--dns-timeout}, @samp{--connect-timeout}, and
724 @samp{--read-timeout}, all at the same time.
726 When interacting with the network, Wget can check for timeout and
727 abort the operation if it takes too long. This prevents anomalies
728 like hanging reads and infinite connects. The only timeout enabled by
729 default is a 900-second read timeout. Setting a timeout to 0 disables
730 it altogether. Unless you know what you are doing, it is best not to
731 change the default timeout settings.
733 All timeout-related options accept decimal values, as well as
734 subsecond values. For example, @samp{0.1} seconds is a legal (though
735 unwise) choice of timeout. Subsecond timeouts are useful for checking
736 server response times or for testing network latency.
740 @item --dns-timeout=@var{seconds}
741 Set the DNS lookup timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. DNS lookups that
742 don't complete within the specified time will fail. By default, there
743 is no timeout on DNS lookups, other than that implemented by system
746 @cindex connect timeout
747 @cindex timeout, connect
748 @item --connect-timeout=@var{seconds}
749 Set the connect timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. TCP connections that
750 take longer to establish will be aborted. By default, there is no
751 connect timeout, other than that implemented by system libraries.
754 @cindex timeout, read
755 @item --read-timeout=@var{seconds}
756 Set the read (and write) timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. The
757 ``time'' of this timeout refers @dfn{idle time}: if, at any point in
758 the download, no data is received for more than the specified number
759 of seconds, reading fails and the download is restarted. This option
760 does not directly affect the duration of the entire download.
762 Of course, the remote server may choose to terminate the connection
763 sooner than this option requires. The default read timeout is 900
766 @cindex bandwidth, limit
768 @cindex limit bandwidth
769 @item --limit-rate=@var{amount}
770 Limit the download speed to @var{amount} bytes per second. Amount may
771 be expressed in bytes, kilobytes with the @samp{k} suffix, or megabytes
772 with the @samp{m} suffix. For example, @samp{--limit-rate=20k} will
773 limit the retrieval rate to 20KB/s. This is useful when, for whatever
774 reason, you don't want Wget to consume the entire available bandwidth.
776 This option allows the use of decimal numbers, usually in conjunction
777 with power suffixes; for example, @samp{--limit-rate=2.5k} is a legal
780 Note that Wget implements the limiting by sleeping the appropriate
781 amount of time after a network read that took less time than specified
782 by the rate. Eventually this strategy causes the TCP transfer to slow
783 down to approximately the specified rate. However, it may take some
784 time for this balance to be achieved, so don't be surprised if limiting
785 the rate doesn't work well with very small files.
789 @item -w @var{seconds}
790 @itemx --wait=@var{seconds}
791 Wait the specified number of seconds between the retrievals. Use of
792 this option is recommended, as it lightens the server load by making the
793 requests less frequent. Instead of in seconds, the time can be
794 specified in minutes using the @code{m} suffix, in hours using @code{h}
795 suffix, or in days using @code{d} suffix.
797 Specifying a large value for this option is useful if the network or the
798 destination host is down, so that Wget can wait long enough to
799 reasonably expect the network error to be fixed before the retry. The
800 waiting interval specified by this function is influenced by
801 @code{--random-wait}, which see.
803 @cindex retries, waiting between
804 @cindex waiting between retries
805 @item --waitretry=@var{seconds}
806 If you don't want Wget to wait between @emph{every} retrieval, but only
807 between retries of failed downloads, you can use this option. Wget will
808 use @dfn{linear backoff}, waiting 1 second after the first failure on a
809 given file, then waiting 2 seconds after the second failure on that
810 file, up to the maximum number of @var{seconds} you specify. Therefore,
811 a value of 10 will actually make Wget wait up to (1 + 2 + ... + 10) = 55
814 Note that this option is turned on by default in the global
820 Some web sites may perform log analysis to identify retrieval programs
821 such as Wget by looking for statistically significant similarities in
822 the time between requests. This option causes the time between requests
823 to vary between 0.5 and 1.5 * @var{wait} seconds, where @var{wait} was
824 specified using the @samp{--wait} option, in order to mask Wget's
825 presence from such analysis.
827 A 2001 article in a publication devoted to development on a popular
828 consumer platform provided code to perform this analysis on the fly.
829 Its author suggested blocking at the class C address level to ensure
830 automated retrieval programs were blocked despite changing DHCP-supplied
833 The @samp{--random-wait} option was inspired by this ill-advised
834 recommendation to block many unrelated users from a web site due to the
839 Don't use proxies, even if the appropriate @code{*_proxy} environment
843 For more information about the use of proxies with Wget, @xref{Proxies}.
848 @itemx --quota=@var{quota}
849 Specify download quota for automatic retrievals. The value can be
850 specified in bytes (default), kilobytes (with @samp{k} suffix), or
851 megabytes (with @samp{m} suffix).
853 Note that quota will never affect downloading a single file. So if you
854 specify @samp{wget -Q10k ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/ls-lR.gz}, all of the
855 @file{ls-lR.gz} will be downloaded. The same goes even when several
856 @sc{url}s are specified on the command-line. However, quota is
857 respected when retrieving either recursively, or from an input file.
858 Thus you may safely type @samp{wget -Q2m -i sites}---download will be
859 aborted when the quota is exceeded.
861 Setting quota to 0 or to @samp{inf} unlimits the download quota.
864 @cindex caching of DNS lookups
866 Turn off caching of DNS lookups. Normally, Wget remembers the IP
867 addresses it looked up from DNS so it doesn't have to repeatedly
868 contact the DNS server for the same (typically small) set of hosts it
869 retrieves from. This cache exists in memory only; a new Wget run will
872 However, it has been reported that in some situations it is not
873 desirable to cache host names, even for the duration of a
874 short-running application like Wget. With this option Wget issues a
875 new DNS lookup (more precisely, a new call to @code{gethostbyname} or
876 @code{getaddrinfo}) each time it makes a new connection. Please note
877 that this option will @emph{not} affect caching that might be
878 performed by the resolving library or by an external caching layer,
881 If you don't understand exactly what this option does, you probably
884 @cindex file names, restrict
885 @cindex Windows file names
886 @item --restrict-file-names=@var{mode}
887 Change which characters found in remote URLs may show up in local file
888 names generated from those URLs. Characters that are @dfn{restricted}
889 by this option are escaped, i.e. replaced with @samp{%HH}, where
890 @samp{HH} is the hexadecimal number that corresponds to the restricted
893 By default, Wget escapes the characters that are not valid as part of
894 file names on your operating system, as well as control characters that
895 are typically unprintable. This option is useful for changing these
896 defaults, either because you are downloading to a non-native partition,
897 or because you want to disable escaping of the control characters.
899 When mode is set to ``unix'', Wget escapes the character @samp{/} and
900 the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159. This is the
901 default on Unix-like OS'es.
903 When mode is set to ``windows'', Wget escapes the characters @samp{\},
904 @samp{|}, @samp{/}, @samp{:}, @samp{?}, @samp{"}, @samp{*}, @samp{<},
905 @samp{>}, and the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159.
906 In addition to this, Wget in Windows mode uses @samp{+} instead of
907 @samp{:} to separate host and port in local file names, and uses
908 @samp{@@} instead of @samp{?} to separate the query portion of the file
909 name from the rest. Therefore, a URL that would be saved as
910 @samp{www.xemacs.org:4300/search.pl?input=blah} in Unix mode would be
911 saved as @samp{www.xemacs.org+4300/search.pl@@input=blah} in Windows
912 mode. This mode is the default on Windows.
914 If you append @samp{,nocontrol} to the mode, as in
915 @samp{unix,nocontrol}, escaping of the control characters is also
916 switched off. You can use @samp{--restrict-file-names=nocontrol} to
917 turn off escaping of control characters without affecting the choice of
918 the OS to use as file name restriction mode.
925 Force connecting to IPv4 or IPv6 addresses. With @samp{--inet4-only}
926 or @samp{-4}, Wget will only connect to IPv4 hosts, ignoring AAAA
927 records in DNS, and refusing to connect to IPv6 addresses specified in
928 URLs. Conversely, with @samp{--inet6-only} or @samp{-6}, Wget will
929 only connect to IPv6 hosts and ignore A records and IPv4 addresses.
931 Neither options should be needed normally. By default, an IPv6-aware
932 Wget will use the address family specified by the host's DNS record.
933 If the DNS responds with both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, Wget will try
934 them in sequence until it finds one it can connect to. (Also see
935 @code{--prefer-family} option described below.)
937 These options can be used to deliberately force the use of IPv4 or
938 IPv6 address families on dual family systems, usually to aid debugging
939 or to deal with broken network configuration. Only one of
940 @samp{--inet6-only} and @samp{--inet4-only} may be specified at the
941 same time. Neither option is available in Wget compiled without IPv6
944 @item --prefer-family=IPv4/IPv6/none
945 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
946 with specified address family first. IPv4 addresses are preferred by
949 This avoids spurious errors and connect attempts when accessing hosts
950 that resolve to both IPv6 and IPv4 addresses from IPv4 networks. For
951 example, @samp{www.kame.net} resolves to
952 @samp{2001:200:0:8002:203:47ff:fea5:3085} and to
953 @samp{203.178.141.194}. When the preferred family is @code{IPv4}, the
954 IPv4 address is used first; when the preferred family is @code{IPv6},
955 the IPv6 address is used first; if the specified value is @code{none},
956 the address order returned by DNS is used without change.
958 Unlike @samp{-4} and @samp{-6}, this option doesn't inhibit access to
959 any address family, it only changes the @emph{order} in which the
960 addresses are accessed. Also note that the reordering performed by
961 this option is @dfn{stable}---it doesn't affect order of addresses of
962 the same family. That is, the relative order of all IPv4 addresses
963 and of all IPv6 addresses remains intact in all cases.
965 @item --retry-connrefused
966 Consider ``connection refused'' a transient error and try again.
967 Normally Wget gives up on a URL when it is unable to connect to the
968 site because failure to connect is taken as a sign that the server is
969 not running at all and that retries would not help. This option is
970 for mirroring unreliable sites whose servers tend to disappear for
971 short periods of time.
975 @cindex authentication
976 @item --user=@var{user}
977 @itemx --password=@var{password}
978 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for both
979 @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval. These parameters can be overridden
980 using the @samp{--ftp-user} and @samp{--ftp-password} options for
981 @sc{ftp} connections and the @samp{--http-user} and @samp{--http-password}
982 options for @sc{http} connections.
985 @node Directory Options
986 @section Directory Options
990 @itemx --no-directories
991 Do not create a hierarchy of directories when retrieving recursively.
992 With this option turned on, all files will get saved to the current
993 directory, without clobbering (if a name shows up more than once, the
994 filenames will get extensions @samp{.n}).
997 @itemx --force-directories
998 The opposite of @samp{-nd}---create a hierarchy of directories, even if
999 one would not have been created otherwise. E.g. @samp{wget -x
1000 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt} will save the downloaded file to
1001 @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt}.
1004 @itemx --no-host-directories
1005 Disable generation of host-prefixed directories. By default, invoking
1006 Wget with @samp{-r http://fly.srk.fer.hr/} will create a structure of
1007 directories beginning with @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/}. This option disables
1010 @item --protocol-directories
1011 Use the protocol name as a directory component of local file names. For
1012 example, with this option, @samp{wget -r http://@var{host}} will save to
1013 @samp{http/@var{host}/...} rather than just to @samp{@var{host}/...}.
1015 @cindex cut directories
1016 @item --cut-dirs=@var{number}
1017 Ignore @var{number} directory components. This is useful for getting a
1018 fine-grained control over the directory where recursive retrieval will
1021 Take, for example, the directory at
1022 @samp{ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. If you retrieve it with
1023 @samp{-r}, it will be saved locally under
1024 @file{ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. While the @samp{-nH} option can
1025 remove the @file{ftp.xemacs.org/} part, you are still stuck with
1026 @file{pub/xemacs}. This is where @samp{--cut-dirs} comes in handy; it
1027 makes Wget not ``see'' @var{number} remote directory components. Here
1028 are several examples of how @samp{--cut-dirs} option works.
1032 No options -> ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/
1034 -nH --cut-dirs=1 -> xemacs/
1035 -nH --cut-dirs=2 -> .
1037 --cut-dirs=1 -> ftp.xemacs.org/xemacs/
1042 If you just want to get rid of the directory structure, this option is
1043 similar to a combination of @samp{-nd} and @samp{-P}. However, unlike
1044 @samp{-nd}, @samp{--cut-dirs} does not lose with subdirectories---for
1045 instance, with @samp{-nH --cut-dirs=1}, a @file{beta/} subdirectory will
1046 be placed to @file{xemacs/beta}, as one would expect.
1048 @cindex directory prefix
1049 @item -P @var{prefix}
1050 @itemx --directory-prefix=@var{prefix}
1051 Set directory prefix to @var{prefix}. The @dfn{directory prefix} is the
1052 directory where all other files and subdirectories will be saved to,
1053 i.e. the top of the retrieval tree. The default is @samp{.} (the
1058 @section HTTP Options
1061 @cindex .html extension
1063 @itemx --html-extension
1064 If a file of type @samp{application/xhtml+xml} or @samp{text/html} is
1065 downloaded and the URL does not end with the regexp
1066 @samp{\.[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]?}, this option will cause the suffix @samp{.html}
1067 to be appended to the local filename. This is useful, for instance, when
1068 you're mirroring a remote site that uses @samp{.asp} pages, but you want
1069 the mirrored pages to be viewable on your stock Apache server. Another
1070 good use for this is when you're downloading CGI-generated materials. A URL
1071 like @samp{http://site.com/article.cgi?25} will be saved as
1072 @file{article.cgi?25.html}.
1074 Note that filenames changed in this way will be re-downloaded every time
1075 you re-mirror a site, because Wget can't tell that the local
1076 @file{@var{X}.html} file corresponds to remote URL @samp{@var{X}} (since
1077 it doesn't yet know that the URL produces output of type
1078 @samp{text/html} or @samp{application/xhtml+xml}. To prevent this
1079 re-downloading, you must use @samp{-k} and @samp{-K} so that the original
1080 version of the file will be saved as @file{@var{X}.orig} (@pxref{Recursive
1081 Retrieval Options}).
1084 @cindex http password
1085 @cindex authentication
1086 @item --http-user=@var{user}
1087 @itemx --http-password=@var{password}
1088 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1089 @sc{http} server. According to the type of the challenge, Wget will
1090 encode them using either the @code{basic} (insecure) or the
1091 @code{digest} authentication scheme.
1093 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1094 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1095 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1096 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1097 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1098 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1099 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1102 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1109 Disable server-side cache. In this case, Wget will send the remote
1110 server an appropriate directive (@samp{Pragma: no-cache}) to get the
1111 file from the remote service, rather than returning the cached version.
1112 This is especially useful for retrieving and flushing out-of-date
1113 documents on proxy servers.
1115 Caching is allowed by default.
1119 Disable the use of cookies. Cookies are a mechanism for maintaining
1120 server-side state. The server sends the client a cookie using the
1121 @code{Set-Cookie} header, and the client responds with the same cookie
1122 upon further requests. Since cookies allow the server owners to keep
1123 track of visitors and for sites to exchange this information, some
1124 consider them a breach of privacy. The default is to use cookies;
1125 however, @emph{storing} cookies is not on by default.
1127 @cindex loading cookies
1128 @cindex cookies, loading
1129 @item --load-cookies @var{file}
1130 Load cookies from @var{file} before the first HTTP retrieval.
1131 @var{file} is a textual file in the format originally used by Netscape's
1132 @file{cookies.txt} file.
1134 You will typically use this option when mirroring sites that require
1135 that you be logged in to access some or all of their content. The login
1136 process typically works by the web server issuing an @sc{http} cookie
1137 upon receiving and verifying your credentials. The cookie is then
1138 resent by the browser when accessing that part of the site, and so
1139 proves your identity.
1141 Mirroring such a site requires Wget to send the same cookies your
1142 browser sends when communicating with the site. This is achieved by
1143 @samp{--load-cookies}---simply point Wget to the location of the
1144 @file{cookies.txt} file, and it will send the same cookies your browser
1145 would send in the same situation. Different browsers keep textual
1146 cookie files in different locations:
1150 The cookies are in @file{~/.netscape/cookies.txt}.
1152 @item Mozilla and Netscape 6.x.
1153 Mozilla's cookie file is also named @file{cookies.txt}, located
1154 somewhere under @file{~/.mozilla}, in the directory of your profile.
1155 The full path usually ends up looking somewhat like
1156 @file{~/.mozilla/default/@var{some-weird-string}/cookies.txt}.
1158 @item Internet Explorer.
1159 You can produce a cookie file Wget can use by using the File menu,
1160 Import and Export, Export Cookies. This has been tested with Internet
1161 Explorer 5; it is not guaranteed to work with earlier versions.
1163 @item Other browsers.
1164 If you are using a different browser to create your cookies,
1165 @samp{--load-cookies} will only work if you can locate or produce a
1166 cookie file in the Netscape format that Wget expects.
1169 If you cannot use @samp{--load-cookies}, there might still be an
1170 alternative. If your browser supports a ``cookie manager'', you can use
1171 it to view the cookies used when accessing the site you're mirroring.
1172 Write down the name and value of the cookie, and manually instruct Wget
1173 to send those cookies, bypassing the ``official'' cookie support:
1176 wget --no-cookies --header "Cookie: @var{name}=@var{value}"
1179 @cindex saving cookies
1180 @cindex cookies, saving
1181 @item --save-cookies @var{file}
1182 Save cookies to @var{file} before exiting. This will not save cookies
1183 that have expired or that have no expiry time (so-called ``session
1184 cookies''), but also see @samp{--keep-session-cookies}.
1186 @cindex cookies, session
1187 @cindex session cookies
1188 @item --keep-session-cookies
1189 When specified, causes @samp{--save-cookies} to also save session
1190 cookies. Session cookies are normally not saved because they are
1191 meant to be kept in memory and forgotten when you exit the browser.
1192 Saving them is useful on sites that require you to log in or to visit
1193 the home page before you can access some pages. With this option,
1194 multiple Wget runs are considered a single browser session as far as
1195 the site is concerned.
1197 Since the cookie file format does not normally carry session cookies,
1198 Wget marks them with an expiry timestamp of 0. Wget's
1199 @samp{--load-cookies} recognizes those as session cookies, but it might
1200 confuse other browsers. Also note that cookies so loaded will be
1201 treated as other session cookies, which means that if you want
1202 @samp{--save-cookies} to preserve them again, you must use
1203 @samp{--keep-session-cookies} again.
1205 @cindex Content-Length, ignore
1206 @cindex ignore length
1207 @item --ignore-length
1208 Unfortunately, some @sc{http} servers (@sc{cgi} programs, to be more
1209 precise) send out bogus @code{Content-Length} headers, which makes Wget
1210 go wild, as it thinks not all the document was retrieved. You can spot
1211 this syndrome if Wget retries getting the same document again and again,
1212 each time claiming that the (otherwise normal) connection has closed on
1215 With this option, Wget will ignore the @code{Content-Length} header---as
1216 if it never existed.
1219 @item --header=@var{header-line}
1220 Send @var{header-line} along with the rest of the headers in each
1221 @sc{http} request. The supplied header is sent as-is, which means it
1222 must contain name and value separated by colon, and must not contain
1225 You may define more than one additional header by specifying
1226 @samp{--header} more than once.
1230 wget --header='Accept-Charset: iso-8859-2' \
1231 --header='Accept-Language: hr' \
1232 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
1236 Specification of an empty string as the header value will clear all
1237 previous user-defined headers.
1239 As of Wget 1.10, this option can be used to override headers otherwise
1240 generated automatically. This example instructs Wget to connect to
1241 localhost, but to specify @samp{foo.bar} in the @code{Host} header:
1244 wget --header="Host: foo.bar" http://localhost/
1247 In versions of Wget prior to 1.10 such use of @samp{--header} caused
1248 sending of duplicate headers.
1251 @item --max-redirect=@var{number}
1252 Specifies the maximum number of redirections to follow for a resource.
1253 The default is 20, which is usually far more than necessary. However, on
1254 those occasions where you want to allow more (or fewer), this is the
1258 @cindex proxy password
1259 @cindex proxy authentication
1260 @item --proxy-user=@var{user}
1261 @itemx --proxy-password=@var{password}
1262 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for
1263 authentication on a proxy server. Wget will encode them using the
1264 @code{basic} authentication scheme.
1266 Security considerations similar to those with @samp{--http-password}
1267 pertain here as well.
1269 @cindex http referer
1270 @cindex referer, http
1271 @item --referer=@var{url}
1272 Include `Referer: @var{url}' header in HTTP request. Useful for
1273 retrieving documents with server-side processing that assume they are
1274 always being retrieved by interactive web browsers and only come out
1275 properly when Referer is set to one of the pages that point to them.
1277 @cindex server response, save
1278 @item --save-headers
1279 Save the headers sent by the @sc{http} server to the file, preceding the
1280 actual contents, with an empty line as the separator.
1283 @item -U @var{agent-string}
1284 @itemx --user-agent=@var{agent-string}
1285 Identify as @var{agent-string} to the @sc{http} server.
1287 The @sc{http} protocol allows the clients to identify themselves using a
1288 @code{User-Agent} header field. This enables distinguishing the
1289 @sc{www} software, usually for statistical purposes or for tracing of
1290 protocol violations. Wget normally identifies as
1291 @samp{Wget/@var{version}}, @var{version} being the current version
1294 However, some sites have been known to impose the policy of tailoring
1295 the output according to the @code{User-Agent}-supplied information.
1296 While this is not such a bad idea in theory, it has been abused by
1297 servers denying information to clients other than (historically)
1298 Netscape or, more frequently, Microsoft Internet Explorer. This
1299 option allows you to change the @code{User-Agent} line issued by Wget.
1300 Use of this option is discouraged, unless you really know what you are
1303 Specifying empty user agent with @samp{--user-agent=""} instructs Wget
1304 not to send the @code{User-Agent} header in @sc{http} requests.
1307 @item --post-data=@var{string}
1308 @itemx --post-file=@var{file}
1309 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the specified data
1310 in the request body. @code{--post-data} sends @var{string} as data,
1311 whereas @code{--post-file} sends the contents of @var{file}. Other than
1312 that, they work in exactly the same way.
1314 Please be aware that Wget needs to know the size of the POST data in
1315 advance. Therefore the argument to @code{--post-file} must be a regular
1316 file; specifying a FIFO or something like @file{/dev/stdin} won't work.
1317 It's not quite clear how to work around this limitation inherent in
1318 HTTP/1.0. Although HTTP/1.1 introduces @dfn{chunked} transfer that
1319 doesn't require knowing the request length in advance, a client can't
1320 use chunked unless it knows it's talking to an HTTP/1.1 server. And it
1321 can't know that until it receives a response, which in turn requires the
1322 request to have been completed -- a chicken-and-egg problem.
1324 Note: if Wget is redirected after the POST request is completed, it
1325 will not send the POST data to the redirected URL. This is because
1326 URLs that process POST often respond with a redirection to a regular
1327 page, which does not desire or accept POST. It is not completely
1328 clear that this behavior is optimal; if it doesn't work out, it might
1329 be changed in the future.
1331 This example shows how to log to a server using POST and then proceed to
1332 download the desired pages, presumably only accessible to authorized
1337 # @r{Log in to the server. This can be done only once.}
1338 wget --save-cookies cookies.txt \
1339 --post-data 'user=foo&password=bar' \
1340 http://server.com/auth.php
1342 # @r{Now grab the page or pages we care about.}
1343 wget --load-cookies cookies.txt \
1344 -p http://server.com/interesting/article.php
1348 If the server is using session cookies to track user authentication,
1349 the above will not work because @samp{--save-cookies} will not save
1350 them (and neither will browsers) and the @file{cookies.txt} file will
1351 be empty. In that case use @samp{--keep-session-cookies} along with
1352 @samp{--save-cookies} to force saving of session cookies.
1355 @node HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options
1356 @section HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options
1359 To support encrypted HTTP (HTTPS) downloads, Wget must be compiled
1360 with an external SSL library, currently OpenSSL. If Wget is compiled
1361 without SSL support, none of these options are available.
1364 @cindex SSL protocol, choose
1365 @item --secure-protocol=@var{protocol}
1366 Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are @samp{auto},
1367 @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, and @samp{TLSv1}. If @samp{auto} is used,
1368 the SSL library is given the liberty of choosing the appropriate
1369 protocol automatically, which is achieved by sending an SSLv2 greeting
1370 and announcing support for SSLv3 and TLSv1. This is the default.
1372 Specifying @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, or @samp{TLSv1} forces the use
1373 of the corresponding protocol. This is useful when talking to old and
1374 buggy SSL server implementations that make it hard for OpenSSL to
1375 choose the correct protocol version. Fortunately, such servers are
1378 @cindex SSL certificate, check
1379 @item --no-check-certificate
1380 Don't check the server certificate against the available certificate
1381 authorities. Also don't require the URL host name to match the common
1382 name presented by the certificate.
1384 As of Wget 1.10, the default is to verify the server's certificate
1385 against the recognized certificate authorities, breaking the SSL
1386 handshake and aborting the download if the verification fails.
1387 Although this provides more secure downloads, it does break
1388 interoperability with some sites that worked with previous Wget
1389 versions, particularly those using self-signed, expired, or otherwise
1390 invalid certificates. This option forces an ``insecure'' mode of
1391 operation that turns the certificate verification errors into warnings
1392 and allows you to proceed.
1394 If you encounter ``certificate verification'' errors or ones saying
1395 that ``common name doesn't match requested host name'', you can use
1396 this option to bypass the verification and proceed with the download.
1397 @emph{Only use this option if you are otherwise convinced of the
1398 site's authenticity, or if you really don't care about the validity of
1399 its certificate.} It is almost always a bad idea not to check the
1400 certificates when transmitting confidential or important data.
1402 @cindex SSL certificate
1403 @item --certificate=@var{file}
1404 Use the client certificate stored in @var{file}. This is needed for
1405 servers that are configured to require certificates from the clients
1406 that connect to them. Normally a certificate is not required and this
1409 @cindex SSL certificate type, specify
1410 @item --certificate-type=@var{type}
1411 Specify the type of the client certificate. Legal values are
1412 @samp{PEM} (assumed by default) and @samp{DER}, also known as
1415 @item --private-key=@var{file}
1416 Read the private key from @var{file}. This allows you to provide the
1417 private key in a file separate from the certificate.
1419 @item --private-key-type=@var{type}
1420 Specify the type of the private key. Accepted values are @samp{PEM}
1421 (the default) and @samp{DER}.
1423 @item --ca-certificate=@var{file}
1424 Use @var{file} as the file with the bundle of certificate authorities
1425 (``CA'') to verify the peers. The certificates must be in PEM format.
1427 Without this option Wget looks for CA certificates at the
1428 system-specified locations, chosen at OpenSSL installation time.
1430 @cindex SSL certificate authority
1431 @item --ca-directory=@var{directory}
1432 Specifies directory containing CA certificates in PEM format. Each
1433 file contains one CA certificate, and the file name is based on a hash
1434 value derived from the certificate. This is achieved by processing a
1435 certificate directory with the @code{c_rehash} utility supplied with
1436 OpenSSL. Using @samp{--ca-directory} is more efficient than
1437 @samp{--ca-certificate} when many certificates are installed because
1438 it allows Wget to fetch certificates on demand.
1440 Without this option Wget looks for CA certificates at the
1441 system-specified locations, chosen at OpenSSL installation time.
1443 @cindex entropy, specifying source of
1444 @cindex randomness, specifying source of
1445 @item --random-file=@var{file}
1446 Use @var{file} as the source of random data for seeding the
1447 pseudo-random number generator on systems without @file{/dev/random}.
1449 On such systems the SSL library needs an external source of randomness
1450 to initialize. Randomness may be provided by EGD (see
1451 @samp{--egd-file} below) or read from an external source specified by
1452 the user. If this option is not specified, Wget looks for random data
1453 in @code{$RANDFILE} or, if that is unset, in @file{$HOME/.rnd}. If
1454 none of those are available, it is likely that SSL encryption will not
1457 If you're getting the ``Could not seed OpenSSL PRNG; disabling SSL.''
1458 error, you should provide random data using some of the methods
1462 @item --egd-file=@var{file}
1463 Use @var{file} as the EGD socket. EGD stands for @dfn{Entropy
1464 Gathering Daemon}, a user-space program that collects data from
1465 various unpredictable system sources and makes it available to other
1466 programs that might need it. Encryption software, such as the SSL
1467 library, needs sources of non-repeating randomness to seed the random
1468 number generator used to produce cryptographically strong keys.
1470 OpenSSL allows the user to specify his own source of entropy using the
1471 @code{RAND_FILE} environment variable. If this variable is unset, or
1472 if the specified file does not produce enough randomness, OpenSSL will
1473 read random data from EGD socket specified using this option.
1475 If this option is not specified (and the equivalent startup command is
1476 not used), EGD is never contacted. EGD is not needed on modern Unix
1477 systems that support @file{/dev/random}.
1481 @section FTP Options
1485 @cindex ftp password
1486 @cindex ftp authentication
1487 @item --ftp-user=@var{user}
1488 @itemx --ftp-password=@var{password}
1489 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1490 @sc{ftp} server. Without this, or the corresponding startup option,
1491 the password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, normally used for anonymous
1494 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1495 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1496 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1497 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1498 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1499 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1500 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1503 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1507 @cindex .listing files, removing
1508 @item --no-remove-listing
1509 Don't remove the temporary @file{.listing} files generated by @sc{ftp}
1510 retrievals. Normally, these files contain the raw directory listings
1511 received from @sc{ftp} servers. Not removing them can be useful for
1512 debugging purposes, or when you want to be able to easily check on the
1513 contents of remote server directories (e.g. to verify that a mirror
1514 you're running is complete).
1516 Note that even though Wget writes to a known filename for this file,
1517 this is not a security hole in the scenario of a user making
1518 @file{.listing} a symbolic link to @file{/etc/passwd} or something and
1519 asking @code{root} to run Wget in his or her directory. Depending on
1520 the options used, either Wget will refuse to write to @file{.listing},
1521 making the globbing/recursion/time-stamping operation fail, or the
1522 symbolic link will be deleted and replaced with the actual
1523 @file{.listing} file, or the listing will be written to a
1524 @file{.listing.@var{number}} file.
1526 Even though this situation isn't a problem, though, @code{root} should
1527 never run Wget in a non-trusted user's directory. A user could do
1528 something as simple as linking @file{index.html} to @file{/etc/passwd}
1529 and asking @code{root} to run Wget with @samp{-N} or @samp{-r} so the file
1530 will be overwritten.
1532 @cindex globbing, toggle
1534 Turn off @sc{ftp} globbing. Globbing refers to the use of shell-like
1535 special characters (@dfn{wildcards}), like @samp{*}, @samp{?}, @samp{[}
1536 and @samp{]} to retrieve more than one file from the same directory at
1540 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/*.msg
1543 By default, globbing will be turned on if the @sc{url} contains a
1544 globbing character. This option may be used to turn globbing on or off
1547 You may have to quote the @sc{url} to protect it from being expanded by
1548 your shell. Globbing makes Wget look for a directory listing, which is
1549 system-specific. This is why it currently works only with Unix @sc{ftp}
1550 servers (and the ones emulating Unix @code{ls} output).
1553 @item --no-passive-ftp
1554 Disable the use of the @dfn{passive} FTP transfer mode. Passive FTP
1555 mandates that the client connect to the server to establish the data
1556 connection rather than the other way around.
1558 If the machine is connected to the Internet directly, both passive and
1559 active FTP should work equally well. Behind most firewall and NAT
1560 configurations passive FTP has a better chance of working. However,
1561 in some rare firewall configurations, active FTP actually works when
1562 passive FTP doesn't. If you suspect this to be the case, use this
1563 option, or set @code{passive_ftp=off} in your init file.
1565 @cindex symbolic links, retrieving
1566 @item --retr-symlinks
1567 Usually, when retrieving @sc{ftp} directories recursively and a symbolic
1568 link is encountered, the linked-to file is not downloaded. Instead, a
1569 matching symbolic link is created on the local filesystem. The
1570 pointed-to file will not be downloaded unless this recursive retrieval
1571 would have encountered it separately and downloaded it anyway.
1573 When @samp{--retr-symlinks} is specified, however, symbolic links are
1574 traversed and the pointed-to files are retrieved. At this time, this
1575 option does not cause Wget to traverse symlinks to directories and
1576 recurse through them, but in the future it should be enhanced to do
1579 Note that when retrieving a file (not a directory) because it was
1580 specified on the command-line, rather than because it was recursed to,
1581 this option has no effect. Symbolic links are always traversed in this
1584 @cindex Keep-Alive, turning off
1585 @cindex Persistent Connections, disabling
1586 @item --no-http-keep-alive
1587 Turn off the ``keep-alive'' feature for HTTP downloads. Normally, Wget
1588 asks the server to keep the connection open so that, when you download
1589 more than one document from the same server, they get transferred over
1590 the same TCP connection. This saves time and at the same time reduces
1591 the load on the server.
1593 This option is useful when, for some reason, persistent (keep-alive)
1594 connections don't work for you, for example due to a server bug or due
1595 to the inability of server-side scripts to cope with the connections.
1598 @node Recursive Retrieval Options
1599 @section Recursive Retrieval Options
1604 Turn on recursive retrieving. @xref{Recursive Download}, for more
1607 @item -l @var{depth}
1608 @itemx --level=@var{depth}
1609 Specify recursion maximum depth level @var{depth} (@pxref{Recursive
1610 Download}). The default maximum depth is 5.
1612 @cindex proxy filling
1613 @cindex delete after retrieval
1614 @cindex filling proxy cache
1615 @item --delete-after
1616 This option tells Wget to delete every single file it downloads,
1617 @emph{after} having done so. It is useful for pre-fetching popular
1618 pages through a proxy, e.g.:
1621 wget -r -nd --delete-after http://whatever.com/~popular/page/
1624 The @samp{-r} option is to retrieve recursively, and @samp{-nd} to not
1627 Note that @samp{--delete-after} deletes files on the local machine. It
1628 does not issue the @samp{DELE} command to remote FTP sites, for
1629 instance. Also note that when @samp{--delete-after} is specified,
1630 @samp{--convert-links} is ignored, so @samp{.orig} files are simply not
1631 created in the first place.
1633 @cindex conversion of links
1634 @cindex link conversion
1636 @itemx --convert-links
1637 After the download is complete, convert the links in the document to
1638 make them suitable for local viewing. This affects not only the visible
1639 hyperlinks, but any part of the document that links to external content,
1640 such as embedded images, links to style sheets, hyperlinks to non-@sc{html}
1643 Each link will be changed in one of the two ways:
1647 The links to files that have been downloaded by Wget will be changed to
1648 refer to the file they point to as a relative link.
1650 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1651 @file{/bar/img.gif}, also downloaded, then the link in @file{doc.html}
1652 will be modified to point to @samp{../bar/img.gif}. This kind of
1653 transformation works reliably for arbitrary combinations of directories.
1656 The links to files that have not been downloaded by Wget will be changed
1657 to include host name and absolute path of the location they point to.
1659 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1660 @file{/bar/img.gif} (or to @file{../bar/img.gif}), then the link in
1661 @file{doc.html} will be modified to point to
1662 @file{http://@var{hostname}/bar/img.gif}.
1665 Because of this, local browsing works reliably: if a linked file was
1666 downloaded, the link will refer to its local name; if it was not
1667 downloaded, the link will refer to its full Internet address rather than
1668 presenting a broken link. The fact that the former links are converted
1669 to relative links ensures that you can move the downloaded hierarchy to
1672 Note that only at the end of the download can Wget know which links have
1673 been downloaded. Because of that, the work done by @samp{-k} will be
1674 performed at the end of all the downloads.
1676 @cindex backing up converted files
1678 @itemx --backup-converted
1679 When converting a file, back up the original version with a @samp{.orig}
1680 suffix. Affects the behavior of @samp{-N} (@pxref{HTTP Time-Stamping
1685 Turn on options suitable for mirroring. This option turns on recursion
1686 and time-stamping, sets infinite recursion depth and keeps @sc{ftp}
1687 directory listings. It is currently equivalent to
1688 @samp{-r -N -l inf --no-remove-listing}.
1690 @cindex page requisites
1691 @cindex required images, downloading
1693 @itemx --page-requisites
1694 This option causes Wget to download all the files that are necessary to
1695 properly display a given @sc{html} page. This includes such things as
1696 inlined images, sounds, and referenced stylesheets.
1698 Ordinarily, when downloading a single @sc{html} page, any requisite documents
1699 that may be needed to display it properly are not downloaded. Using
1700 @samp{-r} together with @samp{-l} can help, but since Wget does not
1701 ordinarily distinguish between external and inlined documents, one is
1702 generally left with ``leaf documents'' that are missing their
1705 For instance, say document @file{1.html} contains an @code{<IMG>} tag
1706 referencing @file{1.gif} and an @code{<A>} tag pointing to external
1707 document @file{2.html}. Say that @file{2.html} is similar but that its
1708 image is @file{2.gif} and it links to @file{3.html}. Say this
1709 continues up to some arbitrarily high number.
1711 If one executes the command:
1714 wget -r -l 2 http://@var{site}/1.html
1717 then @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, @file{2.gif}, and
1718 @file{3.html} will be downloaded. As you can see, @file{3.html} is
1719 without its requisite @file{3.gif} because Wget is simply counting the
1720 number of hops (up to 2) away from @file{1.html} in order to determine
1721 where to stop the recursion. However, with this command:
1724 wget -r -l 2 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1727 all the above files @emph{and} @file{3.html}'s requisite @file{3.gif}
1728 will be downloaded. Similarly,
1731 wget -r -l 1 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1734 will cause @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, and @file{2.gif}
1735 to be downloaded. One might think that:
1738 wget -r -l 0 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1741 would download just @file{1.html} and @file{1.gif}, but unfortunately
1742 this is not the case, because @samp{-l 0} is equivalent to
1743 @samp{-l inf}---that is, infinite recursion. To download a single @sc{html}
1744 page (or a handful of them, all specified on the command-line or in a
1745 @samp{-i} @sc{url} input file) and its (or their) requisites, simply leave off
1746 @samp{-r} and @samp{-l}:
1749 wget -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1752 Note that Wget will behave as if @samp{-r} had been specified, but only
1753 that single page and its requisites will be downloaded. Links from that
1754 page to external documents will not be followed. Actually, to download
1755 a single page and all its requisites (even if they exist on separate
1756 websites), and make sure the lot displays properly locally, this author
1757 likes to use a few options in addition to @samp{-p}:
1760 wget -E -H -k -K -p http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1763 To finish off this topic, it's worth knowing that Wget's idea of an
1764 external document link is any URL specified in an @code{<A>} tag, an
1765 @code{<AREA>} tag, or a @code{<LINK>} tag other than @code{<LINK
1768 @cindex @sc{html} comments
1769 @cindex comments, @sc{html}
1770 @item --strict-comments
1771 Turn on strict parsing of @sc{html} comments. The default is to terminate
1772 comments at the first occurrence of @samp{-->}.
1774 According to specifications, @sc{html} comments are expressed as @sc{sgml}
1775 @dfn{declarations}. Declaration is special markup that begins with
1776 @samp{<!} and ends with @samp{>}, such as @samp{<!DOCTYPE ...>}, that
1777 may contain comments between a pair of @samp{--} delimiters. @sc{html}
1778 comments are ``empty declarations'', @sc{sgml} declarations without any
1779 non-comment text. Therefore, @samp{<!--foo-->} is a valid comment, and
1780 so is @samp{<!--one-- --two-->}, but @samp{<!--1--2-->} is not.
1782 On the other hand, most @sc{html} writers don't perceive comments as anything
1783 other than text delimited with @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}, which is not
1784 quite the same. For example, something like @samp{<!------------>}
1785 works as a valid comment as long as the number of dashes is a multiple
1786 of four (!). If not, the comment technically lasts until the next
1787 @samp{--}, which may be at the other end of the document. Because of
1788 this, many popular browsers completely ignore the specification and
1789 implement what users have come to expect: comments delimited with
1790 @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}.
1792 Until version 1.9, Wget interpreted comments strictly, which resulted in
1793 missing links in many web pages that displayed fine in browsers, but had
1794 the misfortune of containing non-compliant comments. Beginning with
1795 version 1.9, Wget has joined the ranks of clients that implements
1796 ``naive'' comments, terminating each comment at the first occurrence of
1799 If, for whatever reason, you want strict comment parsing, use this
1800 option to turn it on.
1803 @node Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1804 @section Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1807 @item -A @var{acclist} --accept @var{acclist}
1808 @itemx -R @var{rejlist} --reject @var{rejlist}
1809 Specify comma-separated lists of file name suffixes or patterns to
1810 accept or reject (@pxref{Types of Files} for more details). Note that if
1811 any of the wildcard characters, @samp{*}, @samp{?}, @samp{[} or
1812 @samp{]}, appear in an element of @var{acclist} or @var{rejlist},
1813 it will be treated as a pattern, rather than a suffix.
1815 @item -D @var{domain-list}
1816 @itemx --domains=@var{domain-list}
1817 Set domains to be followed. @var{domain-list} is a comma-separated list
1818 of domains. Note that it does @emph{not} turn on @samp{-H}.
1820 @item --exclude-domains @var{domain-list}
1821 Specify the domains that are @emph{not} to be followed.
1822 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1824 @cindex follow FTP links
1826 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents. Without this option,
1827 Wget will ignore all the @sc{ftp} links.
1829 @cindex tag-based recursive pruning
1830 @item --follow-tags=@var{list}
1831 Wget has an internal table of @sc{html} tag / attribute pairs that it
1832 considers when looking for linked documents during a recursive
1833 retrieval. If a user wants only a subset of those tags to be
1834 considered, however, he or she should be specify such tags in a
1835 comma-separated @var{list} with this option.
1837 @item --ignore-tags=@var{list}
1838 This is the opposite of the @samp{--follow-tags} option. To skip
1839 certain @sc{html} tags when recursively looking for documents to download,
1840 specify them in a comma-separated @var{list}.
1842 In the past, this option was the best bet for downloading a single page
1843 and its requisites, using a command-line like:
1846 wget --ignore-tags=a,area -H -k -K -r http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1849 However, the author of this option came across a page with tags like
1850 @code{<LINK REL="home" HREF="/">} and came to the realization that
1851 specifying tags to ignore was not enough. One can't just tell Wget to
1852 ignore @code{<LINK>}, because then stylesheets will not be downloaded.
1853 Now the best bet for downloading a single page and its requisites is the
1854 dedicated @samp{--page-requisites} option.
1859 Ignore case when matching files and directories. This influences the
1860 behavior of -R, -A, -I, and -X options, as well as globbing
1861 implemented when downloading from FTP sites. For example, with this
1862 option, @samp{-A *.txt} will match @samp{file1.txt}, but also
1863 @samp{file2.TXT}, @samp{file3.TxT}, and so on.
1867 Enable spanning across hosts when doing recursive retrieving
1868 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1872 Follow relative links only. Useful for retrieving a specific home page
1873 without any distractions, not even those from the same hosts
1874 (@pxref{Relative Links}).
1877 @itemx --include-directories=@var{list}
1878 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
1879 downloading (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits} for more details.) Elements
1880 of @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1883 @itemx --exclude-directories=@var{list}
1884 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
1885 download (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits} for more details.) Elements of
1886 @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1890 Do not ever ascend to the parent directory when retrieving recursively.
1891 This is a useful option, since it guarantees that only the files
1892 @emph{below} a certain hierarchy will be downloaded.
1893 @xref{Directory-Based Limits}, for more details.
1898 @node Recursive Download
1899 @chapter Recursive Download
1902 @cindex recursive download
1904 GNU Wget is capable of traversing parts of the Web (or a single
1905 @sc{http} or @sc{ftp} server), following links and directory structure.
1906 We refer to this as to @dfn{recursive retrieval}, or @dfn{recursion}.
1908 With @sc{http} @sc{url}s, Wget retrieves and parses the @sc{html} from
1909 the given @sc{url}, documents, retrieving the files the @sc{html}
1910 document was referring to, through markup like @code{href}, or
1911 @code{src}. If the freshly downloaded file is also of type
1912 @code{text/html} or @code{application/xhtml+xml}, it will be parsed and
1915 Recursive retrieval of @sc{http} and @sc{html} content is
1916 @dfn{breadth-first}. This means that Wget first downloads the requested
1917 @sc{html} document, then the documents linked from that document, then the
1918 documents linked by them, and so on. In other words, Wget first
1919 downloads the documents at depth 1, then those at depth 2, and so on
1920 until the specified maximum depth.
1922 The maximum @dfn{depth} to which the retrieval may descend is specified
1923 with the @samp{-l} option. The default maximum depth is five layers.
1925 When retrieving an @sc{ftp} @sc{url} recursively, Wget will retrieve all
1926 the data from the given directory tree (including the subdirectories up
1927 to the specified depth) on the remote server, creating its mirror image
1928 locally. @sc{ftp} retrieval is also limited by the @code{depth}
1929 parameter. Unlike @sc{http} recursion, @sc{ftp} recursion is performed
1932 By default, Wget will create a local directory tree, corresponding to
1933 the one found on the remote server.
1935 Recursive retrieving can find a number of applications, the most
1936 important of which is mirroring. It is also useful for @sc{www}
1937 presentations, and any other opportunities where slow network
1938 connections should be bypassed by storing the files locally.
1940 You should be warned that recursive downloads can overload the remote
1941 servers. Because of that, many administrators frown upon them and may
1942 ban access from your site if they detect very fast downloads of big
1943 amounts of content. When downloading from Internet servers, consider
1944 using the @samp{-w} option to introduce a delay between accesses to the
1945 server. The download will take a while longer, but the server
1946 administrator will not be alarmed by your rudeness.
1948 Of course, recursive download may cause problems on your machine. If
1949 left to run unchecked, it can easily fill up the disk. If downloading
1950 from local network, it can also take bandwidth on the system, as well as
1951 consume memory and CPU.
1953 Try to specify the criteria that match the kind of download you are
1954 trying to achieve. If you want to download only one page, use
1955 @samp{--page-requisites} without any additional recursion. If you want
1956 to download things under one directory, use @samp{-np} to avoid
1957 downloading things from other directories. If you want to download all
1958 the files from one directory, use @samp{-l 1} to make sure the recursion
1959 depth never exceeds one. @xref{Following Links}, for more information
1962 Recursive retrieval should be used with care. Don't say you were not
1965 @node Following Links
1966 @chapter Following Links
1968 @cindex following links
1970 When retrieving recursively, one does not wish to retrieve loads of
1971 unnecessary data. Most of the time the users bear in mind exactly what
1972 they want to download, and want Wget to follow only specific links.
1974 For example, if you wish to download the music archive from
1975 @samp{fly.srk.fer.hr}, you will not want to download all the home pages
1976 that happen to be referenced by an obscure part of the archive.
1978 Wget possesses several mechanisms that allows you to fine-tune which
1979 links it will follow.
1982 * Spanning Hosts:: (Un)limiting retrieval based on host name.
1983 * Types of Files:: Getting only certain files.
1984 * Directory-Based Limits:: Getting only certain directories.
1985 * Relative Links:: Follow relative links only.
1986 * FTP Links:: Following FTP links.
1989 @node Spanning Hosts
1990 @section Spanning Hosts
1991 @cindex spanning hosts
1992 @cindex hosts, spanning
1994 Wget's recursive retrieval normally refuses to visit hosts different
1995 than the one you specified on the command line. This is a reasonable
1996 default; without it, every retrieval would have the potential to turn
1997 your Wget into a small version of google.
1999 However, visiting different hosts, or @dfn{host spanning,} is sometimes
2000 a useful option. Maybe the images are served from a different server.
2001 Maybe you're mirroring a site that consists of pages interlinked between
2002 three servers. Maybe the server has two equivalent names, and the @sc{html}
2003 pages refer to both interchangeably.
2006 @item Span to any host---@samp{-H}
2008 The @samp{-H} option turns on host spanning, thus allowing Wget's
2009 recursive run to visit any host referenced by a link. Unless sufficient
2010 recursion-limiting criteria are applied depth, these foreign hosts will
2011 typically link to yet more hosts, and so on until Wget ends up sucking
2012 up much more data than you have intended.
2014 @item Limit spanning to certain domains---@samp{-D}
2016 The @samp{-D} option allows you to specify the domains that will be
2017 followed, thus limiting the recursion only to the hosts that belong to
2018 these domains. Obviously, this makes sense only in conjunction with
2019 @samp{-H}. A typical example would be downloading the contents of
2020 @samp{www.server.com}, but allowing downloads from
2021 @samp{images.server.com}, etc.:
2024 wget -rH -Dserver.com http://www.server.com/
2027 You can specify more than one address by separating them with a comma,
2028 e.g. @samp{-Ddomain1.com,domain2.com}.
2030 @item Keep download off certain domains---@samp{--exclude-domains}
2032 If there are domains you want to exclude specifically, you can do it
2033 with @samp{--exclude-domains}, which accepts the same type of arguments
2034 of @samp{-D}, but will @emph{exclude} all the listed domains. For
2035 example, if you want to download all the hosts from @samp{foo.edu}
2036 domain, with the exception of @samp{sunsite.foo.edu}, you can do it like
2040 wget -rH -Dfoo.edu --exclude-domains sunsite.foo.edu \
2046 @node Types of Files
2047 @section Types of Files
2048 @cindex types of files
2050 When downloading material from the web, you will often want to restrict
2051 the retrieval to only certain file types. For example, if you are
2052 interested in downloading @sc{gif}s, you will not be overjoyed to get
2053 loads of PostScript documents, and vice versa.
2055 Wget offers two options to deal with this problem. Each option
2056 description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent command
2059 @cindex accept wildcards
2060 @cindex accept suffixes
2061 @cindex wildcards, accept
2062 @cindex suffixes, accept
2064 @item -A @var{acclist}
2065 @itemx --accept @var{acclist}
2066 @itemx accept = @var{acclist}
2067 The argument to @samp{--accept} option is a list of file suffixes or
2068 patterns that Wget will download during recursive retrieval. A suffix
2069 is the ending part of a file, and consists of ``normal'' letters,
2070 e.g. @samp{gif} or @samp{.jpg}. A matching pattern contains shell-like
2071 wildcards, e.g. @samp{books*} or @samp{zelazny*196[0-9]*}.
2073 So, specifying @samp{wget -A gif,jpg} will make Wget download only the
2074 files ending with @samp{gif} or @samp{jpg}, i.e. @sc{gif}s and
2075 @sc{jpeg}s. On the other hand, @samp{wget -A "zelazny*196[0-9]*"} will
2076 download only files beginning with @samp{zelazny} and containing numbers
2077 from 1960 to 1969 anywhere within. Look up the manual of your shell for
2078 a description of how pattern matching works.
2080 Of course, any number of suffixes and patterns can be combined into a
2081 comma-separated list, and given as an argument to @samp{-A}.
2083 @cindex reject wildcards
2084 @cindex reject suffixes
2085 @cindex wildcards, reject
2086 @cindex suffixes, reject
2087 @item -R @var{rejlist}
2088 @itemx --reject @var{rejlist}
2089 @itemx reject = @var{rejlist}
2090 The @samp{--reject} option works the same way as @samp{--accept}, only
2091 its logic is the reverse; Wget will download all files @emph{except} the
2092 ones matching the suffixes (or patterns) in the list.
2094 So, if you want to download a whole page except for the cumbersome
2095 @sc{mpeg}s and @sc{.au} files, you can use @samp{wget -R mpg,mpeg,au}.
2096 Analogously, to download all files except the ones beginning with
2097 @samp{bjork}, use @samp{wget -R "bjork*"}. The quotes are to prevent
2098 expansion by the shell.
2101 The @samp{-A} and @samp{-R} options may be combined to achieve even
2102 better fine-tuning of which files to retrieve. E.g. @samp{wget -A
2103 "*zelazny*" -R .ps} will download all the files having @samp{zelazny} as
2104 a part of their name, but @emph{not} the PostScript files.
2106 Note that these two options do not affect the downloading of @sc{html}
2107 files; Wget must load all the @sc{html}s to know where to go at
2108 all---recursive retrieval would make no sense otherwise.
2110 @node Directory-Based Limits
2111 @section Directory-Based Limits
2113 @cindex directory limits
2115 Regardless of other link-following facilities, it is often useful to
2116 place the restriction of what files to retrieve based on the directories
2117 those files are placed in. There can be many reasons for this---the
2118 home pages may be organized in a reasonable directory structure; or some
2119 directories may contain useless information, e.g. @file{/cgi-bin} or
2120 @file{/dev} directories.
2122 Wget offers three different options to deal with this requirement. Each
2123 option description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent
2124 command in @file{.wgetrc}.
2126 @cindex directories, include
2127 @cindex include directories
2128 @cindex accept directories
2131 @itemx --include @var{list}
2132 @itemx include_directories = @var{list}
2133 @samp{-I} option accepts a comma-separated list of directories included
2134 in the retrieval. Any other directories will simply be ignored. The
2135 directories are absolute paths.
2137 So, if you wish to download from @samp{http://host/people/bozo/}
2138 following only links to bozo's colleagues in the @file{/people}
2139 directory and the bogus scripts in @file{/cgi-bin}, you can specify:
2142 wget -I /people,/cgi-bin http://host/people/bozo/
2145 @cindex directories, exclude
2146 @cindex exclude directories
2147 @cindex reject directories
2149 @itemx --exclude @var{list}
2150 @itemx exclude_directories = @var{list}
2151 @samp{-X} option is exactly the reverse of @samp{-I}---this is a list of
2152 directories @emph{excluded} from the download. E.g. if you do not want
2153 Wget to download things from @file{/cgi-bin} directory, specify @samp{-X
2154 /cgi-bin} on the command line.
2156 The same as with @samp{-A}/@samp{-R}, these two options can be combined
2157 to get a better fine-tuning of downloading subdirectories. E.g. if you
2158 want to load all the files from @file{/pub} hierarchy except for
2159 @file{/pub/worthless}, specify @samp{-I/pub -X/pub/worthless}.
2164 @itemx no_parent = on
2165 The simplest, and often very useful way of limiting directories is
2166 disallowing retrieval of the links that refer to the hierarchy
2167 @dfn{above} than the beginning directory, i.e. disallowing ascent to the
2168 parent directory/directories.
2170 The @samp{--no-parent} option (short @samp{-np}) is useful in this case.
2171 Using it guarantees that you will never leave the existing hierarchy.
2172 Supposing you issue Wget with:
2175 wget -r --no-parent http://somehost/~luzer/my-archive/
2178 You may rest assured that none of the references to
2179 @file{/~his-girls-homepage/} or @file{/~luzer/all-my-mpegs/} will be
2180 followed. Only the archive you are interested in will be downloaded.
2181 Essentially, @samp{--no-parent} is similar to
2182 @samp{-I/~luzer/my-archive}, only it handles redirections in a more
2183 intelligent fashion.
2186 @node Relative Links
2187 @section Relative Links
2188 @cindex relative links
2190 When @samp{-L} is turned on, only the relative links are ever followed.
2191 Relative links are here defined those that do not refer to the web
2192 server root. For example, these links are relative:
2196 <a href="foo/bar.gif">
2197 <a href="../foo/bar.gif">
2200 These links are not relative:
2204 <a href="/foo/bar.gif">
2205 <a href="http://www.server.com/foo/bar.gif">
2208 Using this option guarantees that recursive retrieval will not span
2209 hosts, even without @samp{-H}. In simple cases it also allows downloads
2210 to ``just work'' without having to convert links.
2212 This option is probably not very useful and might be removed in a future
2216 @section Following FTP Links
2217 @cindex following ftp links
2219 The rules for @sc{ftp} are somewhat specific, as it is necessary for
2220 them to be. @sc{ftp} links in @sc{html} documents are often included
2221 for purposes of reference, and it is often inconvenient to download them
2224 To have @sc{ftp} links followed from @sc{html} documents, you need to
2225 specify the @samp{--follow-ftp} option. Having done that, @sc{ftp}
2226 links will span hosts regardless of @samp{-H} setting. This is logical,
2227 as @sc{ftp} links rarely point to the same host where the @sc{http}
2228 server resides. For similar reasons, the @samp{-L} options has no
2229 effect on such downloads. On the other hand, domain acceptance
2230 (@samp{-D}) and suffix rules (@samp{-A} and @samp{-R}) apply normally.
2232 Also note that followed links to @sc{ftp} directories will not be
2233 retrieved recursively further.
2236 @chapter Time-Stamping
2237 @cindex time-stamping
2238 @cindex timestamping
2239 @cindex updating the archives
2240 @cindex incremental updating
2242 One of the most important aspects of mirroring information from the
2243 Internet is updating your archives.
2245 Downloading the whole archive again and again, just to replace a few
2246 changed files is expensive, both in terms of wasted bandwidth and money,
2247 and the time to do the update. This is why all the mirroring tools
2248 offer the option of incremental updating.
2250 Such an updating mechanism means that the remote server is scanned in
2251 search of @dfn{new} files. Only those new files will be downloaded in
2252 the place of the old ones.
2254 A file is considered new if one of these two conditions are met:
2258 A file of that name does not already exist locally.
2261 A file of that name does exist, but the remote file was modified more
2262 recently than the local file.
2265 To implement this, the program needs to be aware of the time of last
2266 modification of both local and remote files. We call this information the
2267 @dfn{time-stamp} of a file.
2269 The time-stamping in GNU Wget is turned on using @samp{--timestamping}
2270 (@samp{-N}) option, or through @code{timestamping = on} directive in
2271 @file{.wgetrc}. With this option, for each file it intends to download,
2272 Wget will check whether a local file of the same name exists. If it
2273 does, and the remote file is older, Wget will not download it.
2275 If the local file does not exist, or the sizes of the files do not
2276 match, Wget will download the remote file no matter what the time-stamps
2280 * Time-Stamping Usage::
2281 * HTTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2282 * FTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2285 @node Time-Stamping Usage
2286 @section Time-Stamping Usage
2287 @cindex time-stamping usage
2288 @cindex usage, time-stamping
2290 The usage of time-stamping is simple. Say you would like to download a
2291 file so that it keeps its date of modification.
2294 wget -S http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2297 A simple @code{ls -l} shows that the time stamp on the local file equals
2298 the state of the @code{Last-Modified} header, as returned by the server.
2299 As you can see, the time-stamping info is preserved locally, even
2300 without @samp{-N} (at least for @sc{http}).
2302 Several days later, you would like Wget to check if the remote file has
2303 changed, and download it if it has.
2306 wget -N http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2309 Wget will ask the server for the last-modified date. If the local file
2310 has the same timestamp as the server, or a newer one, the remote file
2311 will not be re-fetched. However, if the remote file is more recent,
2312 Wget will proceed to fetch it.
2314 The same goes for @sc{ftp}. For example:
2317 wget "ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/emacs/gnus/*"
2320 (The quotes around that URL are to prevent the shell from trying to
2321 interpret the @samp{*}.)
2323 After download, a local directory listing will show that the timestamps
2324 match those on the remote server. Reissuing the command with @samp{-N}
2325 will make Wget re-fetch @emph{only} the files that have been modified
2326 since the last download.
2328 If you wished to mirror the GNU archive every week, you would use a
2329 command like the following, weekly:
2332 wget --timestamping -r ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
2335 Note that time-stamping will only work for files for which the server
2336 gives a timestamp. For @sc{http}, this depends on getting a
2337 @code{Last-Modified} header. For @sc{ftp}, this depends on getting a
2338 directory listing with dates in a format that Wget can parse
2339 (@pxref{FTP Time-Stamping Internals}).
2341 @node HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2342 @section HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2343 @cindex http time-stamping
2345 Time-stamping in @sc{http} is implemented by checking of the
2346 @code{Last-Modified} header. If you wish to retrieve the file
2347 @file{foo.html} through @sc{http}, Wget will check whether
2348 @file{foo.html} exists locally. If it doesn't, @file{foo.html} will be
2349 retrieved unconditionally.
2351 If the file does exist locally, Wget will first check its local
2352 time-stamp (similar to the way @code{ls -l} checks it), and then send a
2353 @code{HEAD} request to the remote server, demanding the information on
2356 The @code{Last-Modified} header is examined to find which file was
2357 modified more recently (which makes it ``newer''). If the remote file
2358 is newer, it will be downloaded; if it is older, Wget will give
2359 up.@footnote{As an additional check, Wget will look at the
2360 @code{Content-Length} header, and compare the sizes; if they are not the
2361 same, the remote file will be downloaded no matter what the time-stamp
2364 When @samp{--backup-converted} (@samp{-K}) is specified in conjunction
2365 with @samp{-N}, server file @samp{@var{X}} is compared to local file
2366 @samp{@var{X}.orig}, if extant, rather than being compared to local file
2367 @samp{@var{X}}, which will always differ if it's been converted by
2368 @samp{--convert-links} (@samp{-k}).
2370 Arguably, @sc{http} time-stamping should be implemented using the
2371 @code{If-Modified-Since} request.
2373 @node FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2374 @section FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2375 @cindex ftp time-stamping
2377 In theory, @sc{ftp} time-stamping works much the same as @sc{http}, only
2378 @sc{ftp} has no headers---time-stamps must be ferreted out of directory
2381 If an @sc{ftp} download is recursive or uses globbing, Wget will use the
2382 @sc{ftp} @code{LIST} command to get a file listing for the directory
2383 containing the desired file(s). It will try to analyze the listing,
2384 treating it like Unix @code{ls -l} output, extracting the time-stamps.
2385 The rest is exactly the same as for @sc{http}. Note that when
2386 retrieving individual files from an @sc{ftp} server without using
2387 globbing or recursion, listing files will not be downloaded (and thus
2388 files will not be time-stamped) unless @samp{-N} is specified.
2390 Assumption that every directory listing is a Unix-style listing may
2391 sound extremely constraining, but in practice it is not, as many
2392 non-Unix @sc{ftp} servers use the Unixoid listing format because most
2393 (all?) of the clients understand it. Bear in mind that @sc{rfc959}
2394 defines no standard way to get a file list, let alone the time-stamps.
2395 We can only hope that a future standard will define this.
2397 Another non-standard solution includes the use of @code{MDTM} command
2398 that is supported by some @sc{ftp} servers (including the popular
2399 @code{wu-ftpd}), which returns the exact time of the specified file.
2400 Wget may support this command in the future.
2403 @chapter Startup File
2404 @cindex startup file
2410 Once you know how to change default settings of Wget through command
2411 line arguments, you may wish to make some of those settings permanent.
2412 You can do that in a convenient way by creating the Wget startup
2413 file---@file{.wgetrc}.
2415 Besides @file{.wgetrc} is the ``main'' initialization file, it is
2416 convenient to have a special facility for storing passwords. Thus Wget
2417 reads and interprets the contents of @file{$HOME/.netrc}, if it finds
2418 it. You can find @file{.netrc} format in your system manuals.
2420 Wget reads @file{.wgetrc} upon startup, recognizing a limited set of
2424 * Wgetrc Location:: Location of various wgetrc files.
2425 * Wgetrc Syntax:: Syntax of wgetrc.
2426 * Wgetrc Commands:: List of available commands.
2427 * Sample Wgetrc:: A wgetrc example.
2430 @node Wgetrc Location
2431 @section Wgetrc Location
2432 @cindex wgetrc location
2433 @cindex location of wgetrc
2435 When initializing, Wget will look for a @dfn{global} startup file,
2436 @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default (or some prefix other than
2437 @file{/usr/local}, if Wget was not installed there) and read commands
2438 from there, if it exists.
2440 Then it will look for the user's file. If the environmental variable
2441 @code{WGETRC} is set, Wget will try to load that file. Failing that, no
2442 further attempts will be made.
2444 If @code{WGETRC} is not set, Wget will try to load @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}.
2446 The fact that user's settings are loaded after the system-wide ones
2447 means that in case of collision user's wgetrc @emph{overrides} the
2448 system-wide wgetrc (in @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default).
2449 Fascist admins, away!
2452 @section Wgetrc Syntax
2453 @cindex wgetrc syntax
2454 @cindex syntax of wgetrc
2456 The syntax of a wgetrc command is simple:
2462 The @dfn{variable} will also be called @dfn{command}. Valid
2463 @dfn{values} are different for different commands.
2465 The commands are case-insensitive and underscore-insensitive. Thus
2466 @samp{DIr__PrefiX} is the same as @samp{dirprefix}. Empty lines, lines
2467 beginning with @samp{#} and lines containing white-space only are
2470 Commands that expect a comma-separated list will clear the list on an
2471 empty command. So, if you wish to reset the rejection list specified in
2472 global @file{wgetrc}, you can do it with:
2478 @node Wgetrc Commands
2479 @section Wgetrc Commands
2480 @cindex wgetrc commands
2482 The complete set of commands is listed below. Legal values are listed
2483 after the @samp{=}. Simple Boolean values can be set or unset using
2484 @samp{on} and @samp{off} or @samp{1} and @samp{0}.
2486 Some commands take pseudo-arbitrary values. @var{address} values can be
2487 hostnames or dotted-quad IP addresses. @var{n} can be any positive
2488 integer, or @samp{inf} for infinity, where appropriate. @var{string}
2489 values can be any non-empty string.
2491 Most of these commands have direct command-line equivalents. Also, any
2492 wgetrc command can be specified on the command line using the
2493 @samp{--execute} switch (@pxref{Basic Startup Options}.)
2496 @item accept/reject = @var{string}
2497 Same as @samp{-A}/@samp{-R} (@pxref{Types of Files}).
2499 @item add_hostdir = on/off
2500 Enable/disable host-prefixed file names. @samp{-nH} disables it.
2502 @item continue = on/off
2503 If set to on, force continuation of preexistent partially retrieved
2504 files. See @samp{-c} before setting it.
2506 @item background = on/off
2507 Enable/disable going to background---the same as @samp{-b} (which
2510 @item backup_converted = on/off
2511 Enable/disable saving pre-converted files with the suffix
2512 @samp{.orig}---the same as @samp{-K} (which enables it).
2514 @c @item backups = @var{number}
2515 @c #### Document me!
2517 @item base = @var{string}
2518 Consider relative @sc{url}s in @sc{url} input files forced to be
2519 interpreted as @sc{html} as being relative to @var{string}---the same as
2520 @samp{--base=@var{string}}.
2522 @item bind_address = @var{address}
2523 Bind to @var{address}, like the @samp{--bind-address=@var{address}}.
2525 @item ca_certificate = @var{file}
2526 Set the certificate authority bundle file to @var{file}. The same
2527 as @samp{--ca-certificate=@var{file}}.
2529 @item ca_directory = @var{directory}
2530 Set the directory used for certificate authorities. The same as
2531 @samp{--ca-directory=@var{directory}}.
2533 @item cache = on/off
2534 When set to off, disallow server-caching. See the @samp{--no-cache}
2537 @item certificate = @var{file}
2538 Set the client certificate file name to @var{file}. The same as
2539 @samp{--certificate=@var{file}}.
2541 @item certificate_type = @var{string}
2542 Specify the type of the client certificate, legal values being
2543 @samp{PEM} (the default) and @samp{DER} (aka ASN1). The same as
2544 @samp{--certificate-type=@var{string}}.
2546 @item check_certificate = on/off
2547 If this is set to off, the server certificate is not checked against
2548 the specified client authorities. The default is ``on''. The same as
2549 @samp{--check-certificate}.
2551 @item convert_links = on/off
2552 Convert non-relative links locally. The same as @samp{-k}.
2554 @item cookies = on/off
2555 When set to off, disallow cookies. See the @samp{--cookies} option.
2557 @item connect_timeout = @var{n}
2558 Set the connect timeout---the same as @samp{--connect-timeout}.
2560 @item cut_dirs = @var{n}
2561 Ignore @var{n} remote directory components. Equivalent to
2562 @samp{--cut-dirs=@var{n}}.
2564 @item debug = on/off
2565 Debug mode, same as @samp{-d}.
2567 @item delete_after = on/off
2568 Delete after download---the same as @samp{--delete-after}.
2570 @item dir_prefix = @var{string}
2571 Top of directory tree---the same as @samp{-P @var{string}}.
2573 @item dirstruct = on/off
2574 Turning dirstruct on or off---the same as @samp{-x} or @samp{-nd},
2577 @item dns_cache = on/off
2578 Turn DNS caching on/off. Since DNS caching is on by default, this
2579 option is normally used to turn it off and is equivalent to
2580 @samp{--no-dns-cache}.
2582 @item dns_timeout = @var{n}
2583 Set the DNS timeout---the same as @samp{--dns-timeout}.
2585 @item domains = @var{string}
2586 Same as @samp{-D} (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
2588 @item dot_bytes = @var{n}
2589 Specify the number of bytes ``contained'' in a dot, as seen throughout
2590 the retrieval (1024 by default). You can postfix the value with
2591 @samp{k} or @samp{m}, representing kilobytes and megabytes,
2592 respectively. With dot settings you can tailor the dot retrieval to
2593 suit your needs, or you can use the predefined @dfn{styles}
2594 (@pxref{Download Options}).
2596 @item dots_in_line = @var{n}
2597 Specify the number of dots that will be printed in each line throughout
2598 the retrieval (50 by default).
2600 @item dot_spacing = @var{n}
2601 Specify the number of dots in a single cluster (10 by default).
2603 @item egd_file = @var{file}
2604 Use @var{string} as the EGD socket file name. The same as
2605 @samp{--egd-file=@var{file}}.
2607 @item exclude_directories = @var{string}
2608 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
2609 download---the same as @samp{-X @var{string}} (@pxref{Directory-Based
2612 @item exclude_domains = @var{string}
2613 Same as @samp{--exclude-domains=@var{string}} (@pxref{Spanning
2616 @item follow_ftp = on/off
2617 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents---the same as
2618 @samp{--follow-ftp}.
2620 @item follow_tags = @var{string}
2621 Only follow certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval,
2622 just like @samp{--follow-tags=@var{string}}.
2624 @item force_html = on/off
2625 If set to on, force the input filename to be regarded as an @sc{html}
2626 document---the same as @samp{-F}.
2628 @item ftp_password = @var{string}
2629 Set your @sc{ftp} password to @var{string}. Without this setting, the
2630 password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, which is a useful default for
2631 anonymous @sc{ftp} access.
2633 This command used to be named @code{passwd} prior to Wget 1.10.
2635 @item ftp_proxy = @var{string}
2636 Use @var{string} as @sc{ftp} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2639 @item ftp_user = @var{string}
2640 Set @sc{ftp} user to @var{string}.
2642 This command used to be named @code{login} prior to Wget 1.10.
2645 Turn globbing on/off---the same as @samp{--glob} and @samp{--no-glob}.
2647 @item header = @var{string}
2648 Define a header for HTTP doewnloads, like using
2649 @samp{--header=@var{string}}.
2651 @item html_extension = on/off
2652 Add a @samp{.html} extension to @samp{text/html} or
2653 @samp{application/xhtml+xml} files without it, like @samp{-E}.
2655 @item http_keep_alive = on/off
2656 Turn the keep-alive feature on or off (defaults to on). Turning it
2657 off is equivalent to @samp{--no-http-keep-alive}.
2659 @item http_password = @var{string}
2660 Set @sc{http} password, equivalent to
2661 @samp{--http-password=@var{string}}.
2663 @item http_proxy = @var{string}
2664 Use @var{string} as @sc{http} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2667 @item http_user = @var{string}
2668 Set @sc{http} user to @var{string}, equivalent to
2669 @samp{--http-user=@var{string}}.
2671 @item https_proxy = @var{string}
2672 Use @var{string} as @sc{https} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2675 @item ignore_case = on/off
2676 When set to on, match files and directories case insensitively; the
2677 same as @samp{--ignore-case}.
2679 @item ignore_length = on/off
2680 When set to on, ignore @code{Content-Length} header; the same as
2681 @samp{--ignore-length}.
2683 @item ignore_tags = @var{string}
2684 Ignore certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval, like
2685 @samp{--ignore-tags=@var{string}}.
2687 @item include_directories = @var{string}
2688 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
2689 downloading---the same as @samp{-I @var{string}}.
2691 @item inet4_only = on/off
2692 Force connecting to IPv4 addresses, off by default. You can put this
2693 in the global init file to disable Wget's attempts to resolve and
2694 connect to IPv6 hosts. Available only if Wget was compiled with IPv6
2695 support. The same as @samp{--inet4-only} or @samp{-4}.
2697 @item inet6_only = on/off
2698 Force connecting to IPv6 addresses, off by default. Available only if
2699 Wget was compiled with IPv6 support. The same as @samp{--inet6-only}
2702 @item input = @var{file}
2703 Read the @sc{url}s from @var{string}, like @samp{-i @var{file}}.
2705 @item limit_rate = @var{rate}
2706 Limit the download speed to no more than @var{rate} bytes per second.
2707 The same as @samp{--limit-rate=@var{rate}}.
2709 @item load_cookies = @var{file}
2710 Load cookies from @var{file}. See @samp{--load-cookies @var{file}}.
2712 @item logfile = @var{file}
2713 Set logfile to @var{file}, the same as @samp{-o @var{file}}.
2715 @item mirror = on/off
2716 Turn mirroring on/off. The same as @samp{-m}.
2718 @item netrc = on/off
2719 Turn reading netrc on or off.
2721 @item noclobber = on/off
2724 @item no_parent = on/off
2725 Disallow retrieving outside the directory hierarchy, like
2726 @samp{--no-parent} (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}).
2728 @item no_proxy = @var{string}
2729 Use @var{string} as the comma-separated list of domains to avoid in
2730 proxy loading, instead of the one specified in environment.
2732 @item output_document = @var{file}
2733 Set the output filename---the same as @samp{-O @var{file}}.
2735 @item page_requisites = on/off
2736 Download all ancillary documents necessary for a single @sc{html} page to
2737 display properly---the same as @samp{-p}.
2739 @item passive_ftp = on/off
2740 Change setting of passive @sc{ftp}, equivalent to the
2741 @samp{--passive-ftp} option.
2743 @itemx password = @var{string}
2744 Specify password @var{string} for both @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval.
2745 This command can be overridden using the @samp{ftp_password} and
2746 @samp{http_password} command for @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} respectively.
2748 @item post_data = @var{string}
2749 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send @var{string} in
2750 the request body. The same as @samp{--post-data=@var{string}}.
2752 @item post_file = @var{file}
2753 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the contents of
2754 @var{file} in the request body. The same as
2755 @samp{--post-file=@var{file}}.
2757 @item prefer_family = IPv4/IPv6/none
2758 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
2759 with specified address family first. IPv4 addresses are preferred by
2760 default. The same as @samp{--prefer-family}, which see for a detailed
2761 discussion of why this is useful.
2763 @item private_key = @var{file}
2764 Set the private key file to @var{file}. The same as
2765 @samp{--private-key=@var{file}}.
2767 @item private_key_type = @var{string}
2768 Specify the type of the private key, legal values being @samp{PEM}
2769 (the default) and @samp{DER} (aka ASN1). The same as
2770 @samp{--private-type=@var{string}}.
2772 @item progress = @var{string}
2773 Set the type of the progress indicator. Legal types are @samp{dot}
2774 and @samp{bar}. Equivalent to @samp{--progress=@var{string}}.
2776 @item protocol_directories = on/off
2777 When set, use the protocol name as a directory component of local file
2778 names. The same as @samp{--protocol-directories}.
2780 @item proxy_user = @var{string}
2781 Set proxy authentication user name to @var{string}, like
2782 @samp{--proxy-user=@var{string}}.
2784 @item proxy_password = @var{string}
2785 Set proxy authentication password to @var{string}, like
2786 @samp{--proxy-password=@var{string}}.
2788 @item quiet = on/off
2789 Quiet mode---the same as @samp{-q}.
2791 @item quota = @var{quota}
2792 Specify the download quota, which is useful to put in the global
2793 @file{wgetrc}. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop
2794 retrieving after the download sum has become greater than quota. The
2795 quota can be specified in bytes (default), kbytes @samp{k} appended) or
2796 mbytes (@samp{m} appended). Thus @samp{quota = 5m} will set the quota
2797 to 5 megabytes. Note that the user's startup file overrides system
2800 @item random_file = @var{file}
2801 Use @var{file} as a source of randomness on systems lacking
2804 @item random_wait = on/off
2805 Turn random between-request wait times on or off. The same as
2806 @samp{--random-wait}.
2808 @item read_timeout = @var{n}
2809 Set the read (and write) timeout---the same as
2810 @samp{--read-timeout=@var{n}}.
2812 @item reclevel = @var{n}
2813 Recursion level (depth)---the same as @samp{-l @var{n}}.
2815 @item recursive = on/off
2816 Recursive on/off---the same as @samp{-r}.
2818 @item referer = @var{string}
2819 Set HTTP @samp{Referer:} header just like
2820 @samp{--referer=@var{string}}. (Note it was the folks who wrote the
2821 @sc{http} spec who got the spelling of ``referrer'' wrong.)
2823 @item relative_only = on/off
2824 Follow only relative links---the same as @samp{-L} (@pxref{Relative
2827 @item remove_listing = on/off
2828 If set to on, remove @sc{ftp} listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it
2829 to off is the same as @samp{--no-remove-listing}.
2831 @item restrict_file_names = unix/windows
2832 Restrict the file names generated by Wget from URLs. See
2833 @samp{--restrict-file-names} for a more detailed description.
2835 @item retr_symlinks = on/off
2836 When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain files; the
2837 same as @samp{--retr-symlinks}.
2839 @item retry_connrefused = on/off
2840 When set to on, consider ``connection refused'' a transient
2841 error---the same as @samp{--retry-connrefused}.
2843 @item robots = on/off
2844 Specify whether the norobots convention is respected by Wget, ``on'' by
2845 default. This switch controls both the @file{/robots.txt} and the
2846 @samp{nofollow} aspect of the spec. @xref{Robot Exclusion}, for more
2847 details about this. Be sure you know what you are doing before turning
2850 @item save_cookies = @var{file}
2851 Save cookies to @var{file}. The same as @samp{--save-cookies
2854 @item secure_protocol = @var{string}
2855 Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are @samp{auto}
2856 (the default), @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, and @samp{TLSv1}. The same
2857 as @samp{--secure-protocol=@var{string}}.
2859 @item server_response = on/off
2860 Choose whether or not to print the @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} server
2861 responses---the same as @samp{-S}.
2863 @item span_hosts = on/off
2866 @item strict_comments = on/off
2867 Same as @samp{--strict-comments}.
2869 @item timeout = @var{n}
2870 Set all applicable timeout values to @var{n}, the same as @samp{-T
2873 @item timestamping = on/off
2874 Turn timestamping on/off. The same as @samp{-N} (@pxref{Time-Stamping}).
2876 @item tries = @var{n}
2877 Set number of retries per @sc{url}---the same as @samp{-t @var{n}}.
2879 @item use_proxy = on/off
2880 When set to off, don't use proxy even when proxy-related environment
2881 variables are set. In that case it is the same as using
2884 @item user = @var{string}
2885 Specify username @var{string} for both @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval.
2886 This command can be overridden using the @samp{ftp_user} and
2887 @samp{http_user} command for @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} respectively.
2889 @item verbose = on/off
2890 Turn verbose on/off---the same as @samp{-v}/@samp{-nv}.
2892 @item wait = @var{n}
2893 Wait @var{n} seconds between retrievals---the same as @samp{-w
2896 @item waitretry = @var{n}
2897 Wait up to @var{n} seconds between retries of failed retrievals
2898 only---the same as @samp{--waitretry=@var{n}}. Note that this is
2899 turned on by default in the global @file{wgetrc}.
2903 @section Sample Wgetrc
2904 @cindex sample wgetrc
2906 This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution.
2907 It is divided in two section---one for global usage (suitable for global
2908 startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for
2909 @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}). Be careful about the things you change.
2911 Note that almost all the lines are commented out. For a command to have
2912 any effect, you must remove the @samp{#} character at the beginning of
2916 @include sample.wgetrc.munged_for_texi_inclusion
2923 @c man begin EXAMPLES
2924 The examples are divided into three sections loosely based on their
2928 * Simple Usage:: Simple, basic usage of the program.
2929 * Advanced Usage:: Advanced tips.
2930 * Very Advanced Usage:: The hairy stuff.
2934 @section Simple Usage
2938 Say you want to download a @sc{url}. Just type:
2941 wget http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
2945 But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is lengthy?
2946 The connection will probably fail before the whole file is retrieved,
2947 more than once. In this case, Wget will try getting the file until it
2948 either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the default number of retries
2949 (this being 20). It is easy to change the number of tries to 45, to
2950 insure that the whole file will arrive safely:
2953 wget --tries=45 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
2957 Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its progress
2958 to log file @file{log}. It is tiring to type @samp{--tries}, so we
2959 shall use @samp{-t}.
2962 wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &
2965 The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in the
2966 background. To unlimit the number of retries, use @samp{-t inf}.
2969 The usage of @sc{ftp} is as simple. Wget will take care of login and
2973 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/welcome.msg
2977 If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory listing,
2978 parse it and convert it to @sc{html}. Try:
2981 wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
2986 @node Advanced Usage
2987 @section Advanced Usage
2991 You have a file that contains the URLs you want to download? Use the
2998 If you specify @samp{-} as file name, the @sc{url}s will be read from
3002 Create a five levels deep mirror image of the GNU web site, with the
3003 same directory structure the original has, with only one try per
3004 document, saving the log of the activities to @file{gnulog}:
3007 wget -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
3011 The same as the above, but convert the links in the @sc{html} files to
3012 point to local files, so you can view the documents off-line:
3015 wget --convert-links -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
3019 Retrieve only one @sc{html} page, but make sure that all the elements needed
3020 for the page to be displayed, such as inline images and external style
3021 sheets, are also downloaded. Also make sure the downloaded page
3022 references the downloaded links.
3025 wget -p --convert-links http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
3028 The @sc{html} page will be saved to @file{www.server.com/dir/page.html}, and
3029 the images, stylesheets, etc., somewhere under @file{www.server.com/},
3030 depending on where they were on the remote server.
3033 The same as the above, but without the @file{www.server.com/} directory.
3034 In fact, I don't want to have all those random server directories
3035 anyway---just save @emph{all} those files under a @file{download/}
3036 subdirectory of the current directory.
3039 wget -p --convert-links -nH -nd -Pdownload \
3040 http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
3044 Retrieve the index.html of @samp{www.lycos.com}, showing the original
3048 wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
3052 Save the server headers with the file, perhaps for post-processing.
3055 wget --save-headers http://www.lycos.com/
3060 Retrieve the first two levels of @samp{wuarchive.wustl.edu}, saving them
3064 wget -r -l2 -P/tmp ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
3068 You want to download all the @sc{gif}s from a directory on an @sc{http}
3069 server. You tried @samp{wget http://www.server.com/dir/*.gif}, but that
3070 didn't work because @sc{http} retrieval does not support globbing. In
3074 wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://www.server.com/dir/
3077 More verbose, but the effect is the same. @samp{-r -l1} means to
3078 retrieve recursively (@pxref{Recursive Download}), with maximum depth
3079 of 1. @samp{--no-parent} means that references to the parent directory
3080 are ignored (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}), and @samp{-A.gif} means to
3081 download only the @sc{gif} files. @samp{-A "*.gif"} would have worked
3085 Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
3086 interrupted. Now you do not want to clobber the files already present.
3090 wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.org/
3094 If you want to encode your own username and password to @sc{http} or
3095 @sc{ftp}, use the appropriate @sc{url} syntax (@pxref{URL Format}).
3098 wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@@unix.server.com/.emacs
3101 Note, however, that this usage is not advisable on multi-user systems
3102 because it reveals your password to anyone who looks at the output of
3105 @cindex redirecting output
3107 You would like the output documents to go to standard output instead of
3111 wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/
3114 You can also combine the two options and make pipelines to retrieve the
3115 documents from remote hotlists:
3118 wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
3122 @node Very Advanced Usage
3123 @section Very Advanced Usage
3128 If you wish Wget to keep a mirror of a page (or @sc{ftp}
3129 subdirectories), use @samp{--mirror} (@samp{-m}), which is the shorthand
3130 for @samp{-r -l inf -N}. You can put Wget in the crontab file asking it
3131 to recheck a site each Sunday:
3135 0 0 * * 0 wget --mirror http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3139 In addition to the above, you want the links to be converted for local
3140 viewing. But, after having read this manual, you know that link
3141 conversion doesn't play well with timestamping, so you also want Wget to
3142 back up the original @sc{html} files before the conversion. Wget invocation
3143 would look like this:
3146 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
3147 http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3151 But you've also noticed that local viewing doesn't work all that well
3152 when @sc{html} files are saved under extensions other than @samp{.html},
3153 perhaps because they were served as @file{index.cgi}. So you'd like
3154 Wget to rename all the files served with content-type @samp{text/html}
3155 or @samp{application/xhtml+xml} to @file{@var{name}.html}.
3158 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
3159 --html-extension -o /home/me/weeklog \
3163 Or, with less typing:
3166 wget -m -k -K -E http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3175 This chapter contains all the stuff that could not fit anywhere else.
3178 * Proxies:: Support for proxy servers
3179 * Distribution:: Getting the latest version.
3180 * Mailing List:: Wget mailing list for announcements and discussion.
3181 * Reporting Bugs:: How and where to report bugs.
3182 * Portability:: The systems Wget works on.
3183 * Signals:: Signal-handling performed by Wget.
3190 @dfn{Proxies} are special-purpose @sc{http} servers designed to transfer
3191 data from remote servers to local clients. One typical use of proxies
3192 is lightening network load for users behind a slow connection. This is
3193 achieved by channeling all @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} requests through the
3194 proxy which caches the transferred data. When a cached resource is
3195 requested again, proxy will return the data from cache. Another use for
3196 proxies is for companies that separate (for security reasons) their
3197 internal networks from the rest of Internet. In order to obtain
3198 information from the Web, their users connect and retrieve remote data
3199 using an authorized proxy.
3201 Wget supports proxies for both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} retrievals. The
3202 standard way to specify proxy location, which Wget recognizes, is using
3203 the following environment variables:
3208 If set, the @code{http_proxy} and @code{https_proxy} variables should
3209 contain the @sc{url}s of the proxies for @sc{http} and @sc{https}
3210 connections respectively.
3213 This variable should contain the @sc{url} of the proxy for @sc{ftp}
3214 connections. It is quite common that @code{http_proxy} and
3215 @code{ftp_proxy} are set to the same @sc{url}.
3218 This variable should contain a comma-separated list of domain extensions
3219 proxy should @emph{not} be used for. For instance, if the value of
3220 @code{no_proxy} is @samp{.mit.edu}, proxy will not be used to retrieve
3224 In addition to the environment variables, proxy location and settings
3225 may be specified from within Wget itself.
3229 @itemx proxy = on/off
3230 This option and the corresponding command may be used to suppress the
3231 use of proxy, even if the appropriate environment variables are set.
3233 @item http_proxy = @var{URL}
3234 @itemx https_proxy = @var{URL}
3235 @itemx ftp_proxy = @var{URL}
3236 @itemx no_proxy = @var{string}
3237 These startup file variables allow you to override the proxy settings
3238 specified by the environment.
3241 Some proxy servers require authorization to enable you to use them. The
3242 authorization consists of @dfn{username} and @dfn{password}, which must
3243 be sent by Wget. As with @sc{http} authorization, several
3244 authentication schemes exist. For proxy authorization only the
3245 @code{Basic} authentication scheme is currently implemented.
3247 You may specify your username and password either through the proxy
3248 @sc{url} or through the command-line options. Assuming that the
3249 company's proxy is located at @samp{proxy.company.com} at port 8001, a
3250 proxy @sc{url} location containing authorization data might look like
3254 http://hniksic:mypassword@@proxy.company.com:8001/
3257 Alternatively, you may use the @samp{proxy-user} and
3258 @samp{proxy-password} options, and the equivalent @file{.wgetrc}
3259 settings @code{proxy_user} and @code{proxy_password} to set the proxy
3260 username and password.
3263 @section Distribution
3264 @cindex latest version
3266 Like all GNU utilities, the latest version of Wget can be found at the
3267 master GNU archive site ftp.gnu.org, and its mirrors. For example,
3268 Wget @value{VERSION} can be found at
3269 @url{ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/wget/wget-@value{VERSION}.tar.gz}
3272 @section Mailing List
3273 @cindex mailing list
3276 There are several Wget-related mailing lists, all hosted by
3277 SunSITE.dk. The general discussion list is at
3278 @email{wget@@sunsite.dk}. It is the preferred place for bug reports
3279 and suggestions, as well as for discussion of development. You are
3280 invited to subscribe.
3282 To subscribe, simply send mail to @email{wget-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}
3283 and follow the instructions. Unsubscribe by mailing to
3284 @email{wget-unsubscribe@@sunsite.dk}. The mailing list is archived at
3285 @url{http://www.mail-archive.com/wget%40sunsite.dk/} and at
3286 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.general}.
3288 The second mailing list is at @email{wget-patches@@sunsite.dk}, and is
3289 used to submit patches for review by Wget developers. A ``patch'' is
3290 a textual representation of change to source code, readable by both
3291 humans and programs. The file @file{PATCHES} that comes with Wget
3292 covers the creation and submitting of patches in detail. Please don't
3293 send general suggestions or bug reports to @samp{wget-patches}; use it
3294 only for patch submissions.
3296 To subscribe, simply send mail to @email{wget-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}
3297 and follow the instructions. Unsubscribe by mailing to
3298 @email{wget-unsubscribe@@sunsite.dk}. The mailing list is archived at
3299 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.patches}.
3301 @node Reporting Bugs
3302 @section Reporting Bugs
3304 @cindex reporting bugs
3308 You are welcome to send bug reports about GNU Wget to
3309 @email{bug-wget@@gnu.org}.
3311 Before actually submitting a bug report, please try to follow a few
3316 Please try to ascertain that the behavior you see really is a bug. If
3317 Wget crashes, it's a bug. If Wget does not behave as documented,
3318 it's a bug. If things work strange, but you are not sure about the way
3319 they are supposed to work, it might well be a bug.
3322 Try to repeat the bug in as simple circumstances as possible. E.g. if
3323 Wget crashes while downloading @samp{wget -rl0 -kKE -t5 -Y0
3324 http://yoyodyne.com -o /tmp/log}, you should try to see if the crash is
3325 repeatable, and if will occur with a simpler set of options. You might
3326 even try to start the download at the page where the crash occurred to
3327 see if that page somehow triggered the crash.
3329 Also, while I will probably be interested to know the contents of your
3330 @file{.wgetrc} file, just dumping it into the debug message is probably
3331 a bad idea. Instead, you should first try to see if the bug repeats
3332 with @file{.wgetrc} moved out of the way. Only if it turns out that
3333 @file{.wgetrc} settings affect the bug, mail me the relevant parts of
3337 Please start Wget with @samp{-d} option and send us the resulting
3338 output (or relevant parts thereof). If Wget was compiled without
3339 debug support, recompile it---it is @emph{much} easier to trace bugs
3340 with debug support on.
3342 Note: please make sure to remove any potentially sensitive information
3343 from the debug log before sending it to the bug address. The
3344 @code{-d} won't go out of its way to collect sensitive information,
3345 but the log @emph{will} contain a fairly complete transcript of Wget's
3346 communication with the server, which may include passwords and pieces
3347 of downloaded data. Since the bug address is publically archived, you
3348 may assume that all bug reports are visible to the public.
3351 If Wget has crashed, try to run it in a debugger, e.g. @code{gdb `which
3352 wget` core} and type @code{where} to get the backtrace. This may not
3353 work if the system administrator has disabled core files, but it is
3359 @section Portability
3361 @cindex operating systems
3363 Like all GNU software, Wget works on the GNU system. However, since it
3364 uses GNU Autoconf for building and configuring, and mostly avoids using
3365 ``special'' features of any particular Unix, it should compile (and
3366 work) on all common Unix flavors.
3368 Various Wget versions have been compiled and tested under many kinds
3369 of Unix systems, including GNU/Linux, Solaris, SunOS 4.x, OSF (aka
3370 Digital Unix or Tru64), Ultrix, *BSD, IRIX, AIX, and others. Some of
3371 those systems are no longer in widespread use and may not be able to
3372 support recent versions of Wget. If Wget fails to compile on your
3373 system, we would like to know about it.
3375 Thanks to kind contributors, this version of Wget compiles and works
3376 on 32-bit Microsoft Windows platforms. It has been compiled
3377 successfully using MS Visual C++ 6.0, Watcom, Borland C, and GCC
3378 compilers. Naturally, it is crippled of some features available on
3379 Unix, but it should work as a substitute for people stuck with
3380 Windows. Note that Windows-specific portions of Wget are not
3381 guaranteed to be supported in the future, although this has been the
3382 case in practice for many years now. All questions and problems in
3383 Windows usage should be reported to Wget mailing list at
3384 @email{wget@@sunsite.dk} where the volunteers who maintain the
3385 Windows-related features might look at them.
3389 @cindex signal handling
3392 Since the purpose of Wget is background work, it catches the hangup
3393 signal (@code{SIGHUP}) and ignores it. If the output was on standard
3394 output, it will be redirected to a file named @file{wget-log}.
3395 Otherwise, @code{SIGHUP} is ignored. This is convenient when you wish
3396 to redirect the output of Wget after having started it.
3399 $ wget http://www.gnus.org/dist/gnus.tar.gz &
3402 SIGHUP received, redirecting output to `wget-log'.
3405 Other than that, Wget will not try to interfere with signals in any way.
3406 @kbd{C-c}, @code{kill -TERM} and @code{kill -KILL} should kill it alike.
3411 This chapter contains some references I consider useful.
3414 * Robot Exclusion:: Wget's support for RES.
3415 * Security Considerations:: Security with Wget.
3416 * Contributors:: People who helped.
3419 @node Robot Exclusion
3420 @section Robot Exclusion
3421 @cindex robot exclusion
3423 @cindex server maintenance
3425 It is extremely easy to make Wget wander aimlessly around a web site,
3426 sucking all the available data in progress. @samp{wget -r @var{site}},
3427 and you're set. Great? Not for the server admin.
3429 As long as Wget is only retrieving static pages, and doing it at a
3430 reasonable rate (see the @samp{--wait} option), there's not much of a
3431 problem. The trouble is that Wget can't tell the difference between the
3432 smallest static page and the most demanding CGI. A site I know has a
3433 section handled by a CGI Perl script that converts Info files to @sc{html} on
3434 the fly. The script is slow, but works well enough for human users
3435 viewing an occasional Info file. However, when someone's recursive Wget
3436 download stumbles upon the index page that links to all the Info files
3437 through the script, the system is brought to its knees without providing
3438 anything useful to the user (This task of converting Info files could be
3439 done locally and access to Info documentation for all installed GNU
3440 software on a system is available from the @code{info} command).
3442 To avoid this kind of accident, as well as to preserve privacy for
3443 documents that need to be protected from well-behaved robots, the
3444 concept of @dfn{robot exclusion} was invented. The idea is that
3445 the server administrators and document authors can specify which
3446 portions of the site they wish to protect from robots and those
3447 they will permit access.
3449 The most popular mechanism, and the @i{de facto} standard supported by
3450 all the major robots, is the ``Robots Exclusion Standard'' (RES) written
3451 by Martijn Koster et al. in 1994. It specifies the format of a text
3452 file containing directives that instruct the robots which URL paths to
3453 avoid. To be found by the robots, the specifications must be placed in
3454 @file{/robots.txt} in the server root, which the robots are expected to
3457 Although Wget is not a web robot in the strictest sense of the word, it
3458 can downloads large parts of the site without the user's intervention to
3459 download an individual page. Because of that, Wget honors RES when
3460 downloading recursively. For instance, when you issue:
3463 wget -r http://www.server.com/
3466 First the index of @samp{www.server.com} will be downloaded. If Wget
3467 finds that it wants to download more documents from that server, it will
3468 request @samp{http://www.server.com/robots.txt} and, if found, use it
3469 for further downloads. @file{robots.txt} is loaded only once per each
3472 Until version 1.8, Wget supported the first version of the standard,
3473 written by Martijn Koster in 1994 and available at
3474 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html}. As of version 1.8,
3475 Wget has supported the additional directives specified in the internet
3476 draft @samp{<draft-koster-robots-00.txt>} titled ``A Method for Web
3477 Robots Control''. The draft, which has as far as I know never made to
3478 an @sc{rfc}, is available at
3479 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots-rfc.txt}.
3481 This manual no longer includes the text of the Robot Exclusion Standard.
3483 The second, less known mechanism, enables the author of an individual
3484 document to specify whether they want the links from the file to be
3485 followed by a robot. This is achieved using the @code{META} tag, like
3489 <meta name="robots" content="nofollow">
3492 This is explained in some detail at
3493 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/meta-user.html}. Wget supports this
3494 method of robot exclusion in addition to the usual @file{/robots.txt}
3497 If you know what you are doing and really really wish to turn off the
3498 robot exclusion, set the @code{robots} variable to @samp{off} in your
3499 @file{.wgetrc}. You can achieve the same effect from the command line
3500 using the @code{-e} switch, e.g. @samp{wget -e robots=off @var{url}...}.
3502 @node Security Considerations
3503 @section Security Considerations
3506 When using Wget, you must be aware that it sends unencrypted passwords
3507 through the network, which may present a security problem. Here are the
3508 main issues, and some solutions.
3512 The passwords on the command line are visible using @code{ps}. The best
3513 way around it is to use @code{wget -i -} and feed the @sc{url}s to
3514 Wget's standard input, each on a separate line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
3515 Another workaround is to use @file{.netrc} to store passwords; however,
3516 storing unencrypted passwords is also considered a security risk.
3519 Using the insecure @dfn{basic} authentication scheme, unencrypted
3520 passwords are transmitted through the network routers and gateways.
3523 The @sc{ftp} passwords are also in no way encrypted. There is no good
3524 solution for this at the moment.
3527 Although the ``normal'' output of Wget tries to hide the passwords,
3528 debugging logs show them, in all forms. This problem is avoided by
3529 being careful when you send debug logs (yes, even when you send them to
3534 @section Contributors
3535 @cindex contributors
3538 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org},
3541 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Niksic @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org},
3543 and it is currently maintained by Micah Cowan @email{micah@@cowan.name}.
3545 However, the development of Wget could never have gone as far as it has, were
3546 it not for the help of many people, either with bug reports, feature proposals,
3547 patches, or letters saying ``Thanks!''.
3549 Special thanks goes to the following people (no particular order):
3552 @item Dan Harkless---contributed a lot of code and documentation of
3553 extremely high quality, as well as the @code{--page-requisites} and
3554 related options. He was the principal maintainer for some time and
3557 @item Ian Abbott---contributed bug fixes, Windows-related fixes, and
3558 provided a prototype implementation of the breadth-first recursive
3559 download. Co-maintained Wget during the 1.8 release cycle.
3562 The dotsrc.org crew, in particular Karsten Thygesen---donated system
3563 resources such as the mailing list, web space, @sc{ftp} space, and
3564 version control repositories, along with a lot of time to make these
3565 actually work. Christian Reiniger was of invaluable help with setting
3569 Heiko Herold---provided high-quality Windows builds and contributed
3570 bug and build reports for many years.
3573 Shawn McHorse---bug reports and patches.
3576 Kaveh R. Ghazi---on-the-fly @code{ansi2knr}-ization. Lots of
3580 Gordon Matzigkeit---@file{.netrc} support.
3584 Zlatko @v{C}alu@v{s}i@'{c}, Tomislav Vujec and Dra@v{z}en
3585 Ka@v{c}ar---feature suggestions and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3588 Zlatko Calusic, Tomislav Vujec and Drazen Kacar---feature suggestions
3589 and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3593 Darko Budor---initial port to Windows.
3596 Antonio Rosella---help and suggestions, plus the initial Italian
3601 Tomislav Petrovi@'{c}, Mario Miko@v{c}evi@'{c}---many bug reports and
3605 Tomislav Petrovic, Mario Mikocevic---many bug reports and suggestions.
3610 Fran@,{c}ois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3613 Francois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3617 Karl Eichwalder---lots of help with internationalization, Makefile
3618 layout and many other things.
3621 Junio Hamano---donated support for Opie and @sc{http} @code{Digest}
3625 People who provided donations for development---including Brian Gough.
3628 The following people have provided patches, bug/build reports, useful
3629 suggestions, beta testing services, fan mail and all the other things
3630 that make maintenance so much fun:
3649 Kristijan @v{C}onka@v{s},
3658 Bertrand Demiddelaer,
3671 Aleksandar Erkalovi@'{c},
3674 Aleksandar Erkalovic,
3693 Erik Magnus Hulthen,
3712 Goran Kezunovi@'{c},
3725 $\Sigma\acute{\iota}\mu o\varsigma\;
3726 \Xi\varepsilon\nu\iota\tau\acute{\epsilon}\lambda\lambda\eta\varsigma$
3727 (Simos KSenitellis),
3736 Nicol@'{a}s Lichtmeier,
3742 Alexander V. Lukyanov,
3782 @c Texinfo doesn't grok @'{@i}, so we have to use TeX itself.
3784 Juan Jos\'{e} Rodr\'{\i}guez,
3787 Juan Jose Rodriguez,
3805 Szakacsits Szabolcs,
3819 Douglas E. Wegscheid,
3830 Apologies to all who I accidentally left out, and many thanks to all the
3831 subscribers of the Wget mailing list.
3833 @node Copying this manual
3834 @appendix Copying this manual
3837 * GNU Free Documentation License:: Licnse for copying this manual.
3844 @unnumbered Concept Index