1 This is Info file wget.info, produced by Makeinfo version 1.68 from the
2 input file ./wget.texi.
4 INFO-DIR-SECTION Net Utilities
5 INFO-DIR-SECTION World Wide Web
7 * Wget: (wget). The non-interactive network downloader.
10 This file documents the the GNU Wget utility for downloading network
13 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
15 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
16 manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
17 preserved on all copies.
19 Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of
20 this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided also
21 that the sections entitled "Copying" and "GNU General Public License"
22 are included exactly as in the original, and provided that the entire
23 resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission
24 notice identical to this one.
27 File: wget.info, Node: Startup File, Next: Examples, Prev: Time-Stamping, Up: Top
32 Once you know how to change default settings of Wget through command
33 line arguments, you may wish to make some of those settings permanent.
34 You can do that in a convenient way by creating the Wget startup
37 Besides `.wgetrc' is the "main" initialization file, it is
38 convenient to have a special facility for storing passwords. Thus Wget
39 reads and interprets the contents of `$HOME/.netrc', if it finds it.
40 You can find `.netrc' format in your system manuals.
42 Wget reads `.wgetrc' upon startup, recognizing a limited set of
47 * Wgetrc Location:: Location of various wgetrc files.
48 * Wgetrc Syntax:: Syntax of wgetrc.
49 * Wgetrc Commands:: List of available commands.
50 * Sample Wgetrc:: A wgetrc example.
53 File: wget.info, Node: Wgetrc Location, Next: Wgetrc Syntax, Prev: Startup File, Up: Startup File
58 When initializing, Wget will look for a "global" startup file,
59 `/usr/local/etc/wgetrc' by default (or some prefix other than
60 `/usr/local', if Wget was not installed there) and read commands from
63 Then it will look for the user's file. If the environmental variable
64 `WGETRC' is set, Wget will try to load that file. Failing that, no
65 further attempts will be made.
67 If `WGETRC' is not set, Wget will try to load `$HOME/.wgetrc'.
69 The fact that user's settings are loaded after the system-wide ones
70 means that in case of collision user's wgetrc *overrides* the
71 system-wide wgetrc (in `/usr/local/etc/wgetrc' by default). Fascist
75 File: wget.info, Node: Wgetrc Syntax, Next: Wgetrc Commands, Prev: Wgetrc Location, Up: Startup File
80 The syntax of a wgetrc command is simple:
84 The "variable" will also be called "command". Valid "values" are
85 different for different commands.
87 The commands are case-insensitive and underscore-insensitive. Thus
88 `DIr__PrefiX' is the same as `dirprefix'. Empty lines, lines beginning
89 with `#' and lines containing white-space only are discarded.
91 Commands that expect a comma-separated list will clear the list on an
92 empty command. So, if you wish to reset the rejection list specified in
93 global `wgetrc', you can do it with:
98 File: wget.info, Node: Wgetrc Commands, Next: Sample Wgetrc, Prev: Wgetrc Syntax, Up: Startup File
103 The complete set of commands is listed below, the letter after `='
104 denoting the value the command takes. It is `on/off' for `on' or `off'
105 (which can also be `1' or `0'), STRING for any non-empty string or N
106 for a positive integer. For example, you may specify `use_proxy = off'
107 to disable use of proxy servers by default. You may use `inf' for
108 infinite values, where appropriate.
110 Most of the commands have their equivalent command-line option
111 (*Note Invoking::), except some more obscure or rarely used ones.
113 accept/reject = STRING
114 Same as `-A'/`-R' (*Note Types of Files::).
117 Enable/disable host-prefixed file names. `-nH' disables it.
120 Enable/disable continuation of the retrieval, the same as `-c'
124 Enable/disable going to background, the same as `-b' (which enables
127 backup_converted = on/off
128 Enable/disable saving pre-converted files with the suffix `.orig'
129 - the same as `-K' (which enables it).
132 Set base for relative URLs, the same as `-B'.
135 When set to off, disallow server-caching. See the `-C' option.
137 convert links = on/off
138 Convert non-relative links locally. The same as `-k'.
141 Ignore N remote directory components.
144 Debug mode, same as `-d'.
146 delete_after = on/off
147 Delete after download, the same as `--delete-after'.
150 Top of directory tree, the same as `-P'.
153 Turning dirstruct on or off, the same as `-x' or `-nd',
157 Same as `-D' (*Note Domain Acceptance::).
160 Specify the number of bytes "contained" in a dot, as seen
161 throughout the retrieval (1024 by default). You can postfix the
162 value with `k' or `m', representing kilobytes and megabytes,
163 respectively. With dot settings you can tailor the dot retrieval
164 to suit your needs, or you can use the predefined "styles" (*Note
168 Specify the number of dots that will be printed in each line
169 throughout the retrieval (50 by default).
172 Specify the number of dots in a single cluster (10 by default).
175 Specify the dot retrieval "style", as with `--dot-style'.
177 exclude_directories = STRING
178 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude
179 from download, the same as `-X' (*Note Directory-Based Limits::).
181 exclude_domains = STRING
182 Same as `--exclude-domains' (*Note Domain Acceptance::).
185 Follow FTP links from HTML documents, the same as `-f'.
188 Only follow certain HTML tags when doing a recursive retrieval,
189 just like `--follow-tags'.
192 If set to on, force the input filename to be regarded as an HTML
193 document, the same as `-F'.
196 Use STRING as FTP proxy, instead of the one specified in
200 Turn globbing on/off, the same as `-g'.
203 Define an additional header, like `--header'.
209 Use STRING as HTTP proxy, instead of the one specified in
213 Set HTTP user to STRING.
215 ignore_length = on/off
216 When set to on, ignore `Content-Length' header; the same as
220 Ignore certain HTML tags when doing a recursive retrieval, just
221 like `-G' / `--ignore-tags'.
223 include_directories = STRING
224 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow
225 when downloading, the same as `-I'.
228 Read the URLs from STRING, like `-i'.
231 Consider data longer than specified in content-length header as
232 invalid (and retry getting it). The default behaviour is to save
233 as much data as there is, provided there is more than or equal to
234 the value in `Content-Length'.
237 Set logfile, the same as `-o'.
240 Your user name on the remote machine, for FTP. Defaults to
244 Turn mirroring on/off. The same as `-m'.
247 Turn reading netrc on or off.
253 Disallow retrieving outside the directory hierarchy, like
254 `--no-parent' (*Note Directory-Based Limits::).
257 Use STRING as the comma-separated list of domains to avoid in
258 proxy loading, instead of the one specified in environment.
260 output_document = STRING
261 Set the output filename, the same as `-O'.
264 Set passive FTP, the same as `--passive-ftp'.
267 Set your FTP password to PASSWORD. Without this setting, the
268 password defaults to `username@hostname.domainname'.
271 Set proxy authentication user name to STRING, like `--proxy-user'.
273 proxy_passwd = STRING
274 Set proxy authentication password to STRING, like `--proxy-passwd'.
277 Quiet mode, the same as `-q'.
280 Specify the download quota, which is useful to put in the global
281 `wgetrc'. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop
282 retrieving after the download sum has become greater than quota.
283 The quota can be specified in bytes (default), kbytes `k'
284 appended) or mbytes (`m' appended). Thus `quota = 5m' will set
285 the quota to 5 mbytes. Note that the user's startup file overrides
289 Recursion level, the same as `-l'.
292 Recursive on/off, the same as `-r'.
294 relative_only = on/off
295 Follow only relative links, the same as `-L' (*Note Relative
298 remove_listing = on/off
299 If set to on, remove FTP listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it
300 to off is the same as `-nr'.
302 retr_symlinks = on/off
303 When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain
304 files; the same as `--retr-symlinks'.
307 Use (or not) `/robots.txt' file (*Note Robots::). Be sure to know
308 what you are doing before changing the default (which is `on').
310 server_response = on/off
311 Choose whether or not to print the HTTP and FTP server responses,
314 simple_host_check = on/off
315 Same as `-nh' (*Note Host Checking::).
321 Set timeout value, the same as `-T'.
323 timestamping = on/off
324 Turn timestamping on/off. The same as `-N' (*Note Time-Stamping::).
327 Set number of retries per URL, the same as `-t'.
330 Turn proxy support on/off. The same as `-Y'.
333 Turn verbose on/off, the same as `-v'/`-nv'.
336 Wait N seconds between retrievals, the same as `-w'.
339 Wait up to N seconds between retries of failed retrievals only -
340 the same as `--waitretry'. Note that this is turned on by default
341 in the global `wgetrc'.
344 File: wget.info, Node: Sample Wgetrc, Prev: Wgetrc Commands, Up: Startup File
349 This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution.
350 It is divided in two section--one for global usage (suitable for global
351 startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for `$HOME/.wgetrc').
352 Be careful about the things you change.
354 Note that almost all the lines are commented out. For a command to
355 have any effect, you must remove the `#' character at the beginning of
359 ### Sample Wget initialization file .wgetrc
362 ## You can use this file to change the default behaviour of wget or to
363 ## avoid having to type many many command-line options. This file does
364 ## not contain a comprehensive list of commands -- look at the manual
365 ## to find out what you can put into this file.
367 ## Wget initialization file can reside in /usr/local/etc/wgetrc
368 ## (global, for all users) or $HOME/.wgetrc (for a single user).
370 ## To use the settings in this file, you will have to uncomment them,
371 ## as well as change them, in most cases, as the values on the
372 ## commented-out lines are the default values (e.g. "off").
376 ## Global settings (useful for setting up in /usr/local/etc/wgetrc).
377 ## Think well before you change them, since they may reduce wget's
378 ## functionality, and make it behave contrary to the documentation:
381 # You can set retrieve quota for beginners by specifying a value
382 # optionally followed by 'K' (kilobytes) or 'M' (megabytes). The
383 # default quota is unlimited.
386 # You can lower (or raise) the default number of retries when
387 # downloading a file (default is 20).
390 # Lowering the maximum depth of the recursive retrieval is handy to
391 # prevent newbies from going too "deep" when they unwittingly start
392 # the recursive retrieval. The default is 5.
395 # Many sites are behind firewalls that do not allow initiation of
396 # connections from the outside. On these sites you have to use the
397 # `passive' feature of FTP. If you are behind such a firewall, you
398 # can turn this on to make Wget use passive FTP by default.
401 # The "wait" command below makes Wget wait between every connection.
402 # If, instead, you want Wget to wait only between retries of failed
403 # downloads, set waitretry to maximum number of seconds to wait (Wget
404 # will use "linear backoff", waiting 1 second after the first failure
405 # on a file, 2 seconds after the second failure, etc. up to this max).
410 ## Local settings (for a user to set in his $HOME/.wgetrc). It is
411 ## *highly* undesirable to put these settings in the global file, since
412 ## they are potentially dangerous to "normal" users.
414 ## Even when setting up your own ~/.wgetrc, you should know what you
415 ## are doing before doing so.
418 # Set this to on to use timestamping by default:
421 # It is a good idea to make Wget send your email address in a `From:'
422 # header with your request (so that server administrators can contact
423 # you in case of errors). Wget does *not* send `From:' by default.
424 #header = From: Your Name <username@site.domain>
426 # You can set up other headers, like Accept-Language. Accept-Language
427 # is *not* sent by default.
428 #header = Accept-Language: en
430 # You can set the default proxy for Wget to use. It will override the
431 # value in the environment.
432 #http_proxy = http://proxy.yoyodyne.com:18023/
434 # If you do not want to use proxy at all, set this to off.
437 # You can customize the retrieval outlook. Valid options are default,
438 # binary, mega and micro.
441 # Setting this to off makes Wget not download /robots.txt. Be sure to
442 # know *exactly* what /robots.txt is and how it is used before changing
446 # It can be useful to make Wget wait between connections. Set this to
447 # the number of seconds you want Wget to wait.
450 # You can force creating directory structure, even if a single is being
451 # retrieved, by setting this to on.
454 # You can turn on recursive retrieving by default (don't do this if
455 # you are not sure you know what it means) by setting this to on.
458 # To always back up file X as X.orig before converting its links (due
459 # to -k / --convert-links / convert_links = on having been specified),
460 # set this variable to on:
461 #backup_converted = off
463 # To have Wget follow FTP links from HTML files by default, set this
468 File: wget.info, Node: Examples, Next: Various, Prev: Startup File, Up: Top
473 The examples are classified into three sections, because of clarity.
474 The first section is a tutorial for beginners. The second section
475 explains some of the more complex program features. The third section
476 contains advice for mirror administrators, as well as even more complex
477 features (that some would call perverted).
481 * Simple Usage:: Simple, basic usage of the program.
482 * Advanced Usage:: Advanced techniques of usage.
483 * Guru Usage:: Mirroring and the hairy stuff.
486 File: wget.info, Node: Simple Usage, Next: Advanced Usage, Prev: Examples, Up: Examples
491 * Say you want to download a URL. Just type:
493 wget http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
495 The response will be something like:
497 --13:30:45-- http://fly.cc.fer.hr:80/en/
499 Connecting to fly.cc.fer.hr:80... connected!
500 HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
501 Length: 4,694 [text/html]
505 13:30:46 (23.75 KB/s) - `index.html' saved [4694/4694]
507 * But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is
508 lengthy? The connection will probably fail before the whole file
509 is retrieved, more than once. In this case, Wget will try getting
510 the file until it either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the
511 default number of retries (this being 20). It is easy to change
512 the number of tries to 45, to insure that the whole file will
515 wget --tries=45 http://fly.cc.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
517 * Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its
518 progress to log file `log'. It is tiring to type `--tries', so we
521 wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.cc.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &
523 The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in
524 the background. To unlimit the number of retries, use `-t inf'.
526 * The usage of FTP is as simple. Wget will take care of login and
529 $ wget ftp://gnjilux.cc.fer.hr/welcome.msg
530 --10:08:47-- ftp://gnjilux.cc.fer.hr:21/welcome.msg
532 Connecting to gnjilux.cc.fer.hr:21... connected!
533 Logging in as anonymous ... Logged in!
534 ==> TYPE I ... done. ==> CWD not needed.
535 ==> PORT ... done. ==> RETR welcome.msg ... done.
536 Length: 1,340 (unauthoritative)
540 10:08:48 (1.28 MB/s) - `welcome.msg' saved [1340]
542 * If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory
543 listing, parse it and convert it to HTML. Try:
545 wget ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/
549 File: wget.info, Node: Advanced Usage, Next: Guru Usage, Prev: Simple Usage, Up: Examples
554 * You would like to read the list of URLs from a file? Not a problem
559 If you specify `-' as file name, the URLs will be read from
562 * Create a mirror image of GNU WWW site (with the same directory
563 structure the original has) with only one try per document, saving
564 the log of the activities to `gnulog':
566 wget -r -t1 http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/ -o gnulog
568 * Retrieve the first layer of yahoo links:
570 wget -r -l1 http://www.yahoo.com/
572 * Retrieve the index.html of `www.lycos.com', showing the original
575 wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
577 * Save the server headers with the file:
578 wget -s http://www.lycos.com/
581 * Retrieve the first two levels of `wuarchive.wustl.edu', saving them
584 wget -P/tmp -l2 ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
586 * You want to download all the GIFs from an HTTP directory. `wget
587 http://host/dir/*.gif' doesn't work, since HTTP retrieval does not
588 support globbing. In that case, use:
590 wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://host/dir/
592 It is a bit of a kludge, but it works. `-r -l1' means to retrieve
593 recursively (*Note Recursive Retrieval::), with maximum depth of 1.
594 `--no-parent' means that references to the parent directory are
595 ignored (*Note Directory-Based Limits::), and `-A.gif' means to
596 download only the GIF files. `-A "*.gif"' would have worked too.
598 * Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
599 interrupted. Now you do not want to clobber the files already
600 present. It would be:
602 wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
604 * If you want to encode your own username and password to HTTP or
605 FTP, use the appropriate URL syntax (*Note URL Format::).
607 wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@jagor.srce.hr/.emacs
609 * If you do not like the default retrieval visualization (1K dots
610 with 10 dots per cluster and 50 dots per line), you can customize
611 it through dot settings (*Note Wgetrc Commands::). For example,
612 many people like the "binary" style of retrieval, with 8K dots and
615 wget --dot-style=binary ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/README
617 You can experiment with other styles, like:
619 wget --dot-style=mega ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/xemacs-20.4/xemacs-20.4.tar.gz
620 wget --dot-style=micro http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
622 To make these settings permanent, put them in your `.wgetrc', as
623 described before (*Note Sample Wgetrc::).
626 File: wget.info, Node: Guru Usage, Prev: Advanced Usage, Up: Examples
631 * If you wish Wget to keep a mirror of a page (or FTP
632 subdirectories), use `--mirror' (`-m'), which is the shorthand for
633 `-r -N'. You can put Wget in the crontab file asking it to
634 recheck a site each Sunday:
637 0 0 * * 0 wget --mirror ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/ -o /home/me/weeklog
639 * You may wish to do the same with someone's home page. But you do
640 not want to download all those images--you're only interested in
643 wget --mirror -A.html http://www.w3.org/
645 * But what about mirroring the hosts networkologically close to you?
646 It seems so awfully slow because of all that DNS resolving. Just
647 use `-D' (*Note Domain Acceptance::).
649 wget -rN -Dsrce.hr http://www.srce.hr/
651 Now Wget will correctly find out that `regoc.srce.hr' is the same
652 as `www.srce.hr', but will not even take into consideration the
653 link to `www.mit.edu'.
655 * You have a presentation and would like the dumb absolute links to
656 be converted to relative? Use `-k':
660 * You would like the output documents to go to standard output
661 instead of to files? OK, but Wget will automatically shut up
662 (turn on `--quiet') to prevent mixing of Wget output and the
665 wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/
667 You can also combine the two options and make weird pipelines to
668 retrieve the documents from remote hotlists:
670 wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
673 File: wget.info, Node: Various, Next: Appendices, Prev: Examples, Up: Top
678 This chapter contains all the stuff that could not fit anywhere else.
682 * Proxies:: Support for proxy servers
683 * Distribution:: Getting the latest version.
684 * Mailing List:: Wget mailing list for announcements and discussion.
685 * Reporting Bugs:: How and where to report bugs.
686 * Portability:: The systems Wget works on.
687 * Signals:: Signal-handling performed by Wget.
690 File: wget.info, Node: Proxies, Next: Distribution, Prev: Various, Up: Various
695 "Proxies" are special-purpose HTTP servers designed to transfer data
696 from remote servers to local clients. One typical use of proxies is
697 lightening network load for users behind a slow connection. This is
698 achieved by channeling all HTTP and FTP requests through the proxy
699 which caches the transferred data. When a cached resource is requested
700 again, proxy will return the data from cache. Another use for proxies
701 is for companies that separate (for security reasons) their internal
702 networks from the rest of Internet. In order to obtain information
703 from the Web, their users connect and retrieve remote data using an
706 Wget supports proxies for both HTTP and FTP retrievals. The
707 standard way to specify proxy location, which Wget recognizes, is using
708 the following environment variables:
711 This variable should contain the URL of the proxy for HTTP
715 This variable should contain the URL of the proxy for HTTP
716 connections. It is quite common that HTTP_PROXY and FTP_PROXY are
720 This variable should contain a comma-separated list of domain
721 extensions proxy should *not* be used for. For instance, if the
722 value of `no_proxy' is `.mit.edu', proxy will not be used to
723 retrieve documents from MIT.
725 In addition to the environment variables, proxy location and settings
726 may be specified from within Wget itself.
731 This option may be used to turn the proxy support on or off. Proxy
732 support is on by default, provided that the appropriate environment
738 These startup file variables allow you to override the proxy
739 settings specified by the environment.
741 Some proxy servers require authorization to enable you to use them.
742 The authorization consists of "username" and "password", which must be
743 sent by Wget. As with HTTP authorization, several authentication
744 schemes exist. For proxy authorization only the `Basic' authentication
745 scheme is currently implemented.
747 You may specify your username and password either through the proxy
748 URL or through the command-line options. Assuming that the company's
749 proxy is located at `proxy.srce.hr' at port 8001, a proxy URL location
750 containing authorization data might look like this:
752 http://hniksic:mypassword@proxy.company.com:8001/
754 Alternatively, you may use the `proxy-user' and `proxy-password'
755 options, and the equivalent `.wgetrc' settings `proxy_user' and
756 `proxy_passwd' to set the proxy username and password.
759 File: wget.info, Node: Distribution, Next: Mailing List, Prev: Proxies, Up: Various
764 Like all GNU utilities, the latest version of Wget can be found at
765 the master GNU archive site prep.ai.mit.edu, and its mirrors. For
766 example, Wget 1.5.3+dev can be found at
767 `ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/gnu/wget/wget-1.5.3+dev.tar.gz'
770 File: wget.info, Node: Mailing List, Next: Reporting Bugs, Prev: Distribution, Up: Various
775 Wget has its own mailing list at <wget@sunsite.auc.dk>, thanks to
776 Karsten Thygesen. The mailing list is for discussion of Wget features
777 and web, reporting Wget bugs (those that you think may be of interest
778 to the public) and mailing announcements. You are welcome to
779 subscribe. The more people on the list, the better!
781 To subscribe, send mail to <wget-subscribe@sunsite.auc.dk>. the
782 magic word `subscribe' in the subject line. Unsubscribe by mailing to
783 <wget-unsubscribe@sunsite.auc.dk>.
785 The mailing list is archived at `http://fly.cc.fer.hr/archive/wget'.
788 File: wget.info, Node: Reporting Bugs, Next: Portability, Prev: Mailing List, Up: Various
793 You are welcome to send bug reports about GNU Wget to
794 <bug-wget@gnu.org>. The bugs that you think are of the interest to the
795 public (i.e. more people should be informed about them) can be Cc-ed to
796 the mailing list at <wget@sunsite.auc.dk>.
798 Before actually submitting a bug report, please try to follow a few
801 1. Please try to ascertain that the behaviour you see really is a
802 bug. If Wget crashes, it's a bug. If Wget does not behave as
803 documented, it's a bug. If things work strange, but you are not
804 sure about the way they are supposed to work, it might well be a
807 2. Try to repeat the bug in as simple circumstances as possible.
808 E.g. if Wget crashes on `wget -rLl0 -t5 -Y0 http://yoyodyne.com -o
809 /tmp/log', you should try to see if it will crash with a simpler
812 Also, while I will probably be interested to know the contents of
813 your `.wgetrc' file, just dumping it into the debug message is
814 probably a bad idea. Instead, you should first try to see if the
815 bug repeats with `.wgetrc' moved out of the way. Only if it turns
816 out that `.wgetrc' settings affect the bug, should you mail me the
817 relevant parts of the file.
819 3. Please start Wget with `-d' option and send the log (or the
820 relevant parts of it). If Wget was compiled without debug support,
821 recompile it. It is *much* easier to trace bugs with debug support
824 4. If Wget has crashed, try to run it in a debugger, e.g. `gdb `which
825 wget` core' and type `where' to get the backtrace.
827 5. Find where the bug is, fix it and send me the patches. :-)
830 File: wget.info, Node: Portability, Next: Signals, Prev: Reporting Bugs, Up: Various
835 Since Wget uses GNU Autoconf for building and configuring, and avoids
836 using "special" ultra-mega-cool features of any particular Unix, it
837 should compile (and work) on all common Unix flavors.
839 Various Wget versions have been compiled and tested under many kinds
840 of Unix systems, including Solaris, Linux, SunOS, OSF (aka Digital
841 Unix), Ultrix, *BSD, IRIX, and others; refer to the file `MACHINES' in
842 the distribution directory for a comprehensive list. If you compile it
843 on an architecture not listed there, please let me know so I can update
846 Wget should also compile on the other Unix systems, not listed in
847 `MACHINES'. If it doesn't, please let me know.
849 Thanks to kind contributors, this version of Wget compiles and works
850 on Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows NT platforms. It has been compiled
851 successfully using MS Visual C++ 4.0, Watcom, and Borland C compilers,
852 with Winsock as networking software. Naturally, it is crippled of some
853 features available on Unix, but it should work as a substitute for
854 people stuck with Windows. Note that the Windows port is *neither
855 tested nor maintained* by me--all questions and problems should be
856 reported to Wget mailing list at <wget@sunsite.auc.dk> where the
857 maintainers will look at them.
860 File: wget.info, Node: Signals, Prev: Portability, Up: Various
865 Since the purpose of Wget is background work, it catches the hangup
866 signal (`SIGHUP') and ignores it. If the output was on standard
867 output, it will be redirected to a file named `wget-log'. Otherwise,
868 `SIGHUP' is ignored. This is convenient when you wish to redirect the
869 output of Wget after having started it.
871 $ wget http://www.ifi.uio.no/~larsi/gnus.tar.gz &
872 $ kill -HUP %% # Redirect the output to wget-log
874 Other than that, Wget will not try to interfere with signals in any
875 way. `C-c', `kill -TERM' and `kill -KILL' should kill it alike.
878 File: wget.info, Node: Appendices, Next: Copying, Prev: Various, Up: Top
883 This chapter contains some references I consider useful, like the
884 Robots Exclusion Standard specification, as well as a list of
885 contributors to GNU Wget.
889 * Robots:: Wget as a WWW robot.
890 * Security Considerations:: Security with Wget.
891 * Contributors:: People who helped.
894 File: wget.info, Node: Robots, Next: Security Considerations, Prev: Appendices, Up: Appendices
899 Since Wget is able to traverse the web, it counts as one of the Web
900 "robots". Thus Wget understands "Robots Exclusion Standard"
901 (RES)--contents of `/robots.txt', used by server administrators to
902 shield parts of their systems from wanderings of Wget.
904 Norobots support is turned on only when retrieving recursively, and
905 *never* for the first page. Thus, you may issue:
907 wget -r http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
909 First the index of fly.cc.fer.hr will be downloaded. If Wget finds
910 anything worth downloading on the same host, only *then* will it load
911 the robots, and decide whether or not to load the links after all.
912 `/robots.txt' is loaded only once per host. Wget does not support the
915 The description of the norobots standard was written, and is
916 maintained by Martijn Koster <m.koster@webcrawler.com>. With his
917 permission, I contribute a (slightly modified) TeXified version of the
922 * Introduction to RES::
926 * Norobots Examples::
929 File: wget.info, Node: Introduction to RES, Next: RES Format, Prev: Robots, Up: Robots
934 "WWW Robots" (also called "wanderers" or "spiders") are programs
935 that traverse many pages in the World Wide Web by recursively
936 retrieving linked pages. For more information see the robots page.
938 In 1993 and 1994 there have been occasions where robots have visited
939 WWW servers where they weren't welcome for various reasons. Sometimes
940 these reasons were robot specific, e.g. certain robots swamped servers
941 with rapid-fire requests, or retrieved the same files repeatedly. In
942 other situations robots traversed parts of WWW servers that weren't
943 suitable, e.g. very deep virtual trees, duplicated information,
944 temporary information, or cgi-scripts with side-effects (such as
947 These incidents indicated the need for established mechanisms for
948 WWW servers to indicate to robots which parts of their server should
949 not be accessed. This standard addresses this need with an operational
952 This document represents a consensus on 30 June 1994 on the robots
953 mailing list (`robots@webcrawler.com'), between the majority of robot
954 authors and other people with an interest in robots. It has also been
955 open for discussion on the Technical World Wide Web mailing list
956 (`www-talk@info.cern.ch'). This document is based on a previous working
957 draft under the same title.
959 It is not an official standard backed by a standards body, or owned
960 by any commercial organization. It is not enforced by anybody, and there
961 no guarantee that all current and future robots will use it. Consider
962 it a common facility the majority of robot authors offer the WWW
963 community to protect WWW server against unwanted accesses by their
966 The latest version of this document can be found at
967 `http://info.webcrawler.com/mak/projects/robots/norobots.html'.
970 File: wget.info, Node: RES Format, Next: User-Agent Field, Prev: Introduction to RES, Up: Robots
975 The format and semantics of the `/robots.txt' file are as follows:
977 The file consists of one or more records separated by one or more
978 blank lines (terminated by `CR', `CR/NL', or `NL'). Each record
979 contains lines of the form:
981 <field>:<optionalspace><value><optionalspace>
983 The field name is case insensitive.
985 Comments can be included in file using UNIX Bourne shell conventions:
986 the `#' character is used to indicate that preceding space (if any) and
987 the remainder of the line up to the line termination is discarded.
988 Lines containing only a comment are discarded completely, and therefore
989 do not indicate a record boundary.
991 The record starts with one or more User-agent lines, followed by one
992 or more Disallow lines, as detailed below. Unrecognized headers are
995 The presence of an empty `/robots.txt' file has no explicit
996 associated semantics, it will be treated as if it was not present, i.e.
997 all robots will consider themselves welcome.
1000 File: wget.info, Node: User-Agent Field, Next: Disallow Field, Prev: RES Format, Up: Robots
1005 The value of this field is the name of the robot the record is
1006 describing access policy for.
1008 If more than one User-agent field is present the record describes an
1009 identical access policy for more than one robot. At least one field
1010 needs to be present per record.
1012 The robot should be liberal in interpreting this field. A case
1013 insensitive substring match of the name without version information is
1016 If the value is `*', the record describes the default access policy
1017 for any robot that has not matched any of the other records. It is not
1018 allowed to have multiple such records in the `/robots.txt' file.
1021 File: wget.info, Node: Disallow Field, Next: Norobots Examples, Prev: User-Agent Field, Up: Robots
1026 The value of this field specifies a partial URL that is not to be
1027 visited. This can be a full path, or a partial path; any URL that
1028 starts with this value will not be retrieved. For example,
1029 `Disallow: /help' disallows both `/help.html' and `/help/index.html',
1030 whereas `Disallow: /help/' would disallow `/help/index.html' but allow
1033 Any empty value, indicates that all URLs can be retrieved. At least
1034 one Disallow field needs to be present in a record.
1037 File: wget.info, Node: Norobots Examples, Prev: Disallow Field, Up: Robots
1042 The following example `/robots.txt' file specifies that no robots
1043 should visit any URL starting with `/cyberworld/map/' or `/tmp/':
1045 # robots.txt for http://www.site.com/
1048 Disallow: /cyberworld/map/ # This is an infinite virtual URL space
1049 Disallow: /tmp/ # these will soon disappear
1051 This example `/robots.txt' file specifies that no robots should
1052 visit any URL starting with `/cyberworld/map/', except the robot called
1055 # robots.txt for http://www.site.com/
1058 Disallow: /cyberworld/map/ # This is an infinite virtual URL space
1060 # Cybermapper knows where to go.
1061 User-agent: cybermapper
1064 This example indicates that no robots should visit this site further:
1071 File: wget.info, Node: Security Considerations, Next: Contributors, Prev: Robots, Up: Appendices
1073 Security Considerations
1074 =======================
1076 When using Wget, you must be aware that it sends unencrypted
1077 passwords through the network, which may present a security problem.
1078 Here are the main issues, and some solutions.
1080 1. The passwords on the command line are visible using `ps'. If this
1081 is a problem, avoid putting passwords from the command line--e.g.
1082 you can use `.netrc' for this.
1084 2. Using the insecure "basic" authentication scheme, unencrypted
1085 passwords are transmitted through the network routers and gateways.
1087 3. The FTP passwords are also in no way encrypted. There is no good
1088 solution for this at the moment.
1090 4. Although the "normal" output of Wget tries to hide the passwords,
1091 debugging logs show them, in all forms. This problem is avoided by
1092 being careful when you send debug logs (yes, even when you send
1096 File: wget.info, Node: Contributors, Prev: Security Considerations, Up: Appendices
1101 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@iskon.hr>. However,
1102 its development could never have gone as far as it has, were it not for
1103 the help of many people, either with bug reports, feature proposals,
1104 patches, or letters saying "Thanks!".
1106 Special thanks goes to the following people (no particular order):
1108 * Karsten Thygesen--donated the mailing list and the initial FTP
1111 * Shawn McHorse--bug reports and patches.
1113 * Kaveh R. Ghazi--on-the-fly `ansi2knr'-ization.
1115 * Gordon Matzigkeit--`.netrc' support.
1117 * Zlatko Calusic, Tomislav Vujec and Drazen Kacar--feature
1118 suggestions and "philosophical" discussions.
1120 * Darko Budor--initial port to Windows.
1122 * Antonio Rosella--help and suggestions, plus the Italian
1125 * Tomislav Petrovic, Mario Mikocevic--many bug reports and
1128 * Francois Pinard--many thorough bug reports and discussions.
1130 * Karl Eichwalder--lots of help with internationalization and other
1133 * Junio Hamano--donated support for Opie and HTTP `Digest'
1136 * Brian Gough--a generous donation.
1138 The following people have provided patches, bug/build reports, useful
1139 suggestions, beta testing services, fan mail and all the other things
1140 that make maintenance so much fun:
1142 Tim Adam, Martin Baehr, Dieter Baron, Roger Beeman and the Gurus at
1143 Cisco, Dan Berger, Mark Boyns, John Burden, Wanderlei Cavassin, Gilles
1144 Cedoc, Tim Charron, Noel Cragg, Kristijan Conkas, Andrew Deryabin,
1145 Damir Dzeko, Andrew Davison, Ulrich Drepper, Marc Duponcheel,
1146 Aleksandar Erkalovic, Andy Eskilsson, Masashi Fujita, Howard Gayle,
1147 Marcel Gerrits, Hans Grobler, Mathieu Guillaume, Dan Harkless, Heiko
1148 Herold, Karl Heuer, HIROSE Masaaki, Gregor Hoffleit, Erik Magnus
1149 Hulthen, Richard Huveneers, Simon Josefsson, Mario Juric, Goran
1150 Kezunovic, Robert Kleine, Fila Kolodny, Alexander Kourakos, Martin
1151 Kraemer, Simos KSenitellis, Hrvoje Lacko, Daniel S. Lewart, Dave Love,
1152 Jordan Mendelson, Lin Zhe Min, Charlie Negyesi, Andrew Pollock, Steve
1153 Pothier, Jan Prikryl, Marin Purgar, Keith Refson, Tobias Ringstrom,
1154 Juan Jose Rodrigues, Edward J. Sabol, Heinz Salzmann, Robert Schmidt,
1155 Toomas Soome, Tage Stabell-Kulo, Sven Sternberger, Markus Strasser,
1156 Szakacsits Szabolcs, Mike Thomas, Russell Vincent, Charles G Waldman,
1157 Douglas E. Wegscheid, Jasmin Zainul, Bojan Zdrnja, Kristijan Zimmer.
1159 Apologies to all who I accidentally left out, and many thanks to all
1160 the subscribers of the Wget mailing list.