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: Directory-Based Limits, Next: FTP Links, Prev: Types of Files, Up: Following Links
29 Directory-Based Limits
30 ======================
32 Regardless of other link-following facilities, it is often useful to
33 place the restriction of what files to retrieve based on the directories
34 those files are placed in. There can be many reasons for this--the
35 home pages may be organized in a reasonable directory structure; or some
36 directories may contain useless information, e.g. `/cgi-bin' or `/dev'
39 Wget offers three different options to deal with this requirement.
40 Each option description lists a short name, a long name, and the
41 equivalent command in `.wgetrc'.
45 `include_directories = LIST'
46 `-I' option accepts a comma-separated list of directories included
47 in the retrieval. Any other directories will simply be ignored.
48 The directories are absolute paths.
50 So, if you wish to download from `http://host/people/bozo/'
51 following only links to bozo's colleagues in the `/people'
52 directory and the bogus scripts in `/cgi-bin', you can specify:
54 wget -I /people,/cgi-bin http://host/people/bozo/
58 `exclude_directories = LIST'
59 `-X' option is exactly the reverse of `-I'--this is a list of
60 directories *excluded* from the download. E.g. if you do not want
61 Wget to download things from `/cgi-bin' directory, specify `-X
62 /cgi-bin' on the command line.
64 The same as with `-A'/`-R', these two options can be combined to
65 get a better fine-tuning of downloading subdirectories. E.g. if
66 you want to load all the files from `/pub' hierarchy except for
67 `/pub/worthless', specify `-I/pub -X/pub/worthless'.
72 The simplest, and often very useful way of limiting directories is
73 disallowing retrieval of the links that refer to the hierarchy
74 "above" than the beginning directory, i.e. disallowing ascent to
75 the parent directory/directories.
77 The `--no-parent' option (short `-np') is useful in this case.
78 Using it guarantees that you will never leave the existing
79 hierarchy. Supposing you issue Wget with:
81 wget -r --no-parent http://somehost/~luzer/my-archive/
83 You may rest assured that none of the references to
84 `/~his-girls-homepage/' or `/~luzer/all-my-mpegs/' will be
85 followed. Only the archive you are interested in will be
86 downloaded. Essentially, `--no-parent' is similar to
87 `-I/~luzer/my-archive', only it handles redirections in a more
91 File: wget.info, Node: FTP Links, Prev: Directory-Based Limits, Up: Following Links
96 The rules for FTP are somewhat specific, as it is necessary for them
97 to be. FTP links in HTML documents are often included for purposes of
98 reference, and it is often inconvenient to download them by default.
100 To have FTP links followed from HTML documents, you need to specify
101 the `--follow-ftp' option. Having done that, FTP links will span hosts
102 regardless of `-H' setting. This is logical, as FTP links rarely point
103 to the same host where the HTTP server resides. For similar reasons,
104 the `-L' options has no effect on such downloads. On the other hand,
105 domain acceptance (`-D') and suffix rules (`-A' and `-R') apply
108 Also note that followed links to FTP directories will not be
109 retrieved recursively further.
112 File: wget.info, Node: Time-Stamping, Next: Startup File, Prev: Following Links, Up: Top
117 One of the most important aspects of mirroring information from the
118 Internet is updating your archives.
120 Downloading the whole archive again and again, just to replace a few
121 changed files is expensive, both in terms of wasted bandwidth and money,
122 and the time to do the update. This is why all the mirroring tools
123 offer the option of incremental updating.
125 Such an updating mechanism means that the remote server is scanned in
126 search of "new" files. Only those new files will be downloaded in the
127 place of the old ones.
129 A file is considered new if one of these two conditions are met:
131 1. A file of that name does not already exist locally.
133 2. A file of that name does exist, but the remote file was modified
134 more recently than the local file.
136 To implement this, the program needs to be aware of the time of last
137 modification of both remote and local files. Such information are
138 called the "time-stamps".
140 The time-stamping in GNU Wget is turned on using `--timestamping'
141 (`-N') option, or through `timestamping = on' directive in `.wgetrc'.
142 With this option, for each file it intends to download, Wget will check
143 whether a local file of the same name exists. If it does, and the
144 remote file is older, Wget will not download it.
146 If the local file does not exist, or the sizes of the files do not
147 match, Wget will download the remote file no matter what the time-stamps
152 * Time-Stamping Usage::
153 * HTTP Time-Stamping Internals::
154 * FTP Time-Stamping Internals::
157 File: wget.info, Node: Time-Stamping Usage, Next: HTTP Time-Stamping Internals, Prev: Time-Stamping, Up: Time-Stamping
162 The usage of time-stamping is simple. Say you would like to
163 download a file so that it keeps its date of modification.
165 wget -S http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
167 A simple `ls -l' shows that the time stamp on the local file equals
168 the state of the `Last-Modified' header, as returned by the server. As
169 you can see, the time-stamping info is preserved locally, even without
172 Several days later, you would like Wget to check if the remote file
173 has changed, and download it if it has.
175 wget -N http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
177 Wget will ask the server for the last-modified date. If the local
178 file is newer, the remote file will not be re-fetched. However, if the
179 remote file is more recent, Wget will proceed fetching it normally.
181 The same goes for FTP. For example:
183 wget ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/emacs/gnus/*
185 `ls' will show that the timestamps are set according to the state on
186 the remote server. Reissuing the command with `-N' will make Wget
187 re-fetch *only* the files that have been modified.
189 In both HTTP and FTP retrieval Wget will time-stamp the local file
190 correctly (with or without `-N') if it gets the stamps, i.e. gets the
191 directory listing for FTP or the `Last-Modified' header for HTTP.
193 If you wished to mirror the GNU archive every week, you would use the
194 following command every week:
196 wget --timestamping -r ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/
199 File: wget.info, Node: HTTP Time-Stamping Internals, Next: FTP Time-Stamping Internals, Prev: Time-Stamping Usage, Up: Time-Stamping
201 HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
202 ============================
204 Time-stamping in HTTP is implemented by checking of the
205 `Last-Modified' header. If you wish to retrieve the file `foo.html'
206 through HTTP, Wget will check whether `foo.html' exists locally. If it
207 doesn't, `foo.html' will be retrieved unconditionally.
209 If the file does exist locally, Wget will first check its local
210 time-stamp (similar to the way `ls -l' checks it), and then send a
211 `HEAD' request to the remote server, demanding the information on the
214 The `Last-Modified' header is examined to find which file was
215 modified more recently (which makes it "newer"). If the remote file is
216 newer, it will be downloaded; if it is older, Wget will give up.(1)
218 When `--backup-converted' (`-K') is specified in conjunction with
219 `-N', server file `X' is compared to local file `X.orig', if extant,
220 rather than being compared to local file `X', which will always differ
221 if it's been converted by `--convert-links' (`-k').
223 Arguably, HTTP time-stamping should be implemented using the
224 `If-Modified-Since' request.
226 ---------- Footnotes ----------
228 (1) As an additional check, Wget will look at the `Content-Length'
229 header, and compare the sizes; if they are not the same, the remote
230 file will be downloaded no matter what the time-stamp says.
233 File: wget.info, Node: FTP Time-Stamping Internals, Prev: HTTP Time-Stamping Internals, Up: Time-Stamping
235 FTP Time-Stamping Internals
236 ===========================
238 In theory, FTP time-stamping works much the same as HTTP, only FTP
239 has no headers--time-stamps must be received from the directory
242 For each directory files must be retrieved from, Wget will use the
243 `LIST' command to get the listing. It will try to analyze the listing,
244 assuming that it is a Unix `ls -l' listing, and extract the
245 time-stamps. The rest is exactly the same as for HTTP.
247 Assumption that every directory listing is a Unix-style listing may
248 sound extremely constraining, but in practice it is not, as many
249 non-Unix FTP servers use the Unixoid listing format because most (all?)
250 of the clients understand it. Bear in mind that RFC959 defines no
251 standard way to get a file list, let alone the time-stamps. We can
252 only hope that a future standard will define this.
254 Another non-standard solution includes the use of `MDTM' command
255 that is supported by some FTP servers (including the popular
256 `wu-ftpd'), which returns the exact time of the specified file. Wget
257 may support this command in the future.
260 File: wget.info, Node: Startup File, Next: Examples, Prev: Time-Stamping, Up: Top
265 Once you know how to change default settings of Wget through command
266 line arguments, you may wish to make some of those settings permanent.
267 You can do that in a convenient way by creating the Wget startup
270 Besides `.wgetrc' is the "main" initialization file, it is
271 convenient to have a special facility for storing passwords. Thus Wget
272 reads and interprets the contents of `$HOME/.netrc', if it finds it.
273 You can find `.netrc' format in your system manuals.
275 Wget reads `.wgetrc' upon startup, recognizing a limited set of
280 * Wgetrc Location:: Location of various wgetrc files.
281 * Wgetrc Syntax:: Syntax of wgetrc.
282 * Wgetrc Commands:: List of available commands.
283 * Sample Wgetrc:: A wgetrc example.
286 File: wget.info, Node: Wgetrc Location, Next: Wgetrc Syntax, Prev: Startup File, Up: Startup File
291 When initializing, Wget will look for a "global" startup file,
292 `/usr/local/etc/wgetrc' by default (or some prefix other than
293 `/usr/local', if Wget was not installed there) and read commands from
296 Then it will look for the user's file. If the environmental variable
297 `WGETRC' is set, Wget will try to load that file. Failing that, no
298 further attempts will be made.
300 If `WGETRC' is not set, Wget will try to load `$HOME/.wgetrc'.
302 The fact that user's settings are loaded after the system-wide ones
303 means that in case of collision user's wgetrc *overrides* the
304 system-wide wgetrc (in `/usr/local/etc/wgetrc' by default). Fascist
308 File: wget.info, Node: Wgetrc Syntax, Next: Wgetrc Commands, Prev: Wgetrc Location, Up: Startup File
313 The syntax of a wgetrc command is simple:
317 The "variable" will also be called "command". Valid "values" are
318 different for different commands.
320 The commands are case-insensitive and underscore-insensitive. Thus
321 `DIr__PrefiX' is the same as `dirprefix'. Empty lines, lines beginning
322 with `#' and lines containing white-space only are discarded.
324 Commands that expect a comma-separated list will clear the list on an
325 empty command. So, if you wish to reset the rejection list specified in
326 global `wgetrc', you can do it with:
331 File: wget.info, Node: Wgetrc Commands, Next: Sample Wgetrc, Prev: Wgetrc Syntax, Up: Startup File
336 The complete set of commands is listed below. Legal values are
337 listed after the `='. Simple Boolean values can be set or unset using
338 `on' and `off' or `1' and `0'. A fancier kind of Boolean allowed in
339 some cases is the "lockable" Boolean, which may be set to `on', `off',
340 `always', or `never'. If an option is set to `always' or `never', that
341 value will be locked in for the duration of the wget invocation -
342 commandline options will not override.
344 Some commands take pseudo-arbitrary values. STRING values can be
345 any non-empty string. N can be any positive integer, or `inf' for
346 infinity, where appropriate.
348 Most of these commands have commandline equivalents (*Note
349 Invoking::), though some of the more obscure or rarely used ones do not.
351 accept/reject = STRING
352 Same as `-A'/`-R' (*Note Types of Files::).
355 Enable/disable host-prefixed file names. `-nH' disables it.
358 Enable/disable continuation of the retrieval - the same as `-c'
362 Enable/disable going to background - the same as `-b' (which
365 backup_converted = on/off
366 Enable/disable saving pre-converted files with the suffix `.orig'
367 - the same as `-K' (which enables it).
370 Consider relative URLs in URL input files forced to be interpreted
371 as HTML as being relative to STRING - the same as `-B'.
374 When set to off, disallow server-caching. See the `-C' option.
376 convert links = on/off
377 Convert non-relative links locally. The same as `-k'.
380 Ignore N remote directory components.
383 Debug mode, same as `-d'.
385 delete_after = on/off
386 Delete after download - the same as `--delete-after'.
389 Top of directory tree - the same as `-P'.
392 Turning dirstruct on or off - the same as `-x' or `-nd',
396 Same as `-D' (*Note Domain Acceptance::).
399 Specify the number of bytes "contained" in a dot, as seen
400 throughout the retrieval (1024 by default). You can postfix the
401 value with `k' or `m', representing kilobytes and megabytes,
402 respectively. With dot settings you can tailor the dot retrieval
403 to suit your needs, or you can use the predefined "styles" (*Note
407 Specify the number of dots that will be printed in each line
408 throughout the retrieval (50 by default).
411 Specify the number of dots in a single cluster (10 by default).
414 Specify the dot retrieval "style", as with `--dot-style'.
416 exclude_directories = STRING
417 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude
418 from download - the same as `-X' (*Note Directory-Based Limits::).
420 exclude_domains = STRING
421 Same as `--exclude-domains' (*Note Domain Acceptance::).
424 Follow FTP links from HTML documents - the same as `-f'.
427 Only follow certain HTML tags when doing a recursive retrieval,
428 just like `--follow-tags'.
431 If set to on, force the input filename to be regarded as an HTML
432 document - the same as `-F'.
435 Use STRING as FTP proxy, instead of the one specified in
439 Turn globbing on/off - the same as `-g'.
442 Define an additional header, like `--header'.
444 html_extension = on/off
445 Add a `.html' extension to `text/html' files without it, like `-E'.
451 Use STRING as HTTP proxy, instead of the one specified in
455 Set HTTP user to STRING.
457 ignore_length = on/off
458 When set to on, ignore `Content-Length' header; the same as
462 Ignore certain HTML tags when doing a recursive retrieval, just
463 like `-G' / `--ignore-tags'.
465 include_directories = STRING
466 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow
467 when downloading - the same as `-I'.
470 Read the URLs from STRING, like `-i'.
473 Consider data longer than specified in content-length header as
474 invalid (and retry getting it). The default behaviour is to save
475 as much data as there is, provided there is more than or equal to
476 the value in `Content-Length'.
479 Set logfile - the same as `-o'.
482 Your user name on the remote machine, for FTP. Defaults to
486 Turn mirroring on/off. The same as `-m'.
489 Turn reading netrc on or off.
495 Disallow retrieving outside the directory hierarchy, like
496 `--no-parent' (*Note Directory-Based Limits::).
499 Use STRING as the comma-separated list of domains to avoid in
500 proxy loading, instead of the one specified in environment.
502 output_document = STRING
503 Set the output filename - the same as `-O'.
505 page_requisites = on/off
506 Download all ancillary documents necessary for a single HTML page
507 to display properly - the same as `-p'.
509 passive_ftp = on/off/always/never
510 Set passive FTP - the same as `--passive-ftp'. Some scripts and
511 `.pm' (Perl module) files download files using `wget
512 --passive-ftp'. If your firewall does not allow this, you can set
513 `passive_ftp = never' to override the commandline.
516 Set your FTP password to PASSWORD. Without this setting, the
517 password defaults to `username@hostname.domainname'.
520 Set proxy authentication user name to STRING, like `--proxy-user'.
522 proxy_passwd = STRING
523 Set proxy authentication password to STRING, like `--proxy-passwd'.
526 Set HTTP `Referer:' header just like `--referer'. (Note it was
527 the folks who wrote the HTTP spec who got the spelling of
531 Quiet mode - the same as `-q'.
534 Specify the download quota, which is useful to put in the global
535 `wgetrc'. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop
536 retrieving after the download sum has become greater than quota.
537 The quota can be specified in bytes (default), kbytes `k'
538 appended) or mbytes (`m' appended). Thus `quota = 5m' will set
539 the quota to 5 mbytes. Note that the user's startup file overrides
543 Recursion level - the same as `-l'.
546 Recursive on/off - the same as `-r'.
548 relative_only = on/off
549 Follow only relative links - the same as `-L' (*Note Relative
552 remove_listing = on/off
553 If set to on, remove FTP listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it
554 to off is the same as `-nr'.
556 retr_symlinks = on/off
557 When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain
558 files; the same as `--retr-symlinks'.
561 Use (or not) `/robots.txt' file (*Note Robots::). Be sure to know
562 what you are doing before changing the default (which is `on').
564 server_response = on/off
565 Choose whether or not to print the HTTP and FTP server responses -
568 simple_host_check = on/off
569 Same as `-nh' (*Note Host Checking::).
575 Set timeout value - the same as `-T'.
577 timestamping = on/off
578 Turn timestamping on/off. The same as `-N' (*Note Time-Stamping::).
581 Set number of retries per URL - the same as `-t'.
584 Turn proxy support on/off. The same as `-Y'.
587 Turn verbose on/off - the same as `-v'/`-nv'.
590 Wait N seconds between retrievals - the same as `-w'.
593 Wait up to N seconds between retries of failed retrievals only -
594 the same as `--waitretry'. Note that this is turned on by default
595 in the global `wgetrc'.
598 File: wget.info, Node: Sample Wgetrc, Prev: Wgetrc Commands, Up: Startup File
603 This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution.
604 It is divided in two section--one for global usage (suitable for global
605 startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for `$HOME/.wgetrc').
606 Be careful about the things you change.
608 Note that almost all the lines are commented out. For a command to
609 have any effect, you must remove the `#' character at the beginning of
613 ### Sample Wget initialization file .wgetrc
616 ## You can use this file to change the default behaviour of wget or to
617 ## avoid having to type many many command-line options. This file does
618 ## not contain a comprehensive list of commands -- look at the manual
619 ## to find out what you can put into this file.
621 ## Wget initialization file can reside in /usr/local/etc/wgetrc
622 ## (global, for all users) or $HOME/.wgetrc (for a single user).
624 ## To use the settings in this file, you will have to uncomment them,
625 ## as well as change them, in most cases, as the values on the
626 ## commented-out lines are the default values (e.g. "off").
630 ## Global settings (useful for setting up in /usr/local/etc/wgetrc).
631 ## Think well before you change them, since they may reduce wget's
632 ## functionality, and make it behave contrary to the documentation:
635 # You can set retrieve quota for beginners by specifying a value
636 # optionally followed by 'K' (kilobytes) or 'M' (megabytes). The
637 # default quota is unlimited.
640 # You can lower (or raise) the default number of retries when
641 # downloading a file (default is 20).
644 # Lowering the maximum depth of the recursive retrieval is handy to
645 # prevent newbies from going too "deep" when they unwittingly start
646 # the recursive retrieval. The default is 5.
649 # Many sites are behind firewalls that do not allow initiation of
650 # connections from the outside. On these sites you have to use the
651 # `passive' feature of FTP. If you are behind such a firewall, you
652 # can turn this on to make Wget use passive FTP by default.
655 # The "wait" command below makes Wget wait between every connection.
656 # If, instead, you want Wget to wait only between retries of failed
657 # downloads, set waitretry to maximum number of seconds to wait (Wget
658 # will use "linear backoff", waiting 1 second after the first failure
659 # on a file, 2 seconds after the second failure, etc. up to this max).
664 ## Local settings (for a user to set in his $HOME/.wgetrc). It is
665 ## *highly* undesirable to put these settings in the global file, since
666 ## they are potentially dangerous to "normal" users.
668 ## Even when setting up your own ~/.wgetrc, you should know what you
669 ## are doing before doing so.
672 # Set this to on to use timestamping by default:
675 # It is a good idea to make Wget send your email address in a `From:'
676 # header with your request (so that server administrators can contact
677 # you in case of errors). Wget does *not* send `From:' by default.
678 #header = From: Your Name <username@site.domain>
680 # You can set up other headers, like Accept-Language. Accept-Language
681 # is *not* sent by default.
682 #header = Accept-Language: en
684 # You can set the default proxy for Wget to use. It will override the
685 # value in the environment.
686 #http_proxy = http://proxy.yoyodyne.com:18023/
688 # If you do not want to use proxy at all, set this to off.
691 # You can customize the retrieval outlook. Valid options are default,
692 # binary, mega and micro.
695 # Setting this to off makes Wget not download /robots.txt. Be sure to
696 # know *exactly* what /robots.txt is and how it is used before changing
700 # It can be useful to make Wget wait between connections. Set this to
701 # the number of seconds you want Wget to wait.
704 # You can force creating directory structure, even if a single is being
705 # retrieved, by setting this to on.
708 # You can turn on recursive retrieving by default (don't do this if
709 # you are not sure you know what it means) by setting this to on.
712 # To always back up file X as X.orig before converting its links (due
713 # to -k / --convert-links / convert_links = on having been specified),
714 # set this variable to on:
715 #backup_converted = off
717 # To have Wget follow FTP links from HTML files by default, set this
722 File: wget.info, Node: Examples, Next: Various, Prev: Startup File, Up: Top
727 The examples are classified into three sections, because of clarity.
728 The first section is a tutorial for beginners. The second section
729 explains some of the more complex program features. The third section
730 contains advice for mirror administrators, as well as even more complex
731 features (that some would call perverted).
735 * Simple Usage:: Simple, basic usage of the program.
736 * Advanced Usage:: Advanced techniques of usage.
737 * Guru Usage:: Mirroring and the hairy stuff.
740 File: wget.info, Node: Simple Usage, Next: Advanced Usage, Prev: Examples, Up: Examples
745 * Say you want to download a URL. Just type:
747 wget http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
749 The response will be something like:
751 --13:30:45-- http://fly.cc.fer.hr:80/en/
753 Connecting to fly.cc.fer.hr:80... connected!
754 HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
755 Length: 4,694 [text/html]
759 13:30:46 (23.75 KB/s) - `index.html' saved [4694/4694]
761 * But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is
762 lengthy? The connection will probably fail before the whole file
763 is retrieved, more than once. In this case, Wget will try getting
764 the file until it either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the
765 default number of retries (this being 20). It is easy to change
766 the number of tries to 45, to insure that the whole file will
769 wget --tries=45 http://fly.cc.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
771 * Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its
772 progress to log file `log'. It is tiring to type `--tries', so we
775 wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.cc.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &
777 The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in
778 the background. To unlimit the number of retries, use `-t inf'.
780 * The usage of FTP is as simple. Wget will take care of login and
783 $ wget ftp://gnjilux.cc.fer.hr/welcome.msg
784 --10:08:47-- ftp://gnjilux.cc.fer.hr:21/welcome.msg
786 Connecting to gnjilux.cc.fer.hr:21... connected!
787 Logging in as anonymous ... Logged in!
788 ==> TYPE I ... done. ==> CWD not needed.
789 ==> PORT ... done. ==> RETR welcome.msg ... done.
790 Length: 1,340 (unauthoritative)
794 10:08:48 (1.28 MB/s) - `welcome.msg' saved [1340]
796 * If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory
797 listing, parse it and convert it to HTML. Try:
799 wget ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/
803 File: wget.info, Node: Advanced Usage, Next: Guru Usage, Prev: Simple Usage, Up: Examples
808 * You would like to read the list of URLs from a file? Not a problem
813 If you specify `-' as file name, the URLs will be read from
816 * Create a mirror image of GNU WWW site (with the same directory
817 structure the original has) with only one try per document, saving
818 the log of the activities to `gnulog':
820 wget -r -t1 http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/ -o gnulog
822 * Retrieve the first layer of yahoo links:
824 wget -r -l1 http://www.yahoo.com/
826 * Retrieve the index.html of `www.lycos.com', showing the original
829 wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
831 * Save the server headers with the file:
832 wget -s http://www.lycos.com/
835 * Retrieve the first two levels of `wuarchive.wustl.edu', saving them
838 wget -P/tmp -l2 ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
840 * You want to download all the GIFs from an HTTP directory. `wget
841 http://host/dir/*.gif' doesn't work, since HTTP retrieval does not
842 support globbing. In that case, use:
844 wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://host/dir/
846 It is a bit of a kludge, but it works. `-r -l1' means to retrieve
847 recursively (*Note Recursive Retrieval::), with maximum depth of 1.
848 `--no-parent' means that references to the parent directory are
849 ignored (*Note Directory-Based Limits::), and `-A.gif' means to
850 download only the GIF files. `-A "*.gif"' would have worked too.
852 * Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
853 interrupted. Now you do not want to clobber the files already
854 present. It would be:
856 wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
858 * If you want to encode your own username and password to HTTP or
859 FTP, use the appropriate URL syntax (*Note URL Format::).
861 wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@jagor.srce.hr/.emacs
863 * If you do not like the default retrieval visualization (1K dots
864 with 10 dots per cluster and 50 dots per line), you can customize
865 it through dot settings (*Note Wgetrc Commands::). For example,
866 many people like the "binary" style of retrieval, with 8K dots and
869 wget --dot-style=binary ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/README
871 You can experiment with other styles, like:
873 wget --dot-style=mega ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/xemacs-20.4/xemacs-20.4.tar.gz
874 wget --dot-style=micro http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
876 To make these settings permanent, put them in your `.wgetrc', as
877 described before (*Note Sample Wgetrc::).
880 File: wget.info, Node: Guru Usage, Prev: Advanced Usage, Up: Examples
885 * If you wish Wget to keep a mirror of a page (or FTP
886 subdirectories), use `--mirror' (`-m'), which is the shorthand for
887 `-r -N'. You can put Wget in the crontab file asking it to
888 recheck a site each Sunday:
891 0 0 * * 0 wget --mirror ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/ -o /home/me/weeklog
893 * You may wish to do the same with someone's home page. But you do
894 not want to download all those images--you're only interested in
897 wget --mirror -A.html http://www.w3.org/
899 * But what about mirroring the hosts networkologically close to you?
900 It seems so awfully slow because of all that DNS resolving. Just
901 use `-D' (*Note Domain Acceptance::).
903 wget -rN -Dsrce.hr http://www.srce.hr/
905 Now Wget will correctly find out that `regoc.srce.hr' is the same
906 as `www.srce.hr', but will not even take into consideration the
907 link to `www.mit.edu'.
909 * You have a presentation and would like the dumb absolute links to
910 be converted to relative? Use `-k':
914 * You would like the output documents to go to standard output
915 instead of to files? OK, but Wget will automatically shut up
916 (turn on `--quiet') to prevent mixing of Wget output and the
919 wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/
921 You can also combine the two options and make weird pipelines to
922 retrieve the documents from remote hotlists:
924 wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
927 File: wget.info, Node: Various, Next: Appendices, Prev: Examples, Up: Top
932 This chapter contains all the stuff that could not fit anywhere else.
936 * Proxies:: Support for proxy servers
937 * Distribution:: Getting the latest version.
938 * Mailing List:: Wget mailing list for announcements and discussion.
939 * Reporting Bugs:: How and where to report bugs.
940 * Portability:: The systems Wget works on.
941 * Signals:: Signal-handling performed by Wget.
944 File: wget.info, Node: Proxies, Next: Distribution, Prev: Various, Up: Various
949 "Proxies" are special-purpose HTTP servers designed to transfer data
950 from remote servers to local clients. One typical use of proxies is
951 lightening network load for users behind a slow connection. This is
952 achieved by channeling all HTTP and FTP requests through the proxy
953 which caches the transferred data. When a cached resource is requested
954 again, proxy will return the data from cache. Another use for proxies
955 is for companies that separate (for security reasons) their internal
956 networks from the rest of Internet. In order to obtain information
957 from the Web, their users connect and retrieve remote data using an
960 Wget supports proxies for both HTTP and FTP retrievals. The
961 standard way to specify proxy location, which Wget recognizes, is using
962 the following environment variables:
965 This variable should contain the URL of the proxy for HTTP
969 This variable should contain the URL of the proxy for HTTP
970 connections. It is quite common that HTTP_PROXY and FTP_PROXY are
974 This variable should contain a comma-separated list of domain
975 extensions proxy should *not* be used for. For instance, if the
976 value of `no_proxy' is `.mit.edu', proxy will not be used to
977 retrieve documents from MIT.
979 In addition to the environment variables, proxy location and settings
980 may be specified from within Wget itself.
985 This option may be used to turn the proxy support on or off. Proxy
986 support is on by default, provided that the appropriate environment
992 These startup file variables allow you to override the proxy
993 settings specified by the environment.
995 Some proxy servers require authorization to enable you to use them.
996 The authorization consists of "username" and "password", which must be
997 sent by Wget. As with HTTP authorization, several authentication
998 schemes exist. For proxy authorization only the `Basic' authentication
999 scheme is currently implemented.
1001 You may specify your username and password either through the proxy
1002 URL or through the command-line options. Assuming that the company's
1003 proxy is located at `proxy.srce.hr' at port 8001, a proxy URL location
1004 containing authorization data might look like this:
1006 http://hniksic:mypassword@proxy.company.com:8001/
1008 Alternatively, you may use the `proxy-user' and `proxy-password'
1009 options, and the equivalent `.wgetrc' settings `proxy_user' and
1010 `proxy_passwd' to set the proxy username and password.
1013 File: wget.info, Node: Distribution, Next: Mailing List, Prev: Proxies, Up: Various
1018 Like all GNU utilities, the latest version of Wget can be found at
1019 the master GNU archive site prep.ai.mit.edu, and its mirrors. For
1020 example, Wget 1.5.3+dev can be found at
1021 `ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/gnu/wget/wget-1.5.3+dev.tar.gz'
1024 File: wget.info, Node: Mailing List, Next: Reporting Bugs, Prev: Distribution, Up: Various
1029 Wget has its own mailing list at <wget@sunsite.auc.dk>, thanks to
1030 Karsten Thygesen. The mailing list is for discussion of Wget features
1031 and web, reporting Wget bugs (those that you think may be of interest
1032 to the public) and mailing announcements. You are welcome to
1033 subscribe. The more people on the list, the better!
1035 To subscribe, send mail to <wget-subscribe@sunsite.auc.dk>. the
1036 magic word `subscribe' in the subject line. Unsubscribe by mailing to
1037 <wget-unsubscribe@sunsite.auc.dk>.
1039 The mailing list is archived at `http://fly.cc.fer.hr/archive/wget'.
1042 File: wget.info, Node: Reporting Bugs, Next: Portability, Prev: Mailing List, Up: Various
1047 You are welcome to send bug reports about GNU Wget to
1048 <bug-wget@gnu.org>. The bugs that you think are of the interest to the
1049 public (i.e. more people should be informed about them) can be Cc-ed to
1050 the mailing list at <wget@sunsite.auc.dk>.
1052 Before actually submitting a bug report, please try to follow a few
1055 1. Please try to ascertain that the behaviour you see really is a
1056 bug. If Wget crashes, it's a bug. If Wget does not behave as
1057 documented, it's a bug. If things work strange, but you are not
1058 sure about the way they are supposed to work, it might well be a
1061 2. Try to repeat the bug in as simple circumstances as possible.
1062 E.g. if Wget crashes on `wget -rLl0 -t5 -Y0 http://yoyodyne.com -o
1063 /tmp/log', you should try to see if it will crash with a simpler
1066 Also, while I will probably be interested to know the contents of
1067 your `.wgetrc' file, just dumping it into the debug message is
1068 probably a bad idea. Instead, you should first try to see if the
1069 bug repeats with `.wgetrc' moved out of the way. Only if it turns
1070 out that `.wgetrc' settings affect the bug, should you mail me the
1071 relevant parts of the file.
1073 3. Please start Wget with `-d' option and send the log (or the
1074 relevant parts of it). If Wget was compiled without debug support,
1075 recompile it. It is *much* easier to trace bugs with debug support
1078 4. If Wget has crashed, try to run it in a debugger, e.g. `gdb `which
1079 wget` core' and type `where' to get the backtrace.
1081 5. Find where the bug is, fix it and send me the patches. :-)
1084 File: wget.info, Node: Portability, Next: Signals, Prev: Reporting Bugs, Up: Various
1089 Since Wget uses GNU Autoconf for building and configuring, and avoids
1090 using "special" ultra-mega-cool features of any particular Unix, it
1091 should compile (and work) on all common Unix flavors.
1093 Various Wget versions have been compiled and tested under many kinds
1094 of Unix systems, including Solaris, Linux, SunOS, OSF (aka Digital
1095 Unix), Ultrix, *BSD, IRIX, and others; refer to the file `MACHINES' in
1096 the distribution directory for a comprehensive list. If you compile it
1097 on an architecture not listed there, please let me know so I can update
1100 Wget should also compile on the other Unix systems, not listed in
1101 `MACHINES'. If it doesn't, please let me know.
1103 Thanks to kind contributors, this version of Wget compiles and works
1104 on Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows NT platforms. It has been compiled
1105 successfully using MS Visual C++ 4.0, Watcom, and Borland C compilers,
1106 with Winsock as networking software. Naturally, it is crippled of some
1107 features available on Unix, but it should work as a substitute for
1108 people stuck with Windows. Note that the Windows port is *neither
1109 tested nor maintained* by me--all questions and problems should be
1110 reported to Wget mailing list at <wget@sunsite.auc.dk> where the
1111 maintainers will look at them.
1114 File: wget.info, Node: Signals, Prev: Portability, Up: Various
1119 Since the purpose of Wget is background work, it catches the hangup
1120 signal (`SIGHUP') and ignores it. If the output was on standard
1121 output, it will be redirected to a file named `wget-log'. Otherwise,
1122 `SIGHUP' is ignored. This is convenient when you wish to redirect the
1123 output of Wget after having started it.
1125 $ wget http://www.ifi.uio.no/~larsi/gnus.tar.gz &
1126 $ kill -HUP %% # Redirect the output to wget-log
1128 Other than that, Wget will not try to interfere with signals in any
1129 way. `C-c', `kill -TERM' and `kill -KILL' should kill it alike.
1132 File: wget.info, Node: Appendices, Next: Copying, Prev: Various, Up: Top
1137 This chapter contains some references I consider useful, like the
1138 Robots Exclusion Standard specification, as well as a list of
1139 contributors to GNU Wget.
1143 * Robots:: Wget as a WWW robot.
1144 * Security Considerations:: Security with Wget.
1145 * Contributors:: People who helped.
1148 File: wget.info, Node: Robots, Next: Security Considerations, Prev: Appendices, Up: Appendices
1153 Since Wget is able to traverse the web, it counts as one of the Web
1154 "robots". Thus Wget understands "Robots Exclusion Standard"
1155 (RES)--contents of `/robots.txt', used by server administrators to
1156 shield parts of their systems from wanderings of Wget.
1158 Norobots support is turned on only when retrieving recursively, and
1159 *never* for the first page. Thus, you may issue:
1161 wget -r http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
1163 First the index of fly.cc.fer.hr will be downloaded. If Wget finds
1164 anything worth downloading on the same host, only *then* will it load
1165 the robots, and decide whether or not to load the links after all.
1166 `/robots.txt' is loaded only once per host. Wget does not support the
1169 The description of the norobots standard was written, and is
1170 maintained by Martijn Koster <m.koster@webcrawler.com>. With his
1171 permission, I contribute a (slightly modified) TeXified version of the
1176 * Introduction to RES::
1178 * User-Agent Field::
1180 * Norobots Examples::
1183 File: wget.info, Node: Introduction to RES, Next: RES Format, Prev: Robots, Up: Robots
1188 "WWW Robots" (also called "wanderers" or "spiders") are programs
1189 that traverse many pages in the World Wide Web by recursively
1190 retrieving linked pages. For more information see the robots page.
1192 In 1993 and 1994 there have been occasions where robots have visited
1193 WWW servers where they weren't welcome for various reasons. Sometimes
1194 these reasons were robot specific, e.g. certain robots swamped servers
1195 with rapid-fire requests, or retrieved the same files repeatedly. In
1196 other situations robots traversed parts of WWW servers that weren't
1197 suitable, e.g. very deep virtual trees, duplicated information,
1198 temporary information, or cgi-scripts with side-effects (such as
1201 These incidents indicated the need for established mechanisms for
1202 WWW servers to indicate to robots which parts of their server should
1203 not be accessed. This standard addresses this need with an operational
1206 This document represents a consensus on 30 June 1994 on the robots
1207 mailing list (`robots@webcrawler.com'), between the majority of robot
1208 authors and other people with an interest in robots. It has also been
1209 open for discussion on the Technical World Wide Web mailing list
1210 (`www-talk@info.cern.ch'). This document is based on a previous working
1211 draft under the same title.
1213 It is not an official standard backed by a standards body, or owned
1214 by any commercial organization. It is not enforced by anybody, and there
1215 no guarantee that all current and future robots will use it. Consider
1216 it a common facility the majority of robot authors offer the WWW
1217 community to protect WWW server against unwanted accesses by their
1220 The latest version of this document can be found at
1221 `http://info.webcrawler.com/mak/projects/robots/norobots.html'.
1224 File: wget.info, Node: RES Format, Next: User-Agent Field, Prev: Introduction to RES, Up: Robots
1229 The format and semantics of the `/robots.txt' file are as follows:
1231 The file consists of one or more records separated by one or more
1232 blank lines (terminated by `CR', `CR/NL', or `NL'). Each record
1233 contains lines of the form:
1235 <field>:<optionalspace><value><optionalspace>
1237 The field name is case insensitive.
1239 Comments can be included in file using UNIX Bourne shell conventions:
1240 the `#' character is used to indicate that preceding space (if any) and
1241 the remainder of the line up to the line termination is discarded.
1242 Lines containing only a comment are discarded completely, and therefore
1243 do not indicate a record boundary.
1245 The record starts with one or more User-agent lines, followed by one
1246 or more Disallow lines, as detailed below. Unrecognized headers are
1249 The presence of an empty `/robots.txt' file has no explicit
1250 associated semantics, it will be treated as if it was not present, i.e.
1251 all robots will consider themselves welcome.
1254 File: wget.info, Node: User-Agent Field, Next: Disallow Field, Prev: RES Format, Up: Robots
1259 The value of this field is the name of the robot the record is
1260 describing access policy for.
1262 If more than one User-agent field is present the record describes an
1263 identical access policy for more than one robot. At least one field
1264 needs to be present per record.
1266 The robot should be liberal in interpreting this field. A case
1267 insensitive substring match of the name without version information is
1270 If the value is `*', the record describes the default access policy
1271 for any robot that has not matched any of the other records. It is not
1272 allowed to have multiple such records in the `/robots.txt' file.
1275 File: wget.info, Node: Disallow Field, Next: Norobots Examples, Prev: User-Agent Field, Up: Robots
1280 The value of this field specifies a partial URL that is not to be
1281 visited. This can be a full path, or a partial path; any URL that
1282 starts with this value will not be retrieved. For example,
1283 `Disallow: /help' disallows both `/help.html' and `/help/index.html',
1284 whereas `Disallow: /help/' would disallow `/help/index.html' but allow
1287 Any empty value, indicates that all URLs can be retrieved. At least
1288 one Disallow field needs to be present in a record.
1291 File: wget.info, Node: Norobots Examples, Prev: Disallow Field, Up: Robots
1296 The following example `/robots.txt' file specifies that no robots
1297 should visit any URL starting with `/cyberworld/map/' or `/tmp/':
1299 # robots.txt for http://www.site.com/
1302 Disallow: /cyberworld/map/ # This is an infinite virtual URL space
1303 Disallow: /tmp/ # these will soon disappear
1305 This example `/robots.txt' file specifies that no robots should
1306 visit any URL starting with `/cyberworld/map/', except the robot called
1309 # robots.txt for http://www.site.com/
1312 Disallow: /cyberworld/map/ # This is an infinite virtual URL space
1314 # Cybermapper knows where to go.
1315 User-agent: cybermapper
1318 This example indicates that no robots should visit this site further:
1325 File: wget.info, Node: Security Considerations, Next: Contributors, Prev: Robots, Up: Appendices
1327 Security Considerations
1328 =======================
1330 When using Wget, you must be aware that it sends unencrypted
1331 passwords through the network, which may present a security problem.
1332 Here are the main issues, and some solutions.
1334 1. The passwords on the command line are visible using `ps'. If this
1335 is a problem, avoid putting passwords from the command line--e.g.
1336 you can use `.netrc' for this.
1338 2. Using the insecure "basic" authentication scheme, unencrypted
1339 passwords are transmitted through the network routers and gateways.
1341 3. The FTP passwords are also in no way encrypted. There is no good
1342 solution for this at the moment.
1344 4. Although the "normal" output of Wget tries to hide the passwords,
1345 debugging logs show them, in all forms. This problem is avoided by
1346 being careful when you send debug logs (yes, even when you send