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 global
281 wgetrc. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop retrieving
282 after the download sum has become greater than quota. The quota
283 can be specified in bytes (default), kbytes `k' appended) or mbytes
284 (`m' appended). Thus `quota = 5m' will set the quota to 5 mbytes.
285 Note that the user's startup file overrides system settings.
288 Recursion level, the same as `-l'.
291 Recursive on/off, the same as `-r'.
293 relative_only = on/off
294 Follow only relative links, the same as `-L' (*Note Relative
297 remove_listing = on/off
298 If set to on, remove FTP listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it
299 to off is the same as `-nr'.
301 retr_symlinks = on/off
302 When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain
303 files; the same as `--retr-symlinks'.
306 Use (or not) `/robots.txt' file (*Note Robots::). Be sure to know
307 what you are doing before changing the default (which is `on').
309 server_response = on/off
310 Choose whether or not to print the HTTP and FTP server responses,
313 simple_host_check = on/off
314 Same as `-nh' (*Note Host Checking::).
320 Set timeout value, the same as `-T'.
322 timestamping = on/off
323 Turn timestamping on/off. The same as `-N' (*Note Time-Stamping::).
326 Set number of retries per URL, the same as `-t'.
329 Turn proxy support on/off. The same as `-Y'.
332 Turn verbose on/off, the same as `-v'/`-nv'.
335 Wait N seconds between retrievals, the same as `-w'.
338 File: wget.info, Node: Sample Wgetrc, Prev: Wgetrc Commands, Up: Startup File
343 This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution.
344 It is divided in two section--one for global usage (suitable for global
345 startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for `$HOME/.wgetrc').
346 Be careful about the things you change.
348 Note that all the lines are commented out. For any line to have
349 effect, you must remove the `#' prefix at the beginning of line.
352 ### Sample Wget initialization file .wgetrc
355 ## You can use this file to change the default behaviour of wget or to
356 ## avoid having to type many many command-line options. This file does
357 ## not contain a comprehensive list of commands -- look at the manual
358 ## to find out what you can put into this file.
360 ## Wget initialization file can reside in /usr/local/etc/wgetrc
361 ## (global, for all users) or $HOME/.wgetrc (for a single user).
363 ## To use any of the settings in this file, you will have to uncomment
364 ## them (and probably change them).
368 ## Global settings (useful for setting up in /usr/local/etc/wgetrc).
369 ## Think well before you change them, since they may reduce wget's
370 ## functionality, and make it behave contrary to the documentation:
373 # You can set retrieve quota for beginners by specifying a value
374 # optionally followed by 'K' (kilobytes) or 'M' (megabytes). The
375 # default quota is unlimited.
378 # You can lower (or raise) the default number of retries when
379 # downloading a file (default is 20).
382 # Lowering the maximum depth of the recursive retrieval is handy to
383 # prevent newbies from going too "deep" when they unwittingly start
384 # the recursive retrieval. The default is 5.
387 # Many sites are behind firewalls that do not allow initiation of
388 # connections from the outside. On these sites you have to use the
389 # `passive' feature of FTP. If you are behind such a firewall, you
390 # can turn this on to make Wget use passive FTP by default.
395 ## Local settings (for a user to set in his $HOME/.wgetrc). It is
396 ## *highly* undesirable to put these settings in the global file, since
397 ## they are potentially dangerous to "normal" users.
399 ## Even when setting up your own ~/.wgetrc, you should know what you
400 ## are doing before doing so.
403 # Set this to on to use timestamping by default:
406 # It is a good idea to make Wget send your email address in a `From:'
407 # header with your request (so that server administrators can contact
408 # you in case of errors). Wget does *not* send `From:' by default.
409 #header = From: Your Name <username@site.domain>
411 # You can set up other headers, like Accept-Language. Accept-Language
412 # is *not* sent by default.
413 #header = Accept-Language: en
415 # You can set the default proxy for Wget to use. It will override the
416 # value in the environment.
417 #http_proxy = http://proxy.yoyodyne.com:18023/
419 # If you do not want to use proxy at all, set this to off.
422 # You can customize the retrieval outlook. Valid options are default,
423 # binary, mega and micro.
426 # Setting this to off makes Wget not download /robots.txt. Be sure to
427 # know *exactly* what /robots.txt is and how it is used before changing
431 # It can be useful to make Wget wait between connections. Set this to
432 # the number of seconds you want Wget to wait.
435 # You can force creating directory structure, even if a single is being
436 # retrieved, by setting this to on.
439 # You can turn on recursive retrieving by default (don't do this if
440 # you are not sure you know what it means) by setting this to on.
443 # To have Wget follow FTP links from HTML files by default, set this
448 File: wget.info, Node: Examples, Next: Various, Prev: Startup File, Up: Top
453 The examples are classified into three sections, because of clarity.
454 The first section is a tutorial for beginners. The second section
455 explains some of the more complex program features. The third section
456 contains advice for mirror administrators, as well as even more complex
457 features (that some would call perverted).
461 * Simple Usage:: Simple, basic usage of the program.
462 * Advanced Usage:: Advanced techniques of usage.
463 * Guru Usage:: Mirroring and the hairy stuff.
466 File: wget.info, Node: Simple Usage, Next: Advanced Usage, Prev: Examples, Up: Examples
471 * Say you want to download a URL. Just type:
473 wget http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
475 The response will be something like:
477 --13:30:45-- http://fly.cc.fer.hr:80/en/
479 Connecting to fly.cc.fer.hr:80... connected!
480 HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
481 Length: 4,694 [text/html]
485 13:30:46 (23.75 KB/s) - `index.html' saved [4694/4694]
487 * But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is
488 lengthy? The connection will probably fail before the whole file
489 is retrieved, more than once. In this case, Wget will try getting
490 the file until it either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the
491 default number of retries (this being 20). It is easy to change
492 the number of tries to 45, to insure that the whole file will
495 wget --tries=45 http://fly.cc.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
497 * Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its
498 progress to log file `log'. It is tiring to type `--tries', so we
501 wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.cc.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &
503 The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in
504 the background. To unlimit the number of retries, use `-t inf'.
506 * The usage of FTP is as simple. Wget will take care of login and
509 $ wget ftp://gnjilux.cc.fer.hr/welcome.msg
510 --10:08:47-- ftp://gnjilux.cc.fer.hr:21/welcome.msg
512 Connecting to gnjilux.cc.fer.hr:21... connected!
513 Logging in as anonymous ... Logged in!
514 ==> TYPE I ... done. ==> CWD not needed.
515 ==> PORT ... done. ==> RETR welcome.msg ... done.
516 Length: 1,340 (unauthoritative)
520 10:08:48 (1.28 MB/s) - `welcome.msg' saved [1340]
522 * If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory
523 listing, parse it and convert it to HTML. Try:
525 wget ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/
529 File: wget.info, Node: Advanced Usage, Next: Guru Usage, Prev: Simple Usage, Up: Examples
534 * You would like to read the list of URLs from a file? Not a problem
539 If you specify `-' as file name, the URLs will be read from
542 * Create a mirror image of GNU WWW site (with the same directory
543 structure the original has) with only one try per document, saving
544 the log of the activities to `gnulog':
546 wget -r -t1 http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/ -o gnulog
548 * Retrieve the first layer of yahoo links:
550 wget -r -l1 http://www.yahoo.com/
552 * Retrieve the index.html of `www.lycos.com', showing the original
555 wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
557 * Save the server headers with the file:
558 wget -s http://www.lycos.com/
561 * Retrieve the first two levels of `wuarchive.wustl.edu', saving them
564 wget -P/tmp -l2 ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
566 * You want to download all the GIFs from an HTTP directory. `wget
567 http://host/dir/*.gif' doesn't work, since HTTP retrieval does not
568 support globbing. In that case, use:
570 wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://host/dir/
572 It is a bit of a kludge, but it works. `-r -l1' means to retrieve
573 recursively (*Note Recursive Retrieval::), with maximum depth of 1.
574 `--no-parent' means that references to the parent directory are
575 ignored (*Note Directory-Based Limits::), and `-A.gif' means to
576 download only the GIF files. `-A "*.gif"' would have worked too.
578 * Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
579 interrupted. Now you do not want to clobber the files already
580 present. It would be:
582 wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
584 * If you want to encode your own username and password to HTTP or
585 FTP, use the appropriate URL syntax (*Note URL Format::).
587 wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@jagor.srce.hr/.emacs
589 * If you do not like the default retrieval visualization (1K dots
590 with 10 dots per cluster and 50 dots per line), you can customize
591 it through dot settings (*Note Wgetrc Commands::). For example,
592 many people like the "binary" style of retrieval, with 8K dots and
595 wget --dot-style=binary ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/README
597 You can experiment with other styles, like:
599 wget --dot-style=mega ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/xemacs-20.4/xemacs-20.4.tar.gz
600 wget --dot-style=micro http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
602 To make these settings permanent, put them in your `.wgetrc', as
603 described before (*Note Sample Wgetrc::).
606 File: wget.info, Node: Guru Usage, Prev: Advanced Usage, Up: Examples
611 * If you wish Wget to keep a mirror of a page (or FTP
612 subdirectories), use `--mirror' (`-m'), which is the shorthand for
613 `-r -N'. You can put Wget in the crontab file asking it to
614 recheck a site each Sunday:
617 0 0 * * 0 wget --mirror ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/ -o /home/me/weeklog
619 * You may wish to do the same with someone's home page. But you do
620 not want to download all those images--you're only interested in
623 wget --mirror -A.html http://www.w3.org/
625 * But what about mirroring the hosts networkologically close to you?
626 It seems so awfully slow because of all that DNS resolving. Just
627 use `-D' (*Note Domain Acceptance::).
629 wget -rN -Dsrce.hr http://www.srce.hr/
631 Now Wget will correctly find out that `regoc.srce.hr' is the same
632 as `www.srce.hr', but will not even take into consideration the
633 link to `www.mit.edu'.
635 * You have a presentation and would like the dumb absolute links to
636 be converted to relative? Use `-k':
640 * You would like the output documents to go to standard output
641 instead of to files? OK, but Wget will automatically shut up
642 (turn on `--quiet') to prevent mixing of Wget output and the
645 wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/
647 You can also combine the two options and make weird pipelines to
648 retrieve the documents from remote hotlists:
650 wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
653 File: wget.info, Node: Various, Next: Appendices, Prev: Examples, Up: Top
658 This chapter contains all the stuff that could not fit anywhere else.
662 * Proxies:: Support for proxy servers
663 * Distribution:: Getting the latest version.
664 * Mailing List:: Wget mailing list for announcements and discussion.
665 * Reporting Bugs:: How and where to report bugs.
666 * Portability:: The systems Wget works on.
667 * Signals:: Signal-handling performed by Wget.
670 File: wget.info, Node: Proxies, Next: Distribution, Prev: Various, Up: Various
675 "Proxies" are special-purpose HTTP servers designed to transfer data
676 from remote servers to local clients. One typical use of proxies is
677 lightening network load for users behind a slow connection. This is
678 achieved by channeling all HTTP and FTP requests through the proxy
679 which caches the transferred data. When a cached resource is requested
680 again, proxy will return the data from cache. Another use for proxies
681 is for companies that separate (for security reasons) their internal
682 networks from the rest of Internet. In order to obtain information
683 from the Web, their users connect and retrieve remote data using an
686 Wget supports proxies for both HTTP and FTP retrievals. The
687 standard way to specify proxy location, which Wget recognizes, is using
688 the following environment variables:
691 This variable should contain the URL of the proxy for HTTP
695 This variable should contain the URL of the proxy for HTTP
696 connections. It is quite common that HTTP_PROXY and FTP_PROXY are
700 This variable should contain a comma-separated list of domain
701 extensions proxy should *not* be used for. For instance, if the
702 value of `no_proxy' is `.mit.edu', proxy will not be used to
703 retrieve documents from MIT.
705 In addition to the environment variables, proxy location and settings
706 may be specified from within Wget itself.
711 This option may be used to turn the proxy support on or off. Proxy
712 support is on by default, provided that the appropriate environment
718 These startup file variables allow you to override the proxy
719 settings specified by the environment.
721 Some proxy servers require authorization to enable you to use them.
722 The authorization consists of "username" and "password", which must be
723 sent by Wget. As with HTTP authorization, several authentication
724 schemes exist. For proxy authorization only the `Basic' authentication
725 scheme is currently implemented.
727 You may specify your username and password either through the proxy
728 URL or through the command-line options. Assuming that the company's
729 proxy is located at `proxy.srce.hr' at port 8001, a proxy URL location
730 containing authorization data might look like this:
732 http://hniksic:mypassword@proxy.company.com:8001/
734 Alternatively, you may use the `proxy-user' and `proxy-password'
735 options, and the equivalent `.wgetrc' settings `proxy_user' and
736 `proxy_passwd' to set the proxy username and password.
739 File: wget.info, Node: Distribution, Next: Mailing List, Prev: Proxies, Up: Various
744 Like all GNU utilities, the latest version of Wget can be found at
745 the master GNU archive site prep.ai.mit.edu, and its mirrors. For
746 example, Wget 1.5.3+dev can be found at
747 `ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/gnu/wget/wget-1.5.3+dev.tar.gz'
750 File: wget.info, Node: Mailing List, Next: Reporting Bugs, Prev: Distribution, Up: Various
755 Wget has its own mailing list at <wget@sunsite.auc.dk>, thanks to
756 Karsten Thygesen. The mailing list is for discussion of Wget features
757 and web, reporting Wget bugs (those that you think may be of interest
758 to the public) and mailing announcements. You are welcome to
759 subscribe. The more people on the list, the better!
761 To subscribe, send mail to <wget-subscribe@sunsite.auc.dk>. the
762 magic word `subscribe' in the subject line. Unsubscribe by mailing to
763 <wget-unsubscribe@sunsite.auc.dk>.
765 The mailing list is archived at `http://fly.cc.fer.hr/archive/wget'.
768 File: wget.info, Node: Reporting Bugs, Next: Portability, Prev: Mailing List, Up: Various
773 You are welcome to send bug reports about GNU Wget to
774 <bug-wget@gnu.org>. The bugs that you think are of the interest to the
775 public (i.e. more people should be informed about them) can be Cc-ed to
776 the mailing list at <wget@sunsite.auc.dk>.
778 Before actually submitting a bug report, please try to follow a few
781 1. Please try to ascertain that the behaviour you see really is a
782 bug. If Wget crashes, it's a bug. If Wget does not behave as
783 documented, it's a bug. If things work strange, but you are not
784 sure about the way they are supposed to work, it might well be a
787 2. Try to repeat the bug in as simple circumstances as possible.
788 E.g. if Wget crashes on `wget -rLl0 -t5 -Y0 http://yoyodyne.com -o
789 /tmp/log', you should try to see if it will crash with a simpler
792 Also, while I will probably be interested to know the contents of
793 your `.wgetrc' file, just dumping it into the debug message is
794 probably a bad idea. Instead, you should first try to see if the
795 bug repeats with `.wgetrc' moved out of the way. Only if it turns
796 out that `.wgetrc' settings affect the bug, should you mail me the
797 relevant parts of the file.
799 3. Please start Wget with `-d' option and send the log (or the
800 relevant parts of it). If Wget was compiled without debug support,
801 recompile it. It is *much* easier to trace bugs with debug support
804 4. If Wget has crashed, try to run it in a debugger, e.g. `gdb `which
805 wget` core' and type `where' to get the backtrace.
807 5. Find where the bug is, fix it and send me the patches. :-)
810 File: wget.info, Node: Portability, Next: Signals, Prev: Reporting Bugs, Up: Various
815 Since Wget uses GNU Autoconf for building and configuring, and avoids
816 using "special" ultra-mega-cool features of any particular Unix, it
817 should compile (and work) on all common Unix flavors.
819 Various Wget versions have been compiled and tested under many kinds
820 of Unix systems, including Solaris, Linux, SunOS, OSF (aka Digital
821 Unix), Ultrix, *BSD, IRIX, and others; refer to the file `MACHINES' in
822 the distribution directory for a comprehensive list. If you compile it
823 on an architecture not listed there, please let me know so I can update
826 Wget should also compile on the other Unix systems, not listed in
827 `MACHINES'. If it doesn't, please let me know.
829 Thanks to kind contributors, this version of Wget compiles and works
830 on Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows NT platforms. It has been compiled
831 successfully using MS Visual C++ 4.0, Watcom, and Borland C compilers,
832 with Winsock as networking software. Naturally, it is crippled of some
833 features available on Unix, but it should work as a substitute for
834 people stuck with Windows. Note that the Windows port is *neither
835 tested nor maintained* by me--all questions and problems should be
836 reported to Wget mailing list at <wget@sunsite.auc.dk> where the
837 maintainers will look at them.
840 File: wget.info, Node: Signals, Prev: Portability, Up: Various
845 Since the purpose of Wget is background work, it catches the hangup
846 signal (`SIGHUP') and ignores it. If the output was on standard
847 output, it will be redirected to a file named `wget-log'. Otherwise,
848 `SIGHUP' is ignored. This is convenient when you wish to redirect the
849 output of Wget after having started it.
851 $ wget http://www.ifi.uio.no/~larsi/gnus.tar.gz &
852 $ kill -HUP %% # Redirect the output to wget-log
854 Other than that, Wget will not try to interfere with signals in any
855 way. `C-c', `kill -TERM' and `kill -KILL' should kill it alike.
858 File: wget.info, Node: Appendices, Next: Copying, Prev: Various, Up: Top
863 This chapter contains some references I consider useful, like the
864 Robots Exclusion Standard specification, as well as a list of
865 contributors to GNU Wget.
869 * Robots:: Wget as a WWW robot.
870 * Security Considerations:: Security with Wget.
871 * Contributors:: People who helped.
874 File: wget.info, Node: Robots, Next: Security Considerations, Prev: Appendices, Up: Appendices
879 Since Wget is able to traverse the web, it counts as one of the Web
880 "robots". Thus Wget understands "Robots Exclusion Standard"
881 (RES)--contents of `/robots.txt', used by server administrators to
882 shield parts of their systems from wanderings of Wget.
884 Norobots support is turned on only when retrieving recursively, and
885 *never* for the first page. Thus, you may issue:
887 wget -r http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
889 First the index of fly.cc.fer.hr will be downloaded. If Wget finds
890 anything worth downloading on the same host, only *then* will it load
891 the robots, and decide whether or not to load the links after all.
892 `/robots.txt' is loaded only once per host. Wget does not support the
895 The description of the norobots standard was written, and is
896 maintained by Martijn Koster <m.koster@webcrawler.com>. With his
897 permission, I contribute a (slightly modified) TeXified version of the
902 * Introduction to RES::
906 * Norobots Examples::
909 File: wget.info, Node: Introduction to RES, Next: RES Format, Prev: Robots, Up: Robots
914 "WWW Robots" (also called "wanderers" or "spiders") are programs
915 that traverse many pages in the World Wide Web by recursively
916 retrieving linked pages. For more information see the robots page.
918 In 1993 and 1994 there have been occasions where robots have visited
919 WWW servers where they weren't welcome for various reasons. Sometimes
920 these reasons were robot specific, e.g. certain robots swamped servers
921 with rapid-fire requests, or retrieved the same files repeatedly. In
922 other situations robots traversed parts of WWW servers that weren't
923 suitable, e.g. very deep virtual trees, duplicated information,
924 temporary information, or cgi-scripts with side-effects (such as
927 These incidents indicated the need for established mechanisms for
928 WWW servers to indicate to robots which parts of their server should
929 not be accessed. This standard addresses this need with an operational
932 This document represents a consensus on 30 June 1994 on the robots
933 mailing list (`robots@webcrawler.com'), between the majority of robot
934 authors and other people with an interest in robots. It has also been
935 open for discussion on the Technical World Wide Web mailing list
936 (`www-talk@info.cern.ch'). This document is based on a previous working
937 draft under the same title.
939 It is not an official standard backed by a standards body, or owned
940 by any commercial organization. It is not enforced by anybody, and there
941 no guarantee that all current and future robots will use it. Consider
942 it a common facility the majority of robot authors offer the WWW
943 community to protect WWW server against unwanted accesses by their
946 The latest version of this document can be found at
947 `http://info.webcrawler.com/mak/projects/robots/norobots.html'.
950 File: wget.info, Node: RES Format, Next: User-Agent Field, Prev: Introduction to RES, Up: Robots
955 The format and semantics of the `/robots.txt' file are as follows:
957 The file consists of one or more records separated by one or more
958 blank lines (terminated by `CR', `CR/NL', or `NL'). Each record
959 contains lines of the form:
961 <field>:<optionalspace><value><optionalspace>
963 The field name is case insensitive.
965 Comments can be included in file using UNIX Bourne shell conventions:
966 the `#' character is used to indicate that preceding space (if any) and
967 the remainder of the line up to the line termination is discarded.
968 Lines containing only a comment are discarded completely, and therefore
969 do not indicate a record boundary.
971 The record starts with one or more User-agent lines, followed by one
972 or more Disallow lines, as detailed below. Unrecognized headers are
975 The presence of an empty `/robots.txt' file has no explicit
976 associated semantics, it will be treated as if it was not present, i.e.
977 all robots will consider themselves welcome.
980 File: wget.info, Node: User-Agent Field, Next: Disallow Field, Prev: RES Format, Up: Robots
985 The value of this field is the name of the robot the record is
986 describing access policy for.
988 If more than one User-agent field is present the record describes an
989 identical access policy for more than one robot. At least one field
990 needs to be present per record.
992 The robot should be liberal in interpreting this field. A case
993 insensitive substring match of the name without version information is
996 If the value is `*', the record describes the default access policy
997 for any robot that has not matched any of the other records. It is not
998 allowed to have multiple such records in the `/robots.txt' file.
1001 File: wget.info, Node: Disallow Field, Next: Norobots Examples, Prev: User-Agent Field, Up: Robots
1006 The value of this field specifies a partial URL that is not to be
1007 visited. This can be a full path, or a partial path; any URL that
1008 starts with this value will not be retrieved. For example,
1009 `Disallow: /help' disallows both `/help.html' and `/help/index.html',
1010 whereas `Disallow: /help/' would disallow `/help/index.html' but allow
1013 Any empty value, indicates that all URLs can be retrieved. At least
1014 one Disallow field needs to be present in a record.
1017 File: wget.info, Node: Norobots Examples, Prev: Disallow Field, Up: Robots
1022 The following example `/robots.txt' file specifies that no robots
1023 should visit any URL starting with `/cyberworld/map/' or `/tmp/':
1025 # robots.txt for http://www.site.com/
1028 Disallow: /cyberworld/map/ # This is an infinite virtual URL space
1029 Disallow: /tmp/ # these will soon disappear
1031 This example `/robots.txt' file specifies that no robots should
1032 visit any URL starting with `/cyberworld/map/', except the robot called
1035 # robots.txt for http://www.site.com/
1038 Disallow: /cyberworld/map/ # This is an infinite virtual URL space
1040 # Cybermapper knows where to go.
1041 User-agent: cybermapper
1044 This example indicates that no robots should visit this site further:
1051 File: wget.info, Node: Security Considerations, Next: Contributors, Prev: Robots, Up: Appendices
1053 Security Considerations
1054 =======================
1056 When using Wget, you must be aware that it sends unencrypted
1057 passwords through the network, which may present a security problem.
1058 Here are the main issues, and some solutions.
1060 1. The passwords on the command line are visible using `ps'. If this
1061 is a problem, avoid putting passwords from the command line--e.g.
1062 you can use `.netrc' for this.
1064 2. Using the insecure "basic" authentication scheme, unencrypted
1065 passwords are transmitted through the network routers and gateways.
1067 3. The FTP passwords are also in no way encrypted. There is no good
1068 solution for this at the moment.
1070 4. Although the "normal" output of Wget tries to hide the passwords,
1071 debugging logs show them, in all forms. This problem is avoided by
1072 being careful when you send debug logs (yes, even when you send
1076 File: wget.info, Node: Contributors, Prev: Security Considerations, Up: Appendices
1081 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@iskon.hr>. However,
1082 its development could never have gone as far as it has, were it not for
1083 the help of many people, either with bug reports, feature proposals,
1084 patches, or letters saying "Thanks!".
1086 Special thanks goes to the following people (no particular order):
1088 * Karsten Thygesen--donated the mailing list and the initial FTP
1091 * Shawn McHorse--bug reports and patches.
1093 * Kaveh R. Ghazi--on-the-fly `ansi2knr'-ization.
1095 * Gordon Matzigkeit--`.netrc' support.
1097 * Zlatko Calusic, Tomislav Vujec and Drazen Kacar--feature
1098 suggestions and "philosophical" discussions.
1100 * Darko Budor--initial port to Windows.
1102 * Antonio Rosella--help and suggestions, plus the Italian
1105 * Tomislav Petrovic, Mario Mikocevic--many bug reports and
1108 * Francois Pinard--many thorough bug reports and discussions.
1110 * Karl Eichwalder--lots of help with internationalization and other
1113 * Junio Hamano--donated support for Opie and HTTP `Digest'
1116 * Brian Gough--a generous donation.
1118 The following people have provided patches, bug/build reports, useful
1119 suggestions, beta testing services, fan mail and all the other things
1120 that make maintenance so much fun:
1122 Tim Adam, Martin Baehr, Dieter Baron, Roger Beeman and the Gurus at
1123 Cisco, Dan Berger, Mark Boyns, John Burden, Wanderlei Cavassin, Gilles
1124 Cedoc, Tim Charron, Noel Cragg, Kristijan Conkas, Andrew Deryabin,
1125 Damir Dzeko, Andrew Davison, Ulrich Drepper, Marc Duponcheel,
1126 Aleksandar Erkalovic, Andy Eskilsson, Masashi Fujita, Howard Gayle,
1127 Marcel Gerrits, Hans Grobler, Mathieu Guillaume, Dan Harkless, Heiko
1128 Herold, Karl Heuer, HIROSE Masaaki, Gregor Hoffleit, Erik Magnus
1129 Hulthen, Richard Huveneers, Simon Josefsson, Mario Juric, Goran
1130 Kezunovic, Robert Kleine, Fila Kolodny, Alexander Kourakos, Martin
1131 Kraemer, Simos KSenitellis, Hrvoje Lacko, Daniel S. Lewart, Dave Love,
1132 Jordan Mendelson, Lin Zhe Min, Charlie Negyesi, Andrew Pollock, Steve
1133 Pothier, Jan Prikryl, Marin Purgar, Keith Refson, Tobias Ringstrom,
1134 Juan Jose Rodrigues, Edward J. Sabol, Heinz Salzmann, Robert Schmidt,
1135 Toomas Soome, Tage Stabell-Kulo, Sven Sternberger, Markus Strasser,
1136 Szakacsits Szabolcs, Mike Thomas, Russell Vincent, Charles G Waldman,
1137 Douglas E. Wegscheid, Jasmin Zainul, Bojan Zdrnja, Kristijan Zimmer.
1139 Apologies to all who I accidentally left out, and many thanks to all
1140 the subscribers of the Wget mailing list.