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. ADDRESS values can be
345 hostnames or dotted-quad IP addresses. N can be any positive integer,
346 or `inf' for infinity, where appropriate. STRING values can be any
349 Most of these commands have commandline equivalents (*Note
350 Invoking::), though some of the more obscure or rarely used ones do not.
352 accept/reject = STRING
353 Same as `-A'/`-R' (*Note Types of Files::).
356 Enable/disable host-prefixed file names. `-nH' disables it.
359 Enable/disable continuation of the retrieval - the same as `-c'
363 Enable/disable going to background - the same as `-b' (which
366 backup_converted = on/off
367 Enable/disable saving pre-converted files with the suffix `.orig'
368 - the same as `-K' (which enables it).
371 Consider relative URLs in URL input files forced to be interpreted
372 as HTML as being relative to STRING - the same as `-B'.
374 bind_address = ADDRESS
375 Bind to ADDRESS, like the `--bind-address' option.
378 When set to off, disallow server-caching. See the `-C' option.
380 convert links = on/off
381 Convert non-relative links locally. The same as `-k'.
384 Ignore N remote directory components.
387 Debug mode, same as `-d'.
389 delete_after = on/off
390 Delete after download - the same as `--delete-after'.
393 Top of directory tree - the same as `-P'.
396 Turning dirstruct on or off - the same as `-x' or `-nd',
400 Same as `-D' (*Note Domain Acceptance::).
403 Specify the number of bytes "contained" in a dot, as seen
404 throughout the retrieval (1024 by default). You can postfix the
405 value with `k' or `m', representing kilobytes and megabytes,
406 respectively. With dot settings you can tailor the dot retrieval
407 to suit your needs, or you can use the predefined "styles" (*Note
411 Specify the number of dots that will be printed in each line
412 throughout the retrieval (50 by default).
415 Specify the number of dots in a single cluster (10 by default).
418 Specify the dot retrieval "style", as with `--dot-style'.
420 exclude_directories = STRING
421 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude
422 from download - the same as `-X' (*Note Directory-Based Limits::).
424 exclude_domains = STRING
425 Same as `--exclude-domains' (*Note Domain Acceptance::).
428 Follow FTP links from HTML documents - the same as `-f'.
431 Only follow certain HTML tags when doing a recursive retrieval,
432 just like `--follow-tags'.
435 If set to on, force the input filename to be regarded as an HTML
436 document - the same as `-F'.
439 Use STRING as FTP proxy, instead of the one specified in
443 Turn globbing on/off - the same as `-g'.
446 Define an additional header, like `--header'.
448 html_extension = on/off
449 Add a `.html' extension to `text/html' files without it, like `-E'.
455 Use STRING as HTTP proxy, instead of the one specified in
459 Set HTTP user to STRING.
461 ignore_length = on/off
462 When set to on, ignore `Content-Length' header; the same as
466 Ignore certain HTML tags when doing a recursive retrieval, just
467 like `-G' / `--ignore-tags'.
469 include_directories = STRING
470 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow
471 when downloading - the same as `-I'.
474 Read the URLs from STRING, like `-i'.
477 Consider data longer than specified in content-length header as
478 invalid (and retry getting it). The default behaviour is to save
479 as much data as there is, provided there is more than or equal to
480 the value in `Content-Length'.
483 Set logfile - the same as `-o'.
486 Your user name on the remote machine, for FTP. Defaults to
490 Turn mirroring on/off. The same as `-m'.
493 Turn reading netrc on or off.
499 Disallow retrieving outside the directory hierarchy, like
500 `--no-parent' (*Note Directory-Based Limits::).
503 Use STRING as the comma-separated list of domains to avoid in
504 proxy loading, instead of the one specified in environment.
506 output_document = STRING
507 Set the output filename - the same as `-O'.
509 page_requisites = on/off
510 Download all ancillary documents necessary for a single HTML page
511 to display properly - the same as `-p'.
513 passive_ftp = on/off/always/never
514 Set passive FTP - the same as `--passive-ftp'. Some scripts and
515 `.pm' (Perl module) files download files using `wget
516 --passive-ftp'. If your firewall does not allow this, you can set
517 `passive_ftp = never' to override the commandline.
520 Set your FTP password to PASSWORD. Without this setting, the
521 password defaults to `username@hostname.domainname'.
524 Set proxy authentication user name to STRING, like `--proxy-user'.
526 proxy_passwd = STRING
527 Set proxy authentication password to STRING, like `--proxy-passwd'.
530 Set HTTP `Referer:' header just like `--referer'. (Note it was
531 the folks who wrote the HTTP spec who got the spelling of
535 Quiet mode - the same as `-q'.
538 Specify the download quota, which is useful to put in the global
539 `wgetrc'. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop
540 retrieving after the download sum has become greater than quota.
541 The quota can be specified in bytes (default), kbytes `k'
542 appended) or mbytes (`m' appended). Thus `quota = 5m' will set
543 the quota to 5 mbytes. Note that the user's startup file overrides
547 Recursion level - the same as `-l'.
550 Recursive on/off - the same as `-r'.
552 relative_only = on/off
553 Follow only relative links - the same as `-L' (*Note Relative
556 remove_listing = on/off
557 If set to on, remove FTP listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it
558 to off is the same as `-nr'.
560 retr_symlinks = on/off
561 When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain
562 files; the same as `--retr-symlinks'.
565 Use (or not) `/robots.txt' file (*Note Robots::). Be sure to know
566 what you are doing before changing the default (which is `on').
568 server_response = on/off
569 Choose whether or not to print the HTTP and FTP server responses -
572 simple_host_check = on/off
573 Same as `-nh' (*Note Host Checking::).
579 Set timeout value - the same as `-T'.
581 timestamping = on/off
582 Turn timestamping on/off. The same as `-N' (*Note Time-Stamping::).
585 Set number of retries per URL - the same as `-t'.
588 Turn proxy support on/off. The same as `-Y'.
591 Turn verbose on/off - the same as `-v'/`-nv'.
594 Wait N seconds between retrievals - the same as `-w'.
597 Wait up to N seconds between retries of failed retrievals only -
598 the same as `--waitretry'. Note that this is turned on by default
599 in the global `wgetrc'.
602 File: wget.info, Node: Sample Wgetrc, Prev: Wgetrc Commands, Up: Startup File
607 This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution.
608 It is divided in two section--one for global usage (suitable for global
609 startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for `$HOME/.wgetrc').
610 Be careful about the things you change.
612 Note that almost all the lines are commented out. For a command to
613 have any effect, you must remove the `#' character at the beginning of
617 ### Sample Wget initialization file .wgetrc
620 ## You can use this file to change the default behaviour of wget or to
621 ## avoid having to type many many command-line options. This file does
622 ## not contain a comprehensive list of commands -- look at the manual
623 ## to find out what you can put into this file.
625 ## Wget initialization file can reside in /usr/local/etc/wgetrc
626 ## (global, for all users) or $HOME/.wgetrc (for a single user).
628 ## To use the settings in this file, you will have to uncomment them,
629 ## as well as change them, in most cases, as the values on the
630 ## commented-out lines are the default values (e.g. "off").
634 ## Global settings (useful for setting up in /usr/local/etc/wgetrc).
635 ## Think well before you change them, since they may reduce wget's
636 ## functionality, and make it behave contrary to the documentation:
639 # You can set retrieve quota for beginners by specifying a value
640 # optionally followed by 'K' (kilobytes) or 'M' (megabytes). The
641 # default quota is unlimited.
644 # You can lower (or raise) the default number of retries when
645 # downloading a file (default is 20).
648 # Lowering the maximum depth of the recursive retrieval is handy to
649 # prevent newbies from going too "deep" when they unwittingly start
650 # the recursive retrieval. The default is 5.
653 # Many sites are behind firewalls that do not allow initiation of
654 # connections from the outside. On these sites you have to use the
655 # `passive' feature of FTP. If you are behind such a firewall, you
656 # can turn this on to make Wget use passive FTP by default.
659 # The "wait" command below makes Wget wait between every connection.
660 # If, instead, you want Wget to wait only between retries of failed
661 # downloads, set waitretry to maximum number of seconds to wait (Wget
662 # will use "linear backoff", waiting 1 second after the first failure
663 # on a file, 2 seconds after the second failure, etc. up to this max).
668 ## Local settings (for a user to set in his $HOME/.wgetrc). It is
669 ## *highly* undesirable to put these settings in the global file, since
670 ## they are potentially dangerous to "normal" users.
672 ## Even when setting up your own ~/.wgetrc, you should know what you
673 ## are doing before doing so.
676 # Set this to on to use timestamping by default:
679 # It is a good idea to make Wget send your email address in a `From:'
680 # header with your request (so that server administrators can contact
681 # you in case of errors). Wget does *not* send `From:' by default.
682 #header = From: Your Name <username@site.domain>
684 # You can set up other headers, like Accept-Language. Accept-Language
685 # is *not* sent by default.
686 #header = Accept-Language: en
688 # You can set the default proxy for Wget to use. It will override the
689 # value in the environment.
690 #http_proxy = http://proxy.yoyodyne.com:18023/
692 # If you do not want to use proxy at all, set this to off.
695 # You can customize the retrieval outlook. Valid options are default,
696 # binary, mega and micro.
699 # Setting this to off makes Wget not download /robots.txt. Be sure to
700 # know *exactly* what /robots.txt is and how it is used before changing
704 # It can be useful to make Wget wait between connections. Set this to
705 # the number of seconds you want Wget to wait.
708 # You can force creating directory structure, even if a single is being
709 # retrieved, by setting this to on.
712 # You can turn on recursive retrieving by default (don't do this if
713 # you are not sure you know what it means) by setting this to on.
716 # To always back up file X as X.orig before converting its links (due
717 # to -k / --convert-links / convert_links = on having been specified),
718 # set this variable to on:
719 #backup_converted = off
721 # To have Wget follow FTP links from HTML files by default, set this
726 File: wget.info, Node: Examples, Next: Various, Prev: Startup File, Up: Top
731 The examples are classified into three sections, because of clarity.
732 The first section is a tutorial for beginners. The second section
733 explains some of the more complex program features. The third section
734 contains advice for mirror administrators, as well as even more complex
735 features (that some would call perverted).
739 * Simple Usage:: Simple, basic usage of the program.
740 * Advanced Usage:: Advanced techniques of usage.
741 * Guru Usage:: Mirroring and the hairy stuff.
744 File: wget.info, Node: Simple Usage, Next: Advanced Usage, Prev: Examples, Up: Examples
749 * Say you want to download a URL. Just type:
751 wget http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
753 The response will be something like:
755 --13:30:45-- http://fly.cc.fer.hr:80/en/
757 Connecting to fly.cc.fer.hr:80... connected!
758 HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
759 Length: 4,694 [text/html]
763 13:30:46 (23.75 KB/s) - `index.html' saved [4694/4694]
765 * But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is
766 lengthy? The connection will probably fail before the whole file
767 is retrieved, more than once. In this case, Wget will try getting
768 the file until it either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the
769 default number of retries (this being 20). It is easy to change
770 the number of tries to 45, to insure that the whole file will
773 wget --tries=45 http://fly.cc.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
775 * Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its
776 progress to log file `log'. It is tiring to type `--tries', so we
779 wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.cc.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &
781 The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in
782 the background. To unlimit the number of retries, use `-t inf'.
784 * The usage of FTP is as simple. Wget will take care of login and
787 $ wget ftp://gnjilux.cc.fer.hr/welcome.msg
788 --10:08:47-- ftp://gnjilux.cc.fer.hr:21/welcome.msg
790 Connecting to gnjilux.cc.fer.hr:21... connected!
791 Logging in as anonymous ... Logged in!
792 ==> TYPE I ... done. ==> CWD not needed.
793 ==> PORT ... done. ==> RETR welcome.msg ... done.
794 Length: 1,340 (unauthoritative)
798 10:08:48 (1.28 MB/s) - `welcome.msg' saved [1340]
800 * If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory
801 listing, parse it and convert it to HTML. Try:
803 wget ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/
807 File: wget.info, Node: Advanced Usage, Next: Guru Usage, Prev: Simple Usage, Up: Examples
812 * You would like to read the list of URLs from a file? Not a problem
817 If you specify `-' as file name, the URLs will be read from
820 * Create a mirror image of GNU WWW site (with the same directory
821 structure the original has) with only one try per document, saving
822 the log of the activities to `gnulog':
824 wget -r -t1 http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/ -o gnulog
826 * Retrieve the first layer of yahoo links:
828 wget -r -l1 http://www.yahoo.com/
830 * Retrieve the index.html of `www.lycos.com', showing the original
833 wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
835 * Save the server headers with the file:
836 wget -s http://www.lycos.com/
839 * Retrieve the first two levels of `wuarchive.wustl.edu', saving them
842 wget -P/tmp -l2 ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
844 * You want to download all the GIFs from an HTTP directory. `wget
845 http://host/dir/*.gif' doesn't work, since HTTP retrieval does not
846 support globbing. In that case, use:
848 wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://host/dir/
850 It is a bit of a kludge, but it works. `-r -l1' means to retrieve
851 recursively (*Note Recursive Retrieval::), with maximum depth of 1.
852 `--no-parent' means that references to the parent directory are
853 ignored (*Note Directory-Based Limits::), and `-A.gif' means to
854 download only the GIF files. `-A "*.gif"' would have worked too.
856 * Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
857 interrupted. Now you do not want to clobber the files already
858 present. It would be:
860 wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
862 * If you want to encode your own username and password to HTTP or
863 FTP, use the appropriate URL syntax (*Note URL Format::).
865 wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@jagor.srce.hr/.emacs
867 * If you do not like the default retrieval visualization (1K dots
868 with 10 dots per cluster and 50 dots per line), you can customize
869 it through dot settings (*Note Wgetrc Commands::). For example,
870 many people like the "binary" style of retrieval, with 8K dots and
873 wget --dot-style=binary ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/README
875 You can experiment with other styles, like:
877 wget --dot-style=mega ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/xemacs-20.4/xemacs-20.4.tar.gz
878 wget --dot-style=micro http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
880 To make these settings permanent, put them in your `.wgetrc', as
881 described before (*Note Sample Wgetrc::).
884 File: wget.info, Node: Guru Usage, Prev: Advanced Usage, Up: Examples
889 * If you wish Wget to keep a mirror of a page (or FTP
890 subdirectories), use `--mirror' (`-m'), which is the shorthand for
891 `-r -N'. You can put Wget in the crontab file asking it to
892 recheck a site each Sunday:
895 0 0 * * 0 wget --mirror ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/ -o /home/me/weeklog
897 * You may wish to do the same with someone's home page. But you do
898 not want to download all those images--you're only interested in
901 wget --mirror -A.html http://www.w3.org/
903 * But what about mirroring the hosts networkologically close to you?
904 It seems so awfully slow because of all that DNS resolving. Just
905 use `-D' (*Note Domain Acceptance::).
907 wget -rN -Dsrce.hr http://www.srce.hr/
909 Now Wget will correctly find out that `regoc.srce.hr' is the same
910 as `www.srce.hr', but will not even take into consideration the
911 link to `www.mit.edu'.
913 * You have a presentation and would like the dumb absolute links to
914 be converted to relative? Use `-k':
918 * You would like the output documents to go to standard output
919 instead of to files? OK, but Wget will automatically shut up
920 (turn on `--quiet') to prevent mixing of Wget output and the
923 wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/
925 You can also combine the two options and make weird pipelines to
926 retrieve the documents from remote hotlists:
928 wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
931 File: wget.info, Node: Various, Next: Appendices, Prev: Examples, Up: Top
936 This chapter contains all the stuff that could not fit anywhere else.
940 * Proxies:: Support for proxy servers
941 * Distribution:: Getting the latest version.
942 * Mailing List:: Wget mailing list for announcements and discussion.
943 * Reporting Bugs:: How and where to report bugs.
944 * Portability:: The systems Wget works on.
945 * Signals:: Signal-handling performed by Wget.
948 File: wget.info, Node: Proxies, Next: Distribution, Prev: Various, Up: Various
953 "Proxies" are special-purpose HTTP servers designed to transfer data
954 from remote servers to local clients. One typical use of proxies is
955 lightening network load for users behind a slow connection. This is
956 achieved by channeling all HTTP and FTP requests through the proxy
957 which caches the transferred data. When a cached resource is requested
958 again, proxy will return the data from cache. Another use for proxies
959 is for companies that separate (for security reasons) their internal
960 networks from the rest of Internet. In order to obtain information
961 from the Web, their users connect and retrieve remote data using an
964 Wget supports proxies for both HTTP and FTP retrievals. The
965 standard way to specify proxy location, which Wget recognizes, is using
966 the following environment variables:
969 This variable should contain the URL of the proxy for HTTP
973 This variable should contain the URL of the proxy for HTTP
974 connections. It is quite common that HTTP_PROXY and FTP_PROXY are
978 This variable should contain a comma-separated list of domain
979 extensions proxy should *not* be used for. For instance, if the
980 value of `no_proxy' is `.mit.edu', proxy will not be used to
981 retrieve documents from MIT.
983 In addition to the environment variables, proxy location and settings
984 may be specified from within Wget itself.
989 This option may be used to turn the proxy support on or off. Proxy
990 support is on by default, provided that the appropriate environment
996 These startup file variables allow you to override the proxy
997 settings specified by the environment.
999 Some proxy servers require authorization to enable you to use them.
1000 The authorization consists of "username" and "password", which must be
1001 sent by Wget. As with HTTP authorization, several authentication
1002 schemes exist. For proxy authorization only the `Basic' authentication
1003 scheme is currently implemented.
1005 You may specify your username and password either through the proxy
1006 URL or through the command-line options. Assuming that the company's
1007 proxy is located at `proxy.srce.hr' at port 8001, a proxy URL location
1008 containing authorization data might look like this:
1010 http://hniksic:mypassword@proxy.company.com:8001/
1012 Alternatively, you may use the `proxy-user' and `proxy-password'
1013 options, and the equivalent `.wgetrc' settings `proxy_user' and
1014 `proxy_passwd' to set the proxy username and password.
1017 File: wget.info, Node: Distribution, Next: Mailing List, Prev: Proxies, Up: Various
1022 Like all GNU utilities, the latest version of Wget can be found at
1023 the master GNU archive site prep.ai.mit.edu, and its mirrors. For
1024 example, Wget 1.5.3+dev can be found at
1025 `ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/gnu/wget/wget-1.5.3+dev.tar.gz'
1028 File: wget.info, Node: Mailing List, Next: Reporting Bugs, Prev: Distribution, Up: Various
1033 Wget has its own mailing list at <wget@sunsite.auc.dk>, thanks to
1034 Karsten Thygesen. The mailing list is for discussion of Wget features
1035 and web, reporting Wget bugs (those that you think may be of interest
1036 to the public) and mailing announcements. You are welcome to
1037 subscribe. The more people on the list, the better!
1039 To subscribe, send mail to <wget-subscribe@sunsite.auc.dk>. the
1040 magic word `subscribe' in the subject line. Unsubscribe by mailing to
1041 <wget-unsubscribe@sunsite.auc.dk>.
1043 The mailing list is archived at `http://fly.cc.fer.hr/archive/wget'.
1046 File: wget.info, Node: Reporting Bugs, Next: Portability, Prev: Mailing List, Up: Various
1051 You are welcome to send bug reports about GNU Wget to
1052 <bug-wget@gnu.org>. The bugs that you think are of the interest to the
1053 public (i.e. more people should be informed about them) can be Cc-ed to
1054 the mailing list at <wget@sunsite.auc.dk>.
1056 Before actually submitting a bug report, please try to follow a few
1059 1. Please try to ascertain that the behaviour you see really is a
1060 bug. If Wget crashes, it's a bug. If Wget does not behave as
1061 documented, it's a bug. If things work strange, but you are not
1062 sure about the way they are supposed to work, it might well be a
1065 2. Try to repeat the bug in as simple circumstances as possible.
1066 E.g. if Wget crashes on `wget -rLl0 -t5 -Y0 http://yoyodyne.com -o
1067 /tmp/log', you should try to see if it will crash with a simpler
1070 Also, while I will probably be interested to know the contents of
1071 your `.wgetrc' file, just dumping it into the debug message is
1072 probably a bad idea. Instead, you should first try to see if the
1073 bug repeats with `.wgetrc' moved out of the way. Only if it turns
1074 out that `.wgetrc' settings affect the bug, should you mail me the
1075 relevant parts of the file.
1077 3. Please start Wget with `-d' option and send the log (or the
1078 relevant parts of it). If Wget was compiled without debug support,
1079 recompile it. It is *much* easier to trace bugs with debug support
1082 4. If Wget has crashed, try to run it in a debugger, e.g. `gdb `which
1083 wget` core' and type `where' to get the backtrace.
1085 5. Find where the bug is, fix it and send me the patches. :-)
1088 File: wget.info, Node: Portability, Next: Signals, Prev: Reporting Bugs, Up: Various
1093 Since Wget uses GNU Autoconf for building and configuring, and avoids
1094 using "special" ultra-mega-cool features of any particular Unix, it
1095 should compile (and work) on all common Unix flavors.
1097 Various Wget versions have been compiled and tested under many kinds
1098 of Unix systems, including Solaris, Linux, SunOS, OSF (aka Digital
1099 Unix), Ultrix, *BSD, IRIX, and others; refer to the file `MACHINES' in
1100 the distribution directory for a comprehensive list. If you compile it
1101 on an architecture not listed there, please let me know so I can update
1104 Wget should also compile on the other Unix systems, not listed in
1105 `MACHINES'. If it doesn't, please let me know.
1107 Thanks to kind contributors, this version of Wget compiles and works
1108 on Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows NT platforms. It has been compiled
1109 successfully using MS Visual C++ 4.0, Watcom, and Borland C compilers,
1110 with Winsock as networking software. Naturally, it is crippled of some
1111 features available on Unix, but it should work as a substitute for
1112 people stuck with Windows. Note that the Windows port is *neither
1113 tested nor maintained* by me--all questions and problems should be
1114 reported to Wget mailing list at <wget@sunsite.auc.dk> where the
1115 maintainers will look at them.
1118 File: wget.info, Node: Signals, Prev: Portability, Up: Various
1123 Since the purpose of Wget is background work, it catches the hangup
1124 signal (`SIGHUP') and ignores it. If the output was on standard
1125 output, it will be redirected to a file named `wget-log'. Otherwise,
1126 `SIGHUP' is ignored. This is convenient when you wish to redirect the
1127 output of Wget after having started it.
1129 $ wget http://www.ifi.uio.no/~larsi/gnus.tar.gz &
1130 $ kill -HUP %% # Redirect the output to wget-log
1132 Other than that, Wget will not try to interfere with signals in any
1133 way. `C-c', `kill -TERM' and `kill -KILL' should kill it alike.
1136 File: wget.info, Node: Appendices, Next: Copying, Prev: Various, Up: Top
1141 This chapter contains some references I consider useful, like the
1142 Robots Exclusion Standard specification, as well as a list of
1143 contributors to GNU Wget.
1147 * Robots:: Wget as a WWW robot.
1148 * Security Considerations:: Security with Wget.
1149 * Contributors:: People who helped.
1152 File: wget.info, Node: Robots, Next: Security Considerations, Prev: Appendices, Up: Appendices
1157 Since Wget is able to traverse the web, it counts as one of the Web
1158 "robots". Thus Wget understands "Robots Exclusion Standard"
1159 (RES)--contents of `/robots.txt', used by server administrators to
1160 shield parts of their systems from wanderings of Wget.
1162 Norobots support is turned on only when retrieving recursively, and
1163 *never* for the first page. Thus, you may issue:
1165 wget -r http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
1167 First the index of fly.cc.fer.hr will be downloaded. If Wget finds
1168 anything worth downloading on the same host, only *then* will it load
1169 the robots, and decide whether or not to load the links after all.
1170 `/robots.txt' is loaded only once per host. Wget does not support the
1173 The description of the norobots standard was written, and is
1174 maintained by Martijn Koster <m.koster@webcrawler.com>. With his
1175 permission, I contribute a (slightly modified) TeXified version of the
1180 * Introduction to RES::
1182 * User-Agent Field::
1184 * Norobots Examples::
1187 File: wget.info, Node: Introduction to RES, Next: RES Format, Prev: Robots, Up: Robots
1192 "WWW Robots" (also called "wanderers" or "spiders") are programs
1193 that traverse many pages in the World Wide Web by recursively
1194 retrieving linked pages. For more information see the robots page.
1196 In 1993 and 1994 there have been occasions where robots have visited
1197 WWW servers where they weren't welcome for various reasons. Sometimes
1198 these reasons were robot specific, e.g. certain robots swamped servers
1199 with rapid-fire requests, or retrieved the same files repeatedly. In
1200 other situations robots traversed parts of WWW servers that weren't
1201 suitable, e.g. very deep virtual trees, duplicated information,
1202 temporary information, or cgi-scripts with side-effects (such as
1205 These incidents indicated the need for established mechanisms for
1206 WWW servers to indicate to robots which parts of their server should
1207 not be accessed. This standard addresses this need with an operational
1210 This document represents a consensus on 30 June 1994 on the robots
1211 mailing list (`robots@webcrawler.com'), between the majority of robot
1212 authors and other people with an interest in robots. It has also been
1213 open for discussion on the Technical World Wide Web mailing list
1214 (`www-talk@info.cern.ch'). This document is based on a previous working
1215 draft under the same title.
1217 It is not an official standard backed by a standards body, or owned
1218 by any commercial organization. It is not enforced by anybody, and there
1219 no guarantee that all current and future robots will use it. Consider
1220 it a common facility the majority of robot authors offer the WWW
1221 community to protect WWW server against unwanted accesses by their
1224 The latest version of this document can be found at
1225 `http://info.webcrawler.com/mak/projects/robots/norobots.html'.
1228 File: wget.info, Node: RES Format, Next: User-Agent Field, Prev: Introduction to RES, Up: Robots
1233 The format and semantics of the `/robots.txt' file are as follows:
1235 The file consists of one or more records separated by one or more
1236 blank lines (terminated by `CR', `CR/NL', or `NL'). Each record
1237 contains lines of the form:
1239 <field>:<optionalspace><value><optionalspace>
1241 The field name is case insensitive.
1243 Comments can be included in file using UNIX Bourne shell conventions:
1244 the `#' character is used to indicate that preceding space (if any) and
1245 the remainder of the line up to the line termination is discarded.
1246 Lines containing only a comment are discarded completely, and therefore
1247 do not indicate a record boundary.
1249 The record starts with one or more User-agent lines, followed by one
1250 or more Disallow lines, as detailed below. Unrecognized headers are
1253 The presence of an empty `/robots.txt' file has no explicit
1254 associated semantics, it will be treated as if it was not present, i.e.
1255 all robots will consider themselves welcome.
1258 File: wget.info, Node: User-Agent Field, Next: Disallow Field, Prev: RES Format, Up: Robots
1263 The value of this field is the name of the robot the record is
1264 describing access policy for.
1266 If more than one User-agent field is present the record describes an
1267 identical access policy for more than one robot. At least one field
1268 needs to be present per record.
1270 The robot should be liberal in interpreting this field. A case
1271 insensitive substring match of the name without version information is
1274 If the value is `*', the record describes the default access policy
1275 for any robot that has not matched any of the other records. It is not
1276 allowed to have multiple such records in the `/robots.txt' file.
1279 File: wget.info, Node: Disallow Field, Next: Norobots Examples, Prev: User-Agent Field, Up: Robots
1284 The value of this field specifies a partial URL that is not to be
1285 visited. This can be a full path, or a partial path; any URL that
1286 starts with this value will not be retrieved. For example,
1287 `Disallow: /help' disallows both `/help.html' and `/help/index.html',
1288 whereas `Disallow: /help/' would disallow `/help/index.html' but allow
1291 Any empty value, indicates that all URLs can be retrieved. At least
1292 one Disallow field needs to be present in a record.
1295 File: wget.info, Node: Norobots Examples, Prev: Disallow Field, Up: Robots
1300 The following example `/robots.txt' file specifies that no robots
1301 should visit any URL starting with `/cyberworld/map/' or `/tmp/':
1303 # robots.txt for http://www.site.com/
1306 Disallow: /cyberworld/map/ # This is an infinite virtual URL space
1307 Disallow: /tmp/ # these will soon disappear
1309 This example `/robots.txt' file specifies that no robots should
1310 visit any URL starting with `/cyberworld/map/', except the robot called
1313 # robots.txt for http://www.site.com/
1316 Disallow: /cyberworld/map/ # This is an infinite virtual URL space
1318 # Cybermapper knows where to go.
1319 User-agent: cybermapper
1322 This example indicates that no robots should visit this site further:
1329 File: wget.info, Node: Security Considerations, Next: Contributors, Prev: Robots, Up: Appendices
1331 Security Considerations
1332 =======================
1334 When using Wget, you must be aware that it sends unencrypted
1335 passwords through the network, which may present a security problem.
1336 Here are the main issues, and some solutions.
1338 1. The passwords on the command line are visible using `ps'. If this
1339 is a problem, avoid putting passwords from the command line--e.g.
1340 you can use `.netrc' for this.
1342 2. Using the insecure "basic" authentication scheme, unencrypted
1343 passwords are transmitted through the network routers and gateways.
1345 3. The FTP passwords are also in no way encrypted. There is no good
1346 solution for this at the moment.
1348 4. Although the "normal" output of Wget tries to hide the passwords,
1349 debugging logs show them, in all forms. This problem is avoided by
1350 being careful when you send debug logs (yes, even when you send