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: Wgetrc Location, Next: Wgetrc Syntax, Prev: Startup File, Up: Startup File
32 When initializing, Wget will look for a "global" startup file,
33 `/usr/local/etc/wgetrc' by default (or some prefix other than
34 `/usr/local', if Wget was not installed there) and read commands from
37 Then it will look for the user's file. If the environmental variable
38 `WGETRC' is set, Wget will try to load that file. Failing that, no
39 further attempts will be made.
41 If `WGETRC' is not set, Wget will try to load `$HOME/.wgetrc'.
43 The fact that user's settings are loaded after the system-wide ones
44 means that in case of collision user's wgetrc *overrides* the
45 system-wide wgetrc (in `/usr/local/etc/wgetrc' by default). Fascist
49 File: wget.info, Node: Wgetrc Syntax, Next: Wgetrc Commands, Prev: Wgetrc Location, Up: Startup File
54 The syntax of a wgetrc command is simple:
58 The "variable" will also be called "command". Valid "values" are
59 different for different commands.
61 The commands are case-insensitive and underscore-insensitive. Thus
62 `DIr__PrefiX' is the same as `dirprefix'. Empty lines, lines beginning
63 with `#' and lines containing white-space only are discarded.
65 Commands that expect a comma-separated list will clear the list on an
66 empty command. So, if you wish to reset the rejection list specified in
67 global `wgetrc', you can do it with:
72 File: wget.info, Node: Wgetrc Commands, Next: Sample Wgetrc, Prev: Wgetrc Syntax, Up: Startup File
77 The complete set of commands is listed below, the letter after `='
78 denoting the value the command takes. It is `on/off' for `on' or `off'
79 (which can also be `1' or `0'), STRING for any non-empty string or N
80 for a positive integer. For example, you may specify `use_proxy = off'
81 to disable use of proxy servers by default. You may use `inf' for
82 infinite values, where appropriate.
84 Most of the commands have their equivalent command-line option
85 (*Note Invoking::), except some more obscure or rarely used ones.
87 accept/reject = STRING
88 Same as `-A'/`-R' (*Note Types of Files::).
91 Enable/disable host-prefixed file names. `-nH' disables it.
94 Enable/disable continuation of the retrieval, the same as `-c'
98 Enable/disable going to background, the same as `-b' (which enables
101 backup_converted = on/off
102 Enable/disable saving pre-converted files with the suffix `.orig'
103 - the same as `-K' (which enables it).
106 Set base for relative URLs, the same as `-B'.
109 When set to off, disallow server-caching. See the `-C' option.
111 convert links = on/off
112 Convert non-relative links locally. The same as `-k'.
115 Ignore N remote directory components.
118 Debug mode, same as `-d'.
120 delete_after = on/off
121 Delete after download, the same as `--delete-after'.
124 Top of directory tree, the same as `-P'.
127 Turning dirstruct on or off, the same as `-x' or `-nd',
131 Same as `-D' (*Note Domain Acceptance::).
134 Specify the number of bytes "contained" in a dot, as seen
135 throughout the retrieval (1024 by default). You can postfix the
136 value with `k' or `m', representing kilobytes and megabytes,
137 respectively. With dot settings you can tailor the dot retrieval
138 to suit your needs, or you can use the predefined "styles" (*Note
142 Specify the number of dots that will be printed in each line
143 throughout the retrieval (50 by default).
146 Specify the number of dots in a single cluster (10 by default).
149 Specify the dot retrieval "style", as with `--dot-style'.
151 exclude_directories = STRING
152 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude
153 from download, the same as `-X' (*Note Directory-Based Limits::).
155 exclude_domains = STRING
156 Same as `--exclude-domains' (*Note Domain Acceptance::).
159 Follow FTP links from HTML documents, the same as `-f'.
162 If set to on, force the input filename to be regarded as an HTML
163 document, the same as `-F'.
166 Use STRING as FTP proxy, instead of the one specified in
170 Turn globbing on/off, the same as `-g'.
173 Define an additional header, like `--header'.
179 Use STRING as HTTP proxy, instead of the one specified in
183 Set HTTP user to STRING.
185 ignore_length = on/off
186 When set to on, ignore `Content-Length' header; the same as
189 include_directories = STRING
190 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow
191 when downloading, the same as `-I'.
194 Read the URLs from STRING, like `-i'.
197 Consider data longer than specified in content-length header as
198 invalid (and retry getting it). The default behaviour is to save
199 as much data as there is, provided there is more than or equal to
200 the value in `Content-Length'.
203 Set logfile, the same as `-o'.
206 Your user name on the remote machine, for FTP. Defaults to
210 Turn mirroring on/off. The same as `-m'.
213 Turn reading netrc on or off.
219 Disallow retrieving outside the directory hierarchy, like
220 `--no-parent' (*Note Directory-Based Limits::).
223 Use STRING as the comma-separated list of domains to avoid in
224 proxy loading, instead of the one specified in environment.
226 output_document = STRING
227 Set the output filename, the same as `-O'.
230 Set passive FTP, the same as `--passive-ftp'.
233 Set your FTP password to PASSWORD. Without this setting, the
234 password defaults to `username@hostname.domainname'.
237 Set proxy authentication user name to STRING, like `--proxy-user'.
239 proxy_passwd = STRING
240 Set proxy authentication password to STRING, like `--proxy-passwd'.
243 Quiet mode, the same as `-q'.
246 Specify the download quota, which is useful to put in global
247 wgetrc. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop retrieving
248 after the download sum has become greater than quota. The quota
249 can be specified in bytes (default), kbytes `k' appended) or mbytes
250 (`m' appended). Thus `quota = 5m' will set the quota to 5 mbytes.
251 Note that the user's startup file overrides system settings.
254 Recursion level, the same as `-l'.
257 Recursive on/off, the same as `-r'.
259 relative_only = on/off
260 Follow only relative links, the same as `-L' (*Note Relative
263 remove_listing = on/off
264 If set to on, remove FTP listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it
265 to off is the same as `-nr'.
267 retr_symlinks = on/off
268 When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain
269 files; the same as `--retr-symlinks'.
272 Use (or not) `/robots.txt' file (*Note Robots::). Be sure to know
273 what you are doing before changing the default (which is `on').
275 server_response = on/off
276 Choose whether or not to print the HTTP and FTP server responses,
279 simple_host_check = on/off
280 Same as `-nh' (*Note Host Checking::).
286 Set timeout value, the same as `-T'.
288 timestamping = on/off
289 Turn timestamping on/off. The same as `-N' (*Note Time-Stamping::).
292 Set number of retries per URL, the same as `-t'.
295 Turn proxy support on/off. The same as `-Y'.
298 Turn verbose on/off, the same as `-v'/`-nv'.
301 Wait N seconds between retrievals, the same as `-w'.
304 File: wget.info, Node: Sample Wgetrc, Prev: Wgetrc Commands, Up: Startup File
309 This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution.
310 It is divided in two section--one for global usage (suitable for global
311 startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for `$HOME/.wgetrc').
312 Be careful about the things you change.
314 Note that all the lines are commented out. For any line to have
315 effect, you must remove the `#' prefix at the beginning of line.
318 ### Sample Wget initialization file .wgetrc
321 ## You can use this file to change the default behaviour of wget or to
322 ## avoid having to type many many command-line options. This file does
323 ## not contain a comprehensive list of commands -- look at the manual
324 ## to find out what you can put into this file.
326 ## Wget initialization file can reside in /usr/local/etc/wgetrc
327 ## (global, for all users) or $HOME/.wgetrc (for a single user).
329 ## To use any of the settings in this file, you will have to uncomment
330 ## them (and probably change them).
334 ## Global settings (useful for setting up in /usr/local/etc/wgetrc).
335 ## Think well before you change them, since they may reduce wget's
336 ## functionality, and make it behave contrary to the documentation:
339 # You can set retrieve quota for beginners by specifying a value
340 # optionally followed by 'K' (kilobytes) or 'M' (megabytes). The
341 # default quota is unlimited.
344 # You can lower (or raise) the default number of retries when
345 # downloading a file (default is 20).
348 # Lowering the maximum depth of the recursive retrieval is handy to
349 # prevent newbies from going too "deep" when they unwittingly start
350 # the recursive retrieval. The default is 5.
353 # Many sites are behind firewalls that do not allow initiation of
354 # connections from the outside. On these sites you have to use the
355 # `passive' feature of FTP. If you are behind such a firewall, you
356 # can turn this on to make Wget use passive FTP by default.
361 ## Local settings (for a user to set in his $HOME/.wgetrc). It is
362 ## *highly* undesirable to put these settings in the global file, since
363 ## they are potentially dangerous to "normal" users.
365 ## Even when setting up your own ~/.wgetrc, you should know what you
366 ## are doing before doing so.
369 # Set this to on to use timestamping by default:
372 # It is a good idea to make Wget send your email address in a `From:'
373 # header with your request (so that server administrators can contact
374 # you in case of errors). Wget does *not* send `From:' by default.
375 #header = From: Your Name <username@site.domain>
377 # You can set up other headers, like Accept-Language. Accept-Language
378 # is *not* sent by default.
379 #header = Accept-Language: en
381 # You can set the default proxy for Wget to use. It will override the
382 # value in the environment.
383 #http_proxy = http://proxy.yoyodyne.com:18023/
385 # If you do not want to use proxy at all, set this to off.
388 # You can customize the retrieval outlook. Valid options are default,
389 # binary, mega and micro.
392 # Setting this to off makes Wget not download /robots.txt. Be sure to
393 # know *exactly* what /robots.txt is and how it is used before changing
397 # It can be useful to make Wget wait between connections. Set this to
398 # the number of seconds you want Wget to wait.
401 # You can force creating directory structure, even if a single is being
402 # retrieved, by setting this to on.
405 # You can turn on recursive retrieving by default (don't do this if
406 # you are not sure you know what it means) by setting this to on.
409 # To have Wget follow FTP links from HTML files by default, set this
414 File: wget.info, Node: Examples, Next: Various, Prev: Startup File, Up: Top
419 The examples are classified into three sections, because of clarity.
420 The first section is a tutorial for beginners. The second section
421 explains some of the more complex program features. The third section
422 contains advice for mirror administrators, as well as even more complex
423 features (that some would call perverted).
427 * Simple Usage:: Simple, basic usage of the program.
428 * Advanced Usage:: Advanced techniques of usage.
429 * Guru Usage:: Mirroring and the hairy stuff.
432 File: wget.info, Node: Simple Usage, Next: Advanced Usage, Prev: Examples, Up: Examples
437 * Say you want to download a URL. Just type:
439 wget http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
441 The response will be something like:
443 --13:30:45-- http://fly.cc.fer.hr:80/en/
445 Connecting to fly.cc.fer.hr:80... connected!
446 HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
447 Length: 4,694 [text/html]
451 13:30:46 (23.75 KB/s) - `index.html' saved [4694/4694]
453 * But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is
454 lengthy? The connection will probably fail before the whole file
455 is retrieved, more than once. In this case, Wget will try getting
456 the file until it either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the
457 default number of retries (this being 20). It is easy to change
458 the number of tries to 45, to insure that the whole file will
461 wget --tries=45 http://fly.cc.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
463 * Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its
464 progress to log file `log'. It is tiring to type `--tries', so we
467 wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.cc.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &
469 The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in
470 the background. To unlimit the number of retries, use `-t inf'.
472 * The usage of FTP is as simple. Wget will take care of login and
475 $ wget ftp://gnjilux.cc.fer.hr/welcome.msg
476 --10:08:47-- ftp://gnjilux.cc.fer.hr:21/welcome.msg
478 Connecting to gnjilux.cc.fer.hr:21... connected!
479 Logging in as anonymous ... Logged in!
480 ==> TYPE I ... done. ==> CWD not needed.
481 ==> PORT ... done. ==> RETR welcome.msg ... done.
482 Length: 1,340 (unauthoritative)
486 10:08:48 (1.28 MB/s) - `welcome.msg' saved [1340]
488 * If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory
489 listing, parse it and convert it to HTML. Try:
491 wget ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/
495 File: wget.info, Node: Advanced Usage, Next: Guru Usage, Prev: Simple Usage, Up: Examples
500 * You would like to read the list of URLs from a file? Not a problem
505 If you specify `-' as file name, the URLs will be read from
508 * Create a mirror image of GNU WWW site (with the same directory
509 structure the original has) with only one try per document, saving
510 the log of the activities to `gnulog':
512 wget -r -t1 http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/ -o gnulog
514 * Retrieve the first layer of yahoo links:
516 wget -r -l1 http://www.yahoo.com/
518 * Retrieve the index.html of `www.lycos.com', showing the original
521 wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
523 * Save the server headers with the file:
524 wget -s http://www.lycos.com/
527 * Retrieve the first two levels of `wuarchive.wustl.edu', saving them
530 wget -P/tmp -l2 ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
532 * You want to download all the GIFs from an HTTP directory. `wget
533 http://host/dir/*.gif' doesn't work, since HTTP retrieval does not
534 support globbing. In that case, use:
536 wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://host/dir/
538 It is a bit of a kludge, but it works. `-r -l1' means to retrieve
539 recursively (*Note Recursive Retrieval::), with maximum depth of 1.
540 `--no-parent' means that references to the parent directory are
541 ignored (*Note Directory-Based Limits::), and `-A.gif' means to
542 download only the GIF files. `-A "*.gif"' would have worked too.
544 * Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
545 interrupted. Now you do not want to clobber the files already
546 present. It would be:
548 wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
550 * If you want to encode your own username and password to HTTP or
551 FTP, use the appropriate URL syntax (*Note URL Format::).
553 wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@jagor.srce.hr/.emacs
555 * If you do not like the default retrieval visualization (1K dots
556 with 10 dots per cluster and 50 dots per line), you can customize
557 it through dot settings (*Note Wgetrc Commands::). For example,
558 many people like the "binary" style of retrieval, with 8K dots and
561 wget --dot-style=binary ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/README
563 You can experiment with other styles, like:
565 wget --dot-style=mega ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/xemacs-20.4/xemacs-20.4.tar.gz
566 wget --dot-style=micro http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
568 To make these settings permanent, put them in your `.wgetrc', as
569 described before (*Note Sample Wgetrc::).
572 File: wget.info, Node: Guru Usage, Prev: Advanced Usage, Up: Examples
577 * If you wish Wget to keep a mirror of a page (or FTP
578 subdirectories), use `--mirror' (`-m'), which is the shorthand for
579 `-r -N'. You can put Wget in the crontab file asking it to
580 recheck a site each Sunday:
583 0 0 * * 0 wget --mirror ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/ -o /home/me/weeklog
585 * You may wish to do the same with someone's home page. But you do
586 not want to download all those images--you're only interested in
589 wget --mirror -A.html http://www.w3.org/
591 * But what about mirroring the hosts networkologically close to you?
592 It seems so awfully slow because of all that DNS resolving. Just
593 use `-D' (*Note Domain Acceptance::).
595 wget -rN -Dsrce.hr http://www.srce.hr/
597 Now Wget will correctly find out that `regoc.srce.hr' is the same
598 as `www.srce.hr', but will not even take into consideration the
599 link to `www.mit.edu'.
601 * You have a presentation and would like the dumb absolute links to
602 be converted to relative? Use `-k':
606 * You would like the output documents to go to standard output
607 instead of to files? OK, but Wget will automatically shut up
608 (turn on `--quiet') to prevent mixing of Wget output and the
611 wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/
613 You can also combine the two options and make weird pipelines to
614 retrieve the documents from remote hotlists:
616 wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
619 File: wget.info, Node: Various, Next: Appendices, Prev: Examples, Up: Top
624 This chapter contains all the stuff that could not fit anywhere else.
628 * Proxies:: Support for proxy servers
629 * Distribution:: Getting the latest version.
630 * Mailing List:: Wget mailing list for announcements and discussion.
631 * Reporting Bugs:: How and where to report bugs.
632 * Portability:: The systems Wget works on.
633 * Signals:: Signal-handling performed by Wget.
636 File: wget.info, Node: Proxies, Next: Distribution, Prev: Various, Up: Various
641 "Proxies" are special-purpose HTTP servers designed to transfer data
642 from remote servers to local clients. One typical use of proxies is
643 lightening network load for users behind a slow connection. This is
644 achieved by channeling all HTTP and FTP requests through the proxy
645 which caches the transferred data. When a cached resource is requested
646 again, proxy will return the data from cache. Another use for proxies
647 is for companies that separate (for security reasons) their internal
648 networks from the rest of Internet. In order to obtain information
649 from the Web, their users connect and retrieve remote data using an
652 Wget supports proxies for both HTTP and FTP retrievals. The
653 standard way to specify proxy location, which Wget recognizes, is using
654 the following environment variables:
657 This variable should contain the URL of the proxy for HTTP
661 This variable should contain the URL of the proxy for HTTP
662 connections. It is quite common that HTTP_PROXY and FTP_PROXY are
666 This variable should contain a comma-separated list of domain
667 extensions proxy should *not* be used for. For instance, if the
668 value of `no_proxy' is `.mit.edu', proxy will not be used to
669 retrieve documents from MIT.
671 In addition to the environment variables, proxy location and settings
672 may be specified from within Wget itself.
677 This option may be used to turn the proxy support on or off. Proxy
678 support is on by default, provided that the appropriate environment
684 These startup file variables allow you to override the proxy
685 settings specified by the environment.
687 Some proxy servers require authorization to enable you to use them.
688 The authorization consists of "username" and "password", which must be
689 sent by Wget. As with HTTP authorization, several authentication
690 schemes exist. For proxy authorization only the `Basic' authentication
691 scheme is currently implemented.
693 You may specify your username and password either through the proxy
694 URL or through the command-line options. Assuming that the company's
695 proxy is located at `proxy.srce.hr' at port 8001, a proxy URL location
696 containing authorization data might look like this:
698 http://hniksic:mypassword@proxy.company.com:8001/
700 Alternatively, you may use the `proxy-user' and `proxy-password'
701 options, and the equivalent `.wgetrc' settings `proxy_user' and
702 `proxy_passwd' to set the proxy username and password.
705 File: wget.info, Node: Distribution, Next: Mailing List, Prev: Proxies, Up: Various
710 Like all GNU utilities, the latest version of Wget can be found at
711 the master GNU archive site prep.ai.mit.edu, and its mirrors. For
712 example, Wget 1.5.3+dev can be found at
713 `ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/gnu/wget/wget-1.5.3+dev.tar.gz'
716 File: wget.info, Node: Mailing List, Next: Reporting Bugs, Prev: Distribution, Up: Various
721 Wget has its own mailing list at <wget@sunsite.auc.dk>, thanks to
722 Karsten Thygesen. The mailing list is for discussion of Wget features
723 and web, reporting Wget bugs (those that you think may be of interest
724 to the public) and mailing announcements. You are welcome to
725 subscribe. The more people on the list, the better!
727 To subscribe, send mail to <wget-subscribe@sunsite.auc.dk>. the
728 magic word `subscribe' in the subject line. Unsubscribe by mailing to
729 <wget-unsubscribe@sunsite.auc.dk>.
731 The mailing list is archived at `http://fly.cc.fer.hr/archive/wget'.
734 File: wget.info, Node: Reporting Bugs, Next: Portability, Prev: Mailing List, Up: Various
739 You are welcome to send bug reports about GNU Wget to
740 <bug-wget@gnu.org>. The bugs that you think are of the interest to the
741 public (i.e. more people should be informed about them) can be Cc-ed to
742 the mailing list at <wget@sunsite.auc.dk>.
744 Before actually submitting a bug report, please try to follow a few
747 1. Please try to ascertain that the behaviour you see really is a
748 bug. If Wget crashes, it's a bug. If Wget does not behave as
749 documented, it's a bug. If things work strange, but you are not
750 sure about the way they are supposed to work, it might well be a
753 2. Try to repeat the bug in as simple circumstances as possible.
754 E.g. if Wget crashes on `wget -rLl0 -t5 -Y0 http://yoyodyne.com -o
755 /tmp/log', you should try to see if it will crash with a simpler
758 Also, while I will probably be interested to know the contents of
759 your `.wgetrc' file, just dumping it into the debug message is
760 probably a bad idea. Instead, you should first try to see if the
761 bug repeats with `.wgetrc' moved out of the way. Only if it turns
762 out that `.wgetrc' settings affect the bug, should you mail me the
763 relevant parts of the file.
765 3. Please start Wget with `-d' option and send the log (or the
766 relevant parts of it). If Wget was compiled without debug support,
767 recompile it. It is *much* easier to trace bugs with debug support
770 4. If Wget has crashed, try to run it in a debugger, e.g. `gdb `which
771 wget` core' and type `where' to get the backtrace.
773 5. Find where the bug is, fix it and send me the patches. :-)
776 File: wget.info, Node: Portability, Next: Signals, Prev: Reporting Bugs, Up: Various
781 Since Wget uses GNU Autoconf for building and configuring, and avoids
782 using "special" ultra-mega-cool features of any particular Unix, it
783 should compile (and work) on all common Unix flavors.
785 Various Wget versions have been compiled and tested under many kinds
786 of Unix systems, including Solaris, Linux, SunOS, OSF (aka Digital
787 Unix), Ultrix, *BSD, IRIX, and others; refer to the file `MACHINES' in
788 the distribution directory for a comprehensive list. If you compile it
789 on an architecture not listed there, please let me know so I can update
792 Wget should also compile on the other Unix systems, not listed in
793 `MACHINES'. If it doesn't, please let me know.
795 Thanks to kind contributors, this version of Wget compiles and works
796 on Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows NT platforms. It has been compiled
797 successfully using MS Visual C++ 4.0, Watcom, and Borland C compilers,
798 with Winsock as networking software. Naturally, it is crippled of some
799 features available on Unix, but it should work as a substitute for
800 people stuck with Windows. Note that the Windows port is *neither
801 tested nor maintained* by me--all questions and problems should be
802 reported to Wget mailing list at <wget@sunsite.auc.dk> where the
803 maintainers will look at them.
806 File: wget.info, Node: Signals, Prev: Portability, Up: Various
811 Since the purpose of Wget is background work, it catches the hangup
812 signal (`SIGHUP') and ignores it. If the output was on standard
813 output, it will be redirected to a file named `wget-log'. Otherwise,
814 `SIGHUP' is ignored. This is convenient when you wish to redirect the
815 output of Wget after having started it.
817 $ wget http://www.ifi.uio.no/~larsi/gnus.tar.gz &
818 $ kill -HUP %% # Redirect the output to wget-log
820 Other than that, Wget will not try to interfere with signals in any
821 way. `C-c', `kill -TERM' and `kill -KILL' should kill it alike.
824 File: wget.info, Node: Appendices, Next: Copying, Prev: Various, Up: Top
829 This chapter contains some references I consider useful, like the
830 Robots Exclusion Standard specification, as well as a list of
831 contributors to GNU Wget.
835 * Robots:: Wget as a WWW robot.
836 * Security Considerations:: Security with Wget.
837 * Contributors:: People who helped.
840 File: wget.info, Node: Robots, Next: Security Considerations, Prev: Appendices, Up: Appendices
845 Since Wget is able to traverse the web, it counts as one of the Web
846 "robots". Thus Wget understands "Robots Exclusion Standard"
847 (RES)--contents of `/robots.txt', used by server administrators to
848 shield parts of their systems from wanderings of Wget.
850 Norobots support is turned on only when retrieving recursively, and
851 *never* for the first page. Thus, you may issue:
853 wget -r http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
855 First the index of fly.cc.fer.hr will be downloaded. If Wget finds
856 anything worth downloading on the same host, only *then* will it load
857 the robots, and decide whether or not to load the links after all.
858 `/robots.txt' is loaded only once per host. Wget does not support the
861 The description of the norobots standard was written, and is
862 maintained by Martijn Koster <m.koster@webcrawler.com>. With his
863 permission, I contribute a (slightly modified) TeXified version of the
868 * Introduction to RES::
872 * Norobots Examples::
875 File: wget.info, Node: Introduction to RES, Next: RES Format, Prev: Robots, Up: Robots
880 "WWW Robots" (also called "wanderers" or "spiders") are programs
881 that traverse many pages in the World Wide Web by recursively
882 retrieving linked pages. For more information see the robots page.
884 In 1993 and 1994 there have been occasions where robots have visited
885 WWW servers where they weren't welcome for various reasons. Sometimes
886 these reasons were robot specific, e.g. certain robots swamped servers
887 with rapid-fire requests, or retrieved the same files repeatedly. In
888 other situations robots traversed parts of WWW servers that weren't
889 suitable, e.g. very deep virtual trees, duplicated information,
890 temporary information, or cgi-scripts with side-effects (such as
893 These incidents indicated the need for established mechanisms for
894 WWW servers to indicate to robots which parts of their server should
895 not be accessed. This standard addresses this need with an operational
898 This document represents a consensus on 30 June 1994 on the robots
899 mailing list (`robots@webcrawler.com'), between the majority of robot
900 authors and other people with an interest in robots. It has also been
901 open for discussion on the Technical World Wide Web mailing list
902 (`www-talk@info.cern.ch'). This document is based on a previous working
903 draft under the same title.
905 It is not an official standard backed by a standards body, or owned
906 by any commercial organization. It is not enforced by anybody, and there
907 no guarantee that all current and future robots will use it. Consider
908 it a common facility the majority of robot authors offer the WWW
909 community to protect WWW server against unwanted accesses by their
912 The latest version of this document can be found at
913 `http://info.webcrawler.com/mak/projects/robots/norobots.html'.
916 File: wget.info, Node: RES Format, Next: User-Agent Field, Prev: Introduction to RES, Up: Robots
921 The format and semantics of the `/robots.txt' file are as follows:
923 The file consists of one or more records separated by one or more
924 blank lines (terminated by `CR', `CR/NL', or `NL'). Each record
925 contains lines of the form:
927 <field>:<optionalspace><value><optionalspace>
929 The field name is case insensitive.
931 Comments can be included in file using UNIX Bourne shell conventions:
932 the `#' character is used to indicate that preceding space (if any) and
933 the remainder of the line up to the line termination is discarded.
934 Lines containing only a comment are discarded completely, and therefore
935 do not indicate a record boundary.
937 The record starts with one or more User-agent lines, followed by one
938 or more Disallow lines, as detailed below. Unrecognized headers are
941 The presence of an empty `/robots.txt' file has no explicit
942 associated semantics, it will be treated as if it was not present, i.e.
943 all robots will consider themselves welcome.
946 File: wget.info, Node: User-Agent Field, Next: Disallow Field, Prev: RES Format, Up: Robots
951 The value of this field is the name of the robot the record is
952 describing access policy for.
954 If more than one User-agent field is present the record describes an
955 identical access policy for more than one robot. At least one field
956 needs to be present per record.
958 The robot should be liberal in interpreting this field. A case
959 insensitive substring match of the name without version information is
962 If the value is `*', the record describes the default access policy
963 for any robot that has not matched any of the other records. It is not
964 allowed to have multiple such records in the `/robots.txt' file.
967 File: wget.info, Node: Disallow Field, Next: Norobots Examples, Prev: User-Agent Field, Up: Robots
972 The value of this field specifies a partial URL that is not to be
973 visited. This can be a full path, or a partial path; any URL that
974 starts with this value will not be retrieved. For example,
975 `Disallow: /help' disallows both `/help.html' and `/help/index.html',
976 whereas `Disallow: /help/' would disallow `/help/index.html' but allow
979 Any empty value, indicates that all URLs can be retrieved. At least
980 one Disallow field needs to be present in a record.
983 File: wget.info, Node: Norobots Examples, Prev: Disallow Field, Up: Robots
988 The following example `/robots.txt' file specifies that no robots
989 should visit any URL starting with `/cyberworld/map/' or `/tmp/':
991 # robots.txt for http://www.site.com/
994 Disallow: /cyberworld/map/ # This is an infinite virtual URL space
995 Disallow: /tmp/ # these will soon disappear
997 This example `/robots.txt' file specifies that no robots should
998 visit any URL starting with `/cyberworld/map/', except the robot called
1001 # robots.txt for http://www.site.com/
1004 Disallow: /cyberworld/map/ # This is an infinite virtual URL space
1006 # Cybermapper knows where to go.
1007 User-agent: cybermapper
1010 This example indicates that no robots should visit this site further:
1017 File: wget.info, Node: Security Considerations, Next: Contributors, Prev: Robots, Up: Appendices
1019 Security Considerations
1020 =======================
1022 When using Wget, you must be aware that it sends unencrypted
1023 passwords through the network, which may present a security problem.
1024 Here are the main issues, and some solutions.
1026 1. The passwords on the command line are visible using `ps'. If this
1027 is a problem, avoid putting passwords from the command line--e.g.
1028 you can use `.netrc' for this.
1030 2. Using the insecure "basic" authentication scheme, unencrypted
1031 passwords are transmitted through the network routers and gateways.
1033 3. The FTP passwords are also in no way encrypted. There is no good
1034 solution for this at the moment.
1036 4. Although the "normal" output of Wget tries to hide the passwords,
1037 debugging logs show them, in all forms. This problem is avoided by
1038 being careful when you send debug logs (yes, even when you send
1042 File: wget.info, Node: Contributors, Prev: Security Considerations, Up: Appendices
1047 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@iskon.hr>. However,
1048 its development could never have gone as far as it has, were it not for
1049 the help of many people, either with bug reports, feature proposals,
1050 patches, or letters saying "Thanks!".
1052 Special thanks goes to the following people (no particular order):
1054 * Karsten Thygesen--donated the mailing list and the initial FTP
1057 * Shawn McHorse--bug reports and patches.
1059 * Kaveh R. Ghazi--on-the-fly `ansi2knr'-ization.
1061 * Gordon Matzigkeit--`.netrc' support.
1063 * Zlatko Calusic, Tomislav Vujec and Drazen Kacar--feature
1064 suggestions and "philosophical" discussions.
1066 * Darko Budor--initial port to Windows.
1068 * Antonio Rosella--help and suggestions, plus the Italian
1071 * Tomislav Petrovic, Mario Mikocevic--many bug reports and
1074 * Francois Pinard--many thorough bug reports and discussions.
1076 * Karl Eichwalder--lots of help with internationalization and other
1079 * Junio Hamano--donated support for Opie and HTTP `Digest'
1082 * Brian Gough--a generous donation.
1084 The following people have provided patches, bug/build reports, useful
1085 suggestions, beta testing services, fan mail and all the other things
1086 that make maintenance so much fun:
1088 Tim Adam, Martin Baehr, Dieter Baron, Roger Beeman and the Gurus at
1089 Cisco, Dan Berger, Mark Boyns, John Burden, Wanderlei Cavassin, Gilles
1090 Cedoc, Tim Charron, Noel Cragg, Kristijan Conkas, Andrew Deryabin,
1091 Damir Dzeko, Andrew Davison, Ulrich Drepper, Marc Duponcheel,
1092 Aleksandar Erkalovic, Andy Eskilsson, Masashi Fujita, Howard Gayle,
1093 Marcel Gerrits, Hans Grobler, Mathieu Guillaume, Dan Harkless, Heiko
1094 Herold, Karl Heuer, HIROSE Masaaki, Gregor Hoffleit, Erik Magnus
1095 Hulthen, Richard Huveneers, Simon Josefsson, Mario Juric, Goran
1096 Kezunovic, Robert Kleine, Fila Kolodny, Alexander Kourakos, Martin
1097 Kraemer, Simos KSenitellis, Hrvoje Lacko, Daniel S. Lewart, Dave Love,
1098 Jordan Mendelson, Lin Zhe Min, Charlie Negyesi, Andrew Pollock, Steve
1099 Pothier, Jan Prikryl, Marin Purgar, Keith Refson, Tobias Ringstrom,
1100 Juan Jose Rodrigues, Edward J. Sabol, Heinz Salzmann, Robert Schmidt,
1101 Toomas Soome, Tage Stabell-Kulo, Sven Sternberger, Markus Strasser,
1102 Szakacsits Szabolcs, Mike Thomas, Russell Vincent, Charles G Waldman,
1103 Douglas E. Wegscheid, Jasmin Zainul, Bojan Zdrnja, Kristijan Zimmer.
1105 Apologies to all who I accidentally left out, and many thanks to all
1106 the subscribers of the Wget mailing list.