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: HTTP Time-Stamping Internals, Next: FTP Time-Stamping Internals, Prev: Time-Stamping Usage, Up: Time-Stamping
29 HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
30 ============================
32 Time-stamping in HTTP is implemented by checking of the
33 `Last-Modified' header. If you wish to retrieve the file `foo.html'
34 through HTTP, Wget will check whether `foo.html' exists locally. If it
35 doesn't, `foo.html' will be retrieved unconditionally.
37 If the file does exist locally, Wget will first check its local
38 time-stamp (similar to the way `ls -l' checks it), and then send a
39 `HEAD' request to the remote server, demanding the information on the
42 The `Last-Modified' header is examined to find which file was
43 modified more recently (which makes it "newer"). If the remote file is
44 newer, it will be downloaded; if it is older, Wget will give up.(1)
46 When `--backup-converted' (`-K') is specified in conjunction with
47 `-N', server file `X' is compared to local file `X.orig', if extant,
48 rather than being compared to local file `X', which will always differ
49 if it's been converted by `--convert-links' (`-k').
51 Arguably, HTTP time-stamping should be implemented using the
52 `If-Modified-Since' request.
54 ---------- Footnotes ----------
56 (1) As an additional check, Wget will look at the `Content-Length'
57 header, and compare the sizes; if they are not the same, the remote
58 file will be downloaded no matter what the time-stamp says.
61 File: wget.info, Node: FTP Time-Stamping Internals, Prev: HTTP Time-Stamping Internals, Up: Time-Stamping
63 FTP Time-Stamping Internals
64 ===========================
66 In theory, FTP time-stamping works much the same as HTTP, only FTP
67 has no headers--time-stamps must be received from the directory
70 For each directory files must be retrieved from, Wget will use the
71 `LIST' command to get the listing. It will try to analyze the listing,
72 assuming that it is a Unix `ls -l' listing, and extract the
73 time-stamps. The rest is exactly the same as for HTTP.
75 Assumption that every directory listing is a Unix-style listing may
76 sound extremely constraining, but in practice it is not, as many
77 non-Unix FTP servers use the Unixoid listing format because most (all?)
78 of the clients understand it. Bear in mind that RFC959 defines no
79 standard way to get a file list, let alone the time-stamps. We can
80 only hope that a future standard will define this.
82 Another non-standard solution includes the use of `MDTM' command
83 that is supported by some FTP servers (including the popular
84 `wu-ftpd'), which returns the exact time of the specified file. Wget
85 may support this command in the future.
88 File: wget.info, Node: Startup File, Next: Examples, Prev: Time-Stamping, Up: Top
93 Once you know how to change default settings of Wget through command
94 line arguments, you may wish to make some of those settings permanent.
95 You can do that in a convenient way by creating the Wget startup
98 Besides `.wgetrc' is the "main" initialization file, it is
99 convenient to have a special facility for storing passwords. Thus Wget
100 reads and interprets the contents of `$HOME/.netrc', if it finds it.
101 You can find `.netrc' format in your system manuals.
103 Wget reads `.wgetrc' upon startup, recognizing a limited set of
108 * Wgetrc Location:: Location of various wgetrc files.
109 * Wgetrc Syntax:: Syntax of wgetrc.
110 * Wgetrc Commands:: List of available commands.
111 * Sample Wgetrc:: A wgetrc example.
114 File: wget.info, Node: Wgetrc Location, Next: Wgetrc Syntax, Prev: Startup File, Up: Startup File
119 When initializing, Wget will look for a "global" startup file,
120 `/usr/local/etc/wgetrc' by default (or some prefix other than
121 `/usr/local', if Wget was not installed there) and read commands from
124 Then it will look for the user's file. If the environmental variable
125 `WGETRC' is set, Wget will try to load that file. Failing that, no
126 further attempts will be made.
128 If `WGETRC' is not set, Wget will try to load `$HOME/.wgetrc'.
130 The fact that user's settings are loaded after the system-wide ones
131 means that in case of collision user's wgetrc *overrides* the
132 system-wide wgetrc (in `/usr/local/etc/wgetrc' by default). Fascist
136 File: wget.info, Node: Wgetrc Syntax, Next: Wgetrc Commands, Prev: Wgetrc Location, Up: Startup File
141 The syntax of a wgetrc command is simple:
145 The "variable" will also be called "command". Valid "values" are
146 different for different commands.
148 The commands are case-insensitive and underscore-insensitive. Thus
149 `DIr__PrefiX' is the same as `dirprefix'. Empty lines, lines beginning
150 with `#' and lines containing white-space only are discarded.
152 Commands that expect a comma-separated list will clear the list on an
153 empty command. So, if you wish to reset the rejection list specified in
154 global `wgetrc', you can do it with:
159 File: wget.info, Node: Wgetrc Commands, Next: Sample Wgetrc, Prev: Wgetrc Syntax, Up: Startup File
164 The complete set of commands is listed below, the letter after `='
165 denoting the value the command takes. It is `on/off' for `on' or `off'
166 (which can also be `1' or `0'), STRING for any non-empty string or N
167 for a positive integer. For example, you may specify `use_proxy = off'
168 to disable use of proxy servers by default. You may use `inf' for
169 infinite values, where appropriate.
171 Most of the commands have their equivalent command-line option
172 (*Note Invoking::), except some more obscure or rarely used ones.
174 accept/reject = STRING
175 Same as `-A'/`-R' (*Note Types of Files::).
178 Enable/disable host-prefixed file names. `-nH' disables it.
181 Enable/disable continuation of the retrieval, the same as `-c'
185 Enable/disable going to background, the same as `-b' (which enables
188 backup_converted = on/off
189 Enable/disable saving pre-converted files with the suffix `.orig'
190 - the same as `-K' (which enables it).
193 Set base for relative URLs, the same as `-B'.
196 When set to off, disallow server-caching. See the `-C' option.
198 convert links = on/off
199 Convert non-relative links locally. The same as `-k'.
202 Ignore N remote directory components.
205 Debug mode, same as `-d'.
207 delete_after = on/off
208 Delete after download, the same as `--delete-after'.
211 Top of directory tree, the same as `-P'.
214 Turning dirstruct on or off, the same as `-x' or `-nd',
218 Same as `-D' (*Note Domain Acceptance::).
221 Specify the number of bytes "contained" in a dot, as seen
222 throughout the retrieval (1024 by default). You can postfix the
223 value with `k' or `m', representing kilobytes and megabytes,
224 respectively. With dot settings you can tailor the dot retrieval
225 to suit your needs, or you can use the predefined "styles" (*Note
229 Specify the number of dots that will be printed in each line
230 throughout the retrieval (50 by default).
233 Specify the number of dots in a single cluster (10 by default).
236 Specify the dot retrieval "style", as with `--dot-style'.
238 exclude_directories = STRING
239 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude
240 from download, the same as `-X' (*Note Directory-Based Limits::).
242 exclude_domains = STRING
243 Same as `--exclude-domains' (*Note Domain Acceptance::).
246 Follow FTP links from HTML documents, the same as `-f'.
249 Only follow certain HTML tags when doing a recursive retrieval,
250 just like `--follow-tags'.
253 If set to on, force the input filename to be regarded as an HTML
254 document, the same as `-F'.
257 Use STRING as FTP proxy, instead of the one specified in
261 Turn globbing on/off, the same as `-g'.
264 Define an additional header, like `--header'.
270 Use STRING as HTTP proxy, instead of the one specified in
274 Set HTTP user to STRING.
276 ignore_length = on/off
277 When set to on, ignore `Content-Length' header; the same as
281 Ignore certain HTML tags when doing a recursive retrieval, just
282 like `-G' / `--ignore-tags'.
284 include_directories = STRING
285 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow
286 when downloading, the same as `-I'.
289 Read the URLs from STRING, like `-i'.
292 Consider data longer than specified in content-length header as
293 invalid (and retry getting it). The default behaviour is to save
294 as much data as there is, provided there is more than or equal to
295 the value in `Content-Length'.
298 Set logfile, the same as `-o'.
301 Your user name on the remote machine, for FTP. Defaults to
305 Turn mirroring on/off. The same as `-m'.
308 Turn reading netrc on or off.
314 Disallow retrieving outside the directory hierarchy, like
315 `--no-parent' (*Note Directory-Based Limits::).
318 Use STRING as the comma-separated list of domains to avoid in
319 proxy loading, instead of the one specified in environment.
321 output_document = STRING
322 Set the output filename, the same as `-O'.
325 Set passive FTP, the same as `--passive-ftp'.
328 Set your FTP password to PASSWORD. Without this setting, the
329 password defaults to `username@hostname.domainname'.
332 Set proxy authentication user name to STRING, like `--proxy-user'.
334 proxy_passwd = STRING
335 Set proxy authentication password to STRING, like `--proxy-passwd'.
338 Quiet mode, the same as `-q'.
341 Specify the download quota, which is useful to put in the global
342 `wgetrc'. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop
343 retrieving after the download sum has become greater than quota.
344 The quota can be specified in bytes (default), kbytes `k'
345 appended) or mbytes (`m' appended). Thus `quota = 5m' will set
346 the quota to 5 mbytes. Note that the user's startup file overrides
350 Recursion level, the same as `-l'.
353 Recursive on/off, the same as `-r'.
355 relative_only = on/off
356 Follow only relative links, the same as `-L' (*Note Relative
359 remove_listing = on/off
360 If set to on, remove FTP listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it
361 to off is the same as `-nr'.
363 retr_symlinks = on/off
364 When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain
365 files; the same as `--retr-symlinks'.
368 Use (or not) `/robots.txt' file (*Note Robots::). Be sure to know
369 what you are doing before changing the default (which is `on').
371 server_response = on/off
372 Choose whether or not to print the HTTP and FTP server responses,
375 simple_host_check = on/off
376 Same as `-nh' (*Note Host Checking::).
382 Set timeout value, the same as `-T'.
384 timestamping = on/off
385 Turn timestamping on/off. The same as `-N' (*Note Time-Stamping::).
388 Set number of retries per URL, the same as `-t'.
391 Turn proxy support on/off. The same as `-Y'.
394 Turn verbose on/off, the same as `-v'/`-nv'.
397 Wait N seconds between retrievals, the same as `-w'.
400 Wait up to N seconds between retries of failed retrievals only -
401 the same as `--waitretry'. Note that this is turned on by default
402 in the global `wgetrc'.
405 File: wget.info, Node: Sample Wgetrc, Prev: Wgetrc Commands, Up: Startup File
410 This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution.
411 It is divided in two section--one for global usage (suitable for global
412 startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for `$HOME/.wgetrc').
413 Be careful about the things you change.
415 Note that almost all the lines are commented out. For a command to
416 have any effect, you must remove the `#' character at the beginning of
420 ### Sample Wget initialization file .wgetrc
423 ## You can use this file to change the default behaviour of wget or to
424 ## avoid having to type many many command-line options. This file does
425 ## not contain a comprehensive list of commands -- look at the manual
426 ## to find out what you can put into this file.
428 ## Wget initialization file can reside in /usr/local/etc/wgetrc
429 ## (global, for all users) or $HOME/.wgetrc (for a single user).
431 ## To use the settings in this file, you will have to uncomment them,
432 ## as well as change them, in most cases, as the values on the
433 ## commented-out lines are the default values (e.g. "off").
437 ## Global settings (useful for setting up in /usr/local/etc/wgetrc).
438 ## Think well before you change them, since they may reduce wget's
439 ## functionality, and make it behave contrary to the documentation:
442 # You can set retrieve quota for beginners by specifying a value
443 # optionally followed by 'K' (kilobytes) or 'M' (megabytes). The
444 # default quota is unlimited.
447 # You can lower (or raise) the default number of retries when
448 # downloading a file (default is 20).
451 # Lowering the maximum depth of the recursive retrieval is handy to
452 # prevent newbies from going too "deep" when they unwittingly start
453 # the recursive retrieval. The default is 5.
456 # Many sites are behind firewalls that do not allow initiation of
457 # connections from the outside. On these sites you have to use the
458 # `passive' feature of FTP. If you are behind such a firewall, you
459 # can turn this on to make Wget use passive FTP by default.
462 # The "wait" command below makes Wget wait between every connection.
463 # If, instead, you want Wget to wait only between retries of failed
464 # downloads, set waitretry to maximum number of seconds to wait (Wget
465 # will use "linear backoff", waiting 1 second after the first failure
466 # on a file, 2 seconds after the second failure, etc. up to this max).
471 ## Local settings (for a user to set in his $HOME/.wgetrc). It is
472 ## *highly* undesirable to put these settings in the global file, since
473 ## they are potentially dangerous to "normal" users.
475 ## Even when setting up your own ~/.wgetrc, you should know what you
476 ## are doing before doing so.
479 # Set this to on to use timestamping by default:
482 # It is a good idea to make Wget send your email address in a `From:'
483 # header with your request (so that server administrators can contact
484 # you in case of errors). Wget does *not* send `From:' by default.
485 #header = From: Your Name <username@site.domain>
487 # You can set up other headers, like Accept-Language. Accept-Language
488 # is *not* sent by default.
489 #header = Accept-Language: en
491 # You can set the default proxy for Wget to use. It will override the
492 # value in the environment.
493 #http_proxy = http://proxy.yoyodyne.com:18023/
495 # If you do not want to use proxy at all, set this to off.
498 # You can customize the retrieval outlook. Valid options are default,
499 # binary, mega and micro.
502 # Setting this to off makes Wget not download /robots.txt. Be sure to
503 # know *exactly* what /robots.txt is and how it is used before changing
507 # It can be useful to make Wget wait between connections. Set this to
508 # the number of seconds you want Wget to wait.
511 # You can force creating directory structure, even if a single is being
512 # retrieved, by setting this to on.
515 # You can turn on recursive retrieving by default (don't do this if
516 # you are not sure you know what it means) by setting this to on.
519 # To always back up file X as X.orig before converting its links (due
520 # to -k / --convert-links / convert_links = on having been specified),
521 # set this variable to on:
522 #backup_converted = off
524 # To have Wget follow FTP links from HTML files by default, set this
529 File: wget.info, Node: Examples, Next: Various, Prev: Startup File, Up: Top
534 The examples are classified into three sections, because of clarity.
535 The first section is a tutorial for beginners. The second section
536 explains some of the more complex program features. The third section
537 contains advice for mirror administrators, as well as even more complex
538 features (that some would call perverted).
542 * Simple Usage:: Simple, basic usage of the program.
543 * Advanced Usage:: Advanced techniques of usage.
544 * Guru Usage:: Mirroring and the hairy stuff.
547 File: wget.info, Node: Simple Usage, Next: Advanced Usage, Prev: Examples, Up: Examples
552 * Say you want to download a URL. Just type:
554 wget http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
556 The response will be something like:
558 --13:30:45-- http://fly.cc.fer.hr:80/en/
560 Connecting to fly.cc.fer.hr:80... connected!
561 HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
562 Length: 4,694 [text/html]
566 13:30:46 (23.75 KB/s) - `index.html' saved [4694/4694]
568 * But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is
569 lengthy? The connection will probably fail before the whole file
570 is retrieved, more than once. In this case, Wget will try getting
571 the file until it either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the
572 default number of retries (this being 20). It is easy to change
573 the number of tries to 45, to insure that the whole file will
576 wget --tries=45 http://fly.cc.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
578 * Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its
579 progress to log file `log'. It is tiring to type `--tries', so we
582 wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.cc.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &
584 The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in
585 the background. To unlimit the number of retries, use `-t inf'.
587 * The usage of FTP is as simple. Wget will take care of login and
590 $ wget ftp://gnjilux.cc.fer.hr/welcome.msg
591 --10:08:47-- ftp://gnjilux.cc.fer.hr:21/welcome.msg
593 Connecting to gnjilux.cc.fer.hr:21... connected!
594 Logging in as anonymous ... Logged in!
595 ==> TYPE I ... done. ==> CWD not needed.
596 ==> PORT ... done. ==> RETR welcome.msg ... done.
597 Length: 1,340 (unauthoritative)
601 10:08:48 (1.28 MB/s) - `welcome.msg' saved [1340]
603 * If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory
604 listing, parse it and convert it to HTML. Try:
606 wget ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/
610 File: wget.info, Node: Advanced Usage, Next: Guru Usage, Prev: Simple Usage, Up: Examples
615 * You would like to read the list of URLs from a file? Not a problem
620 If you specify `-' as file name, the URLs will be read from
623 * Create a mirror image of GNU WWW site (with the same directory
624 structure the original has) with only one try per document, saving
625 the log of the activities to `gnulog':
627 wget -r -t1 http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/ -o gnulog
629 * Retrieve the first layer of yahoo links:
631 wget -r -l1 http://www.yahoo.com/
633 * Retrieve the index.html of `www.lycos.com', showing the original
636 wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
638 * Save the server headers with the file:
639 wget -s http://www.lycos.com/
642 * Retrieve the first two levels of `wuarchive.wustl.edu', saving them
645 wget -P/tmp -l2 ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
647 * You want to download all the GIFs from an HTTP directory. `wget
648 http://host/dir/*.gif' doesn't work, since HTTP retrieval does not
649 support globbing. In that case, use:
651 wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://host/dir/
653 It is a bit of a kludge, but it works. `-r -l1' means to retrieve
654 recursively (*Note Recursive Retrieval::), with maximum depth of 1.
655 `--no-parent' means that references to the parent directory are
656 ignored (*Note Directory-Based Limits::), and `-A.gif' means to
657 download only the GIF files. `-A "*.gif"' would have worked too.
659 * Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
660 interrupted. Now you do not want to clobber the files already
661 present. It would be:
663 wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
665 * If you want to encode your own username and password to HTTP or
666 FTP, use the appropriate URL syntax (*Note URL Format::).
668 wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@jagor.srce.hr/.emacs
670 * If you do not like the default retrieval visualization (1K dots
671 with 10 dots per cluster and 50 dots per line), you can customize
672 it through dot settings (*Note Wgetrc Commands::). For example,
673 many people like the "binary" style of retrieval, with 8K dots and
676 wget --dot-style=binary ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/README
678 You can experiment with other styles, like:
680 wget --dot-style=mega ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/xemacs-20.4/xemacs-20.4.tar.gz
681 wget --dot-style=micro http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
683 To make these settings permanent, put them in your `.wgetrc', as
684 described before (*Note Sample Wgetrc::).
687 File: wget.info, Node: Guru Usage, Prev: Advanced Usage, Up: Examples
692 * If you wish Wget to keep a mirror of a page (or FTP
693 subdirectories), use `--mirror' (`-m'), which is the shorthand for
694 `-r -N'. You can put Wget in the crontab file asking it to
695 recheck a site each Sunday:
698 0 0 * * 0 wget --mirror ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/ -o /home/me/weeklog
700 * You may wish to do the same with someone's home page. But you do
701 not want to download all those images--you're only interested in
704 wget --mirror -A.html http://www.w3.org/
706 * But what about mirroring the hosts networkologically close to you?
707 It seems so awfully slow because of all that DNS resolving. Just
708 use `-D' (*Note Domain Acceptance::).
710 wget -rN -Dsrce.hr http://www.srce.hr/
712 Now Wget will correctly find out that `regoc.srce.hr' is the same
713 as `www.srce.hr', but will not even take into consideration the
714 link to `www.mit.edu'.
716 * You have a presentation and would like the dumb absolute links to
717 be converted to relative? Use `-k':
721 * You would like the output documents to go to standard output
722 instead of to files? OK, but Wget will automatically shut up
723 (turn on `--quiet') to prevent mixing of Wget output and the
726 wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/
728 You can also combine the two options and make weird pipelines to
729 retrieve the documents from remote hotlists:
731 wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
734 File: wget.info, Node: Various, Next: Appendices, Prev: Examples, Up: Top
739 This chapter contains all the stuff that could not fit anywhere else.
743 * Proxies:: Support for proxy servers
744 * Distribution:: Getting the latest version.
745 * Mailing List:: Wget mailing list for announcements and discussion.
746 * Reporting Bugs:: How and where to report bugs.
747 * Portability:: The systems Wget works on.
748 * Signals:: Signal-handling performed by Wget.
751 File: wget.info, Node: Proxies, Next: Distribution, Prev: Various, Up: Various
756 "Proxies" are special-purpose HTTP servers designed to transfer data
757 from remote servers to local clients. One typical use of proxies is
758 lightening network load for users behind a slow connection. This is
759 achieved by channeling all HTTP and FTP requests through the proxy
760 which caches the transferred data. When a cached resource is requested
761 again, proxy will return the data from cache. Another use for proxies
762 is for companies that separate (for security reasons) their internal
763 networks from the rest of Internet. In order to obtain information
764 from the Web, their users connect and retrieve remote data using an
767 Wget supports proxies for both HTTP and FTP retrievals. The
768 standard way to specify proxy location, which Wget recognizes, is using
769 the following environment variables:
772 This variable should contain the URL of the proxy for HTTP
776 This variable should contain the URL of the proxy for HTTP
777 connections. It is quite common that HTTP_PROXY and FTP_PROXY are
781 This variable should contain a comma-separated list of domain
782 extensions proxy should *not* be used for. For instance, if the
783 value of `no_proxy' is `.mit.edu', proxy will not be used to
784 retrieve documents from MIT.
786 In addition to the environment variables, proxy location and settings
787 may be specified from within Wget itself.
792 This option may be used to turn the proxy support on or off. Proxy
793 support is on by default, provided that the appropriate environment
799 These startup file variables allow you to override the proxy
800 settings specified by the environment.
802 Some proxy servers require authorization to enable you to use them.
803 The authorization consists of "username" and "password", which must be
804 sent by Wget. As with HTTP authorization, several authentication
805 schemes exist. For proxy authorization only the `Basic' authentication
806 scheme is currently implemented.
808 You may specify your username and password either through the proxy
809 URL or through the command-line options. Assuming that the company's
810 proxy is located at `proxy.srce.hr' at port 8001, a proxy URL location
811 containing authorization data might look like this:
813 http://hniksic:mypassword@proxy.company.com:8001/
815 Alternatively, you may use the `proxy-user' and `proxy-password'
816 options, and the equivalent `.wgetrc' settings `proxy_user' and
817 `proxy_passwd' to set the proxy username and password.
820 File: wget.info, Node: Distribution, Next: Mailing List, Prev: Proxies, Up: Various
825 Like all GNU utilities, the latest version of Wget can be found at
826 the master GNU archive site prep.ai.mit.edu, and its mirrors. For
827 example, Wget 1.5.3+dev can be found at
828 `ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/gnu/wget/wget-1.5.3+dev.tar.gz'
831 File: wget.info, Node: Mailing List, Next: Reporting Bugs, Prev: Distribution, Up: Various
836 Wget has its own mailing list at <wget@sunsite.auc.dk>, thanks to
837 Karsten Thygesen. The mailing list is for discussion of Wget features
838 and web, reporting Wget bugs (those that you think may be of interest
839 to the public) and mailing announcements. You are welcome to
840 subscribe. The more people on the list, the better!
842 To subscribe, send mail to <wget-subscribe@sunsite.auc.dk>. the
843 magic word `subscribe' in the subject line. Unsubscribe by mailing to
844 <wget-unsubscribe@sunsite.auc.dk>.
846 The mailing list is archived at `http://fly.cc.fer.hr/archive/wget'.
849 File: wget.info, Node: Reporting Bugs, Next: Portability, Prev: Mailing List, Up: Various
854 You are welcome to send bug reports about GNU Wget to
855 <bug-wget@gnu.org>. The bugs that you think are of the interest to the
856 public (i.e. more people should be informed about them) can be Cc-ed to
857 the mailing list at <wget@sunsite.auc.dk>.
859 Before actually submitting a bug report, please try to follow a few
862 1. Please try to ascertain that the behaviour you see really is a
863 bug. If Wget crashes, it's a bug. If Wget does not behave as
864 documented, it's a bug. If things work strange, but you are not
865 sure about the way they are supposed to work, it might well be a
868 2. Try to repeat the bug in as simple circumstances as possible.
869 E.g. if Wget crashes on `wget -rLl0 -t5 -Y0 http://yoyodyne.com -o
870 /tmp/log', you should try to see if it will crash with a simpler
873 Also, while I will probably be interested to know the contents of
874 your `.wgetrc' file, just dumping it into the debug message is
875 probably a bad idea. Instead, you should first try to see if the
876 bug repeats with `.wgetrc' moved out of the way. Only if it turns
877 out that `.wgetrc' settings affect the bug, should you mail me the
878 relevant parts of the file.
880 3. Please start Wget with `-d' option and send the log (or the
881 relevant parts of it). If Wget was compiled without debug support,
882 recompile it. It is *much* easier to trace bugs with debug support
885 4. If Wget has crashed, try to run it in a debugger, e.g. `gdb `which
886 wget` core' and type `where' to get the backtrace.
888 5. Find where the bug is, fix it and send me the patches. :-)
891 File: wget.info, Node: Portability, Next: Signals, Prev: Reporting Bugs, Up: Various
896 Since Wget uses GNU Autoconf for building and configuring, and avoids
897 using "special" ultra-mega-cool features of any particular Unix, it
898 should compile (and work) on all common Unix flavors.
900 Various Wget versions have been compiled and tested under many kinds
901 of Unix systems, including Solaris, Linux, SunOS, OSF (aka Digital
902 Unix), Ultrix, *BSD, IRIX, and others; refer to the file `MACHINES' in
903 the distribution directory for a comprehensive list. If you compile it
904 on an architecture not listed there, please let me know so I can update
907 Wget should also compile on the other Unix systems, not listed in
908 `MACHINES'. If it doesn't, please let me know.
910 Thanks to kind contributors, this version of Wget compiles and works
911 on Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows NT platforms. It has been compiled
912 successfully using MS Visual C++ 4.0, Watcom, and Borland C compilers,
913 with Winsock as networking software. Naturally, it is crippled of some
914 features available on Unix, but it should work as a substitute for
915 people stuck with Windows. Note that the Windows port is *neither
916 tested nor maintained* by me--all questions and problems should be
917 reported to Wget mailing list at <wget@sunsite.auc.dk> where the
918 maintainers will look at them.
921 File: wget.info, Node: Signals, Prev: Portability, Up: Various
926 Since the purpose of Wget is background work, it catches the hangup
927 signal (`SIGHUP') and ignores it. If the output was on standard
928 output, it will be redirected to a file named `wget-log'. Otherwise,
929 `SIGHUP' is ignored. This is convenient when you wish to redirect the
930 output of Wget after having started it.
932 $ wget http://www.ifi.uio.no/~larsi/gnus.tar.gz &
933 $ kill -HUP %% # Redirect the output to wget-log
935 Other than that, Wget will not try to interfere with signals in any
936 way. `C-c', `kill -TERM' and `kill -KILL' should kill it alike.
939 File: wget.info, Node: Appendices, Next: Copying, Prev: Various, Up: Top
944 This chapter contains some references I consider useful, like the
945 Robots Exclusion Standard specification, as well as a list of
946 contributors to GNU Wget.
950 * Robots:: Wget as a WWW robot.
951 * Security Considerations:: Security with Wget.
952 * Contributors:: People who helped.
955 File: wget.info, Node: Robots, Next: Security Considerations, Prev: Appendices, Up: Appendices
960 Since Wget is able to traverse the web, it counts as one of the Web
961 "robots". Thus Wget understands "Robots Exclusion Standard"
962 (RES)--contents of `/robots.txt', used by server administrators to
963 shield parts of their systems from wanderings of Wget.
965 Norobots support is turned on only when retrieving recursively, and
966 *never* for the first page. Thus, you may issue:
968 wget -r http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
970 First the index of fly.cc.fer.hr will be downloaded. If Wget finds
971 anything worth downloading on the same host, only *then* will it load
972 the robots, and decide whether or not to load the links after all.
973 `/robots.txt' is loaded only once per host. Wget does not support the
976 The description of the norobots standard was written, and is
977 maintained by Martijn Koster <m.koster@webcrawler.com>. With his
978 permission, I contribute a (slightly modified) TeXified version of the
983 * Introduction to RES::
987 * Norobots Examples::
990 File: wget.info, Node: Introduction to RES, Next: RES Format, Prev: Robots, Up: Robots
995 "WWW Robots" (also called "wanderers" or "spiders") are programs
996 that traverse many pages in the World Wide Web by recursively
997 retrieving linked pages. For more information see the robots page.
999 In 1993 and 1994 there have been occasions where robots have visited
1000 WWW servers where they weren't welcome for various reasons. Sometimes
1001 these reasons were robot specific, e.g. certain robots swamped servers
1002 with rapid-fire requests, or retrieved the same files repeatedly. In
1003 other situations robots traversed parts of WWW servers that weren't
1004 suitable, e.g. very deep virtual trees, duplicated information,
1005 temporary information, or cgi-scripts with side-effects (such as
1008 These incidents indicated the need for established mechanisms for
1009 WWW servers to indicate to robots which parts of their server should
1010 not be accessed. This standard addresses this need with an operational
1013 This document represents a consensus on 30 June 1994 on the robots
1014 mailing list (`robots@webcrawler.com'), between the majority of robot
1015 authors and other people with an interest in robots. It has also been
1016 open for discussion on the Technical World Wide Web mailing list
1017 (`www-talk@info.cern.ch'). This document is based on a previous working
1018 draft under the same title.
1020 It is not an official standard backed by a standards body, or owned
1021 by any commercial organization. It is not enforced by anybody, and there
1022 no guarantee that all current and future robots will use it. Consider
1023 it a common facility the majority of robot authors offer the WWW
1024 community to protect WWW server against unwanted accesses by their
1027 The latest version of this document can be found at
1028 `http://info.webcrawler.com/mak/projects/robots/norobots.html'.
1031 File: wget.info, Node: RES Format, Next: User-Agent Field, Prev: Introduction to RES, Up: Robots
1036 The format and semantics of the `/robots.txt' file are as follows:
1038 The file consists of one or more records separated by one or more
1039 blank lines (terminated by `CR', `CR/NL', or `NL'). Each record
1040 contains lines of the form:
1042 <field>:<optionalspace><value><optionalspace>
1044 The field name is case insensitive.
1046 Comments can be included in file using UNIX Bourne shell conventions:
1047 the `#' character is used to indicate that preceding space (if any) and
1048 the remainder of the line up to the line termination is discarded.
1049 Lines containing only a comment are discarded completely, and therefore
1050 do not indicate a record boundary.
1052 The record starts with one or more User-agent lines, followed by one
1053 or more Disallow lines, as detailed below. Unrecognized headers are
1056 The presence of an empty `/robots.txt' file has no explicit
1057 associated semantics, it will be treated as if it was not present, i.e.
1058 all robots will consider themselves welcome.
1061 File: wget.info, Node: User-Agent Field, Next: Disallow Field, Prev: RES Format, Up: Robots
1066 The value of this field is the name of the robot the record is
1067 describing access policy for.
1069 If more than one User-agent field is present the record describes an
1070 identical access policy for more than one robot. At least one field
1071 needs to be present per record.
1073 The robot should be liberal in interpreting this field. A case
1074 insensitive substring match of the name without version information is
1077 If the value is `*', the record describes the default access policy
1078 for any robot that has not matched any of the other records. It is not
1079 allowed to have multiple such records in the `/robots.txt' file.
1082 File: wget.info, Node: Disallow Field, Next: Norobots Examples, Prev: User-Agent Field, Up: Robots
1087 The value of this field specifies a partial URL that is not to be
1088 visited. This can be a full path, or a partial path; any URL that
1089 starts with this value will not be retrieved. For example,
1090 `Disallow: /help' disallows both `/help.html' and `/help/index.html',
1091 whereas `Disallow: /help/' would disallow `/help/index.html' but allow
1094 Any empty value, indicates that all URLs can be retrieved. At least
1095 one Disallow field needs to be present in a record.
1098 File: wget.info, Node: Norobots Examples, Prev: Disallow Field, Up: Robots
1103 The following example `/robots.txt' file specifies that no robots
1104 should visit any URL starting with `/cyberworld/map/' or `/tmp/':
1106 # robots.txt for http://www.site.com/
1109 Disallow: /cyberworld/map/ # This is an infinite virtual URL space
1110 Disallow: /tmp/ # these will soon disappear
1112 This example `/robots.txt' file specifies that no robots should
1113 visit any URL starting with `/cyberworld/map/', except the robot called
1116 # robots.txt for http://www.site.com/
1119 Disallow: /cyberworld/map/ # This is an infinite virtual URL space
1121 # Cybermapper knows where to go.
1122 User-agent: cybermapper
1125 This example indicates that no robots should visit this site further:
1132 File: wget.info, Node: Security Considerations, Next: Contributors, Prev: Robots, Up: Appendices
1134 Security Considerations
1135 =======================
1137 When using Wget, you must be aware that it sends unencrypted
1138 passwords through the network, which may present a security problem.
1139 Here are the main issues, and some solutions.
1141 1. The passwords on the command line are visible using `ps'. If this
1142 is a problem, avoid putting passwords from the command line--e.g.
1143 you can use `.netrc' for this.
1145 2. Using the insecure "basic" authentication scheme, unencrypted
1146 passwords are transmitted through the network routers and gateways.
1148 3. The FTP passwords are also in no way encrypted. There is no good
1149 solution for this at the moment.
1151 4. Although the "normal" output of Wget tries to hide the passwords,
1152 debugging logs show them, in all forms. This problem is avoided by
1153 being careful when you send debug logs (yes, even when you send
1157 File: wget.info, Node: Contributors, Prev: Security Considerations, Up: Appendices
1162 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@iskon.hr>. However,
1163 its development could never have gone as far as it has, were it not for
1164 the help of many people, either with bug reports, feature proposals,
1165 patches, or letters saying "Thanks!".
1167 Special thanks goes to the following people (no particular order):
1169 * Karsten Thygesen--donated the mailing list and the initial FTP
1172 * Shawn McHorse--bug reports and patches.
1174 * Kaveh R. Ghazi--on-the-fly `ansi2knr'-ization.
1176 * Gordon Matzigkeit--`.netrc' support.
1178 * Zlatko Calusic, Tomislav Vujec and Drazen Kacar--feature
1179 suggestions and "philosophical" discussions.
1181 * Darko Budor--initial port to Windows.
1183 * Antonio Rosella--help and suggestions, plus the Italian
1186 * Tomislav Petrovic, Mario Mikocevic--many bug reports and
1189 * Francois Pinard--many thorough bug reports and discussions.
1191 * Karl Eichwalder--lots of help with internationalization and other
1194 * Junio Hamano--donated support for Opie and HTTP `Digest'
1197 * Brian Gough--a generous donation.
1199 The following people have provided patches, bug/build reports, useful
1200 suggestions, beta testing services, fan mail and all the other things
1201 that make maintenance so much fun:
1203 Tim Adam, Martin Baehr, Dieter Baron, Roger Beeman and the Gurus at
1204 Cisco, Dan Berger, Mark Boyns, John Burden, Wanderlei Cavassin, Gilles
1205 Cedoc, Tim Charron, Noel Cragg, Kristijan Conkas, Andrew Deryabin,
1206 Damir Dzeko, Andrew Davison, Ulrich Drepper, Marc Duponcheel,
1207 Aleksandar Erkalovic, Andy Eskilsson, Masashi Fujita, Howard Gayle,
1208 Marcel Gerrits, Hans Grobler, Mathieu Guillaume, Dan Harkless, Heiko
1209 Herold, Karl Heuer, HIROSE Masaaki, Gregor Hoffleit, Erik Magnus
1210 Hulthen, Richard Huveneers, Simon Josefsson, Mario Juric, Goran
1211 Kezunovic, Robert Kleine, Fila Kolodny, Alexander Kourakos, Martin
1212 Kraemer, Simos KSenitellis, Hrvoje Lacko, Daniel S. Lewart, Dave Love,
1213 Jordan Mendelson, Lin Zhe Min, Charlie Negyesi, Andrew Pollock, Steve
1214 Pothier, Jan Prikryl, Marin Purgar, Keith Refson, Tobias Ringstrom,
1215 Juan Jose Rodrigues, Edward J. Sabol, Heinz Salzmann, Robert Schmidt,
1216 Toomas Soome, Tage Stabell-Kulo, Sven Sternberger, Markus Strasser,
1217 Szakacsits Szabolcs, Mike Thomas, Russell Vincent, Charles G Waldman,
1218 Douglas E. Wegscheid, Jasmin Zainul, Bojan Zdrnja, Kristijan Zimmer.
1220 Apologies to all who I accidentally left out, and many thanks to all
1221 the subscribers of the Wget mailing list.