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
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 Consider relative URLs in URL input files forced to be interpreted
194 as HTML as being relative to STRING - the same as `-B'.
197 When set to off, disallow server-caching. See the `-C' option.
199 convert links = on/off
200 Convert non-relative links locally. The same as `-k'.
203 Ignore N remote directory components.
206 Debug mode, same as `-d'.
208 delete_after = on/off
209 Delete after download - the same as `--delete-after'.
212 Top of directory tree - the same as `-P'.
215 Turning dirstruct on or off - the same as `-x' or `-nd',
219 Same as `-D' (*Note Domain Acceptance::).
222 Specify the number of bytes "contained" in a dot, as seen
223 throughout the retrieval (1024 by default). You can postfix the
224 value with `k' or `m', representing kilobytes and megabytes,
225 respectively. With dot settings you can tailor the dot retrieval
226 to suit your needs, or you can use the predefined "styles" (*Note
230 Specify the number of dots that will be printed in each line
231 throughout the retrieval (50 by default).
234 Specify the number of dots in a single cluster (10 by default).
237 Specify the dot retrieval "style", as with `--dot-style'.
239 exclude_directories = STRING
240 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude
241 from download - the same as `-X' (*Note Directory-Based Limits::).
243 exclude_domains = STRING
244 Same as `--exclude-domains' (*Note Domain Acceptance::).
247 Follow FTP links from HTML documents - the same as `-f'.
250 Only follow certain HTML tags when doing a recursive retrieval,
251 just like `--follow-tags'.
254 If set to on, force the input filename to be regarded as an HTML
255 document - the same as `-F'.
258 Use STRING as FTP proxy, instead of the one specified in
262 Turn globbing on/off - the same as `-g'.
265 Define an additional header, like `--header'.
271 Use STRING as HTTP proxy, instead of the one specified in
275 Set HTTP user to STRING.
277 ignore_length = on/off
278 When set to on, ignore `Content-Length' header; the same as
282 Ignore certain HTML tags when doing a recursive retrieval, just
283 like `-G' / `--ignore-tags'.
285 include_directories = STRING
286 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow
287 when downloading - the same as `-I'.
290 Read the URLs from STRING, like `-i'.
293 Consider data longer than specified in content-length header as
294 invalid (and retry getting it). The default behaviour is to save
295 as much data as there is, provided there is more than or equal to
296 the value in `Content-Length'.
299 Set logfile - the same as `-o'.
302 Your user name on the remote machine, for FTP. Defaults to
306 Turn mirroring on/off. The same as `-m'.
309 Turn reading netrc on or off.
315 Disallow retrieving outside the directory hierarchy, like
316 `--no-parent' (*Note Directory-Based Limits::).
319 Use STRING as the comma-separated list of domains to avoid in
320 proxy loading, instead of the one specified in environment.
322 output_document = STRING
323 Set the output filename - the same as `-O'.
326 Set passive FTP - the same as `--passive-ftp'.
329 Set your FTP password to PASSWORD. Without this setting, the
330 password defaults to `username@hostname.domainname'.
333 Set proxy authentication user name to STRING, like `--proxy-user'.
335 proxy_passwd = STRING
336 Set proxy authentication password to STRING, like `--proxy-passwd'.
339 Quiet mode - the same as `-q'.
342 Specify the download quota, which is useful to put in the global
343 `wgetrc'. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop
344 retrieving after the download sum has become greater than quota.
345 The quota can be specified in bytes (default), kbytes `k'
346 appended) or mbytes (`m' appended). Thus `quota = 5m' will set
347 the quota to 5 mbytes. Note that the user's startup file overrides
351 Recursion level - the same as `-l'.
354 Recursive on/off - the same as `-r'.
356 relative_only = on/off
357 Follow only relative links - the same as `-L' (*Note Relative
360 remove_listing = on/off
361 If set to on, remove FTP listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it
362 to off is the same as `-nr'.
364 retr_symlinks = on/off
365 When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain
366 files; the same as `--retr-symlinks'.
369 Use (or not) `/robots.txt' file (*Note Robots::). Be sure to know
370 what you are doing before changing the default (which is `on').
372 server_response = on/off
373 Choose whether or not to print the HTTP and FTP server responses -
376 simple_host_check = on/off
377 Same as `-nh' (*Note Host Checking::).
383 Set timeout value - the same as `-T'.
385 timestamping = on/off
386 Turn timestamping on/off. The same as `-N' (*Note Time-Stamping::).
389 Set number of retries per URL - the same as `-t'.
392 Turn proxy support on/off. The same as `-Y'.
395 Turn verbose on/off - the same as `-v'/`-nv'.
398 Wait N seconds between retrievals - the same as `-w'.
401 Wait up to N seconds between retries of failed retrievals only -
402 the same as `--waitretry'. Note that this is turned on by default
403 in the global `wgetrc'.
406 File: wget.info, Node: Sample Wgetrc, Prev: Wgetrc Commands, Up: Startup File
411 This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution.
412 It is divided in two section--one for global usage (suitable for global
413 startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for `$HOME/.wgetrc').
414 Be careful about the things you change.
416 Note that almost all the lines are commented out. For a command to
417 have any effect, you must remove the `#' character at the beginning of
421 ### Sample Wget initialization file .wgetrc
424 ## You can use this file to change the default behaviour of wget or to
425 ## avoid having to type many many command-line options. This file does
426 ## not contain a comprehensive list of commands -- look at the manual
427 ## to find out what you can put into this file.
429 ## Wget initialization file can reside in /usr/local/etc/wgetrc
430 ## (global, for all users) or $HOME/.wgetrc (for a single user).
432 ## To use the settings in this file, you will have to uncomment them,
433 ## as well as change them, in most cases, as the values on the
434 ## commented-out lines are the default values (e.g. "off").
438 ## Global settings (useful for setting up in /usr/local/etc/wgetrc).
439 ## Think well before you change them, since they may reduce wget's
440 ## functionality, and make it behave contrary to the documentation:
443 # You can set retrieve quota for beginners by specifying a value
444 # optionally followed by 'K' (kilobytes) or 'M' (megabytes). The
445 # default quota is unlimited.
448 # You can lower (or raise) the default number of retries when
449 # downloading a file (default is 20).
452 # Lowering the maximum depth of the recursive retrieval is handy to
453 # prevent newbies from going too "deep" when they unwittingly start
454 # the recursive retrieval. The default is 5.
457 # Many sites are behind firewalls that do not allow initiation of
458 # connections from the outside. On these sites you have to use the
459 # `passive' feature of FTP. If you are behind such a firewall, you
460 # can turn this on to make Wget use passive FTP by default.
463 # The "wait" command below makes Wget wait between every connection.
464 # If, instead, you want Wget to wait only between retries of failed
465 # downloads, set waitretry to maximum number of seconds to wait (Wget
466 # will use "linear backoff", waiting 1 second after the first failure
467 # on a file, 2 seconds after the second failure, etc. up to this max).
472 ## Local settings (for a user to set in his $HOME/.wgetrc). It is
473 ## *highly* undesirable to put these settings in the global file, since
474 ## they are potentially dangerous to "normal" users.
476 ## Even when setting up your own ~/.wgetrc, you should know what you
477 ## are doing before doing so.
480 # Set this to on to use timestamping by default:
483 # It is a good idea to make Wget send your email address in a `From:'
484 # header with your request (so that server administrators can contact
485 # you in case of errors). Wget does *not* send `From:' by default.
486 #header = From: Your Name <username@site.domain>
488 # You can set up other headers, like Accept-Language. Accept-Language
489 # is *not* sent by default.
490 #header = Accept-Language: en
492 # You can set the default proxy for Wget to use. It will override the
493 # value in the environment.
494 #http_proxy = http://proxy.yoyodyne.com:18023/
496 # If you do not want to use proxy at all, set this to off.
499 # You can customize the retrieval outlook. Valid options are default,
500 # binary, mega and micro.
503 # Setting this to off makes Wget not download /robots.txt. Be sure to
504 # know *exactly* what /robots.txt is and how it is used before changing
508 # It can be useful to make Wget wait between connections. Set this to
509 # the number of seconds you want Wget to wait.
512 # You can force creating directory structure, even if a single is being
513 # retrieved, by setting this to on.
516 # You can turn on recursive retrieving by default (don't do this if
517 # you are not sure you know what it means) by setting this to on.
520 # To always back up file X as X.orig before converting its links (due
521 # to -k / --convert-links / convert_links = on having been specified),
522 # set this variable to on:
523 #backup_converted = off
525 # To have Wget follow FTP links from HTML files by default, set this
530 File: wget.info, Node: Examples, Next: Various, Prev: Startup File, Up: Top
535 The examples are classified into three sections, because of clarity.
536 The first section is a tutorial for beginners. The second section
537 explains some of the more complex program features. The third section
538 contains advice for mirror administrators, as well as even more complex
539 features (that some would call perverted).
543 * Simple Usage:: Simple, basic usage of the program.
544 * Advanced Usage:: Advanced techniques of usage.
545 * Guru Usage:: Mirroring and the hairy stuff.
548 File: wget.info, Node: Simple Usage, Next: Advanced Usage, Prev: Examples, Up: Examples
553 * Say you want to download a URL. Just type:
555 wget http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
557 The response will be something like:
559 --13:30:45-- http://fly.cc.fer.hr:80/en/
561 Connecting to fly.cc.fer.hr:80... connected!
562 HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
563 Length: 4,694 [text/html]
567 13:30:46 (23.75 KB/s) - `index.html' saved [4694/4694]
569 * But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is
570 lengthy? The connection will probably fail before the whole file
571 is retrieved, more than once. In this case, Wget will try getting
572 the file until it either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the
573 default number of retries (this being 20). It is easy to change
574 the number of tries to 45, to insure that the whole file will
577 wget --tries=45 http://fly.cc.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
579 * Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its
580 progress to log file `log'. It is tiring to type `--tries', so we
583 wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.cc.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &
585 The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in
586 the background. To unlimit the number of retries, use `-t inf'.
588 * The usage of FTP is as simple. Wget will take care of login and
591 $ wget ftp://gnjilux.cc.fer.hr/welcome.msg
592 --10:08:47-- ftp://gnjilux.cc.fer.hr:21/welcome.msg
594 Connecting to gnjilux.cc.fer.hr:21... connected!
595 Logging in as anonymous ... Logged in!
596 ==> TYPE I ... done. ==> CWD not needed.
597 ==> PORT ... done. ==> RETR welcome.msg ... done.
598 Length: 1,340 (unauthoritative)
602 10:08:48 (1.28 MB/s) - `welcome.msg' saved [1340]
604 * If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory
605 listing, parse it and convert it to HTML. Try:
607 wget ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/
611 File: wget.info, Node: Advanced Usage, Next: Guru Usage, Prev: Simple Usage, Up: Examples
616 * You would like to read the list of URLs from a file? Not a problem
621 If you specify `-' as file name, the URLs will be read from
624 * Create a mirror image of GNU WWW site (with the same directory
625 structure the original has) with only one try per document, saving
626 the log of the activities to `gnulog':
628 wget -r -t1 http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/ -o gnulog
630 * Retrieve the first layer of yahoo links:
632 wget -r -l1 http://www.yahoo.com/
634 * Retrieve the index.html of `www.lycos.com', showing the original
637 wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
639 * Save the server headers with the file:
640 wget -s http://www.lycos.com/
643 * Retrieve the first two levels of `wuarchive.wustl.edu', saving them
646 wget -P/tmp -l2 ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
648 * You want to download all the GIFs from an HTTP directory. `wget
649 http://host/dir/*.gif' doesn't work, since HTTP retrieval does not
650 support globbing. In that case, use:
652 wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://host/dir/
654 It is a bit of a kludge, but it works. `-r -l1' means to retrieve
655 recursively (*Note Recursive Retrieval::), with maximum depth of 1.
656 `--no-parent' means that references to the parent directory are
657 ignored (*Note Directory-Based Limits::), and `-A.gif' means to
658 download only the GIF files. `-A "*.gif"' would have worked too.
660 * Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
661 interrupted. Now you do not want to clobber the files already
662 present. It would be:
664 wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
666 * If you want to encode your own username and password to HTTP or
667 FTP, use the appropriate URL syntax (*Note URL Format::).
669 wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@jagor.srce.hr/.emacs
671 * If you do not like the default retrieval visualization (1K dots
672 with 10 dots per cluster and 50 dots per line), you can customize
673 it through dot settings (*Note Wgetrc Commands::). For example,
674 many people like the "binary" style of retrieval, with 8K dots and
677 wget --dot-style=binary ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/README
679 You can experiment with other styles, like:
681 wget --dot-style=mega ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/xemacs-20.4/xemacs-20.4.tar.gz
682 wget --dot-style=micro http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
684 To make these settings permanent, put them in your `.wgetrc', as
685 described before (*Note Sample Wgetrc::).
688 File: wget.info, Node: Guru Usage, Prev: Advanced Usage, Up: Examples
693 * If you wish Wget to keep a mirror of a page (or FTP
694 subdirectories), use `--mirror' (`-m'), which is the shorthand for
695 `-r -N'. You can put Wget in the crontab file asking it to
696 recheck a site each Sunday:
699 0 0 * * 0 wget --mirror ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/ -o /home/me/weeklog
701 * You may wish to do the same with someone's home page. But you do
702 not want to download all those images--you're only interested in
705 wget --mirror -A.html http://www.w3.org/
707 * But what about mirroring the hosts networkologically close to you?
708 It seems so awfully slow because of all that DNS resolving. Just
709 use `-D' (*Note Domain Acceptance::).
711 wget -rN -Dsrce.hr http://www.srce.hr/
713 Now Wget will correctly find out that `regoc.srce.hr' is the same
714 as `www.srce.hr', but will not even take into consideration the
715 link to `www.mit.edu'.
717 * You have a presentation and would like the dumb absolute links to
718 be converted to relative? Use `-k':
722 * You would like the output documents to go to standard output
723 instead of to files? OK, but Wget will automatically shut up
724 (turn on `--quiet') to prevent mixing of Wget output and the
727 wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/
729 You can also combine the two options and make weird pipelines to
730 retrieve the documents from remote hotlists:
732 wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
735 File: wget.info, Node: Various, Next: Appendices, Prev: Examples, Up: Top
740 This chapter contains all the stuff that could not fit anywhere else.
744 * Proxies:: Support for proxy servers
745 * Distribution:: Getting the latest version.
746 * Mailing List:: Wget mailing list for announcements and discussion.
747 * Reporting Bugs:: How and where to report bugs.
748 * Portability:: The systems Wget works on.
749 * Signals:: Signal-handling performed by Wget.
752 File: wget.info, Node: Proxies, Next: Distribution, Prev: Various, Up: Various
757 "Proxies" are special-purpose HTTP servers designed to transfer data
758 from remote servers to local clients. One typical use of proxies is
759 lightening network load for users behind a slow connection. This is
760 achieved by channeling all HTTP and FTP requests through the proxy
761 which caches the transferred data. When a cached resource is requested
762 again, proxy will return the data from cache. Another use for proxies
763 is for companies that separate (for security reasons) their internal
764 networks from the rest of Internet. In order to obtain information
765 from the Web, their users connect and retrieve remote data using an
768 Wget supports proxies for both HTTP and FTP retrievals. The
769 standard way to specify proxy location, which Wget recognizes, is using
770 the following environment variables:
773 This variable should contain the URL of the proxy for HTTP
777 This variable should contain the URL of the proxy for HTTP
778 connections. It is quite common that HTTP_PROXY and FTP_PROXY are
782 This variable should contain a comma-separated list of domain
783 extensions proxy should *not* be used for. For instance, if the
784 value of `no_proxy' is `.mit.edu', proxy will not be used to
785 retrieve documents from MIT.
787 In addition to the environment variables, proxy location and settings
788 may be specified from within Wget itself.
793 This option may be used to turn the proxy support on or off. Proxy
794 support is on by default, provided that the appropriate environment
800 These startup file variables allow you to override the proxy
801 settings specified by the environment.
803 Some proxy servers require authorization to enable you to use them.
804 The authorization consists of "username" and "password", which must be
805 sent by Wget. As with HTTP authorization, several authentication
806 schemes exist. For proxy authorization only the `Basic' authentication
807 scheme is currently implemented.
809 You may specify your username and password either through the proxy
810 URL or through the command-line options. Assuming that the company's
811 proxy is located at `proxy.srce.hr' at port 8001, a proxy URL location
812 containing authorization data might look like this:
814 http://hniksic:mypassword@proxy.company.com:8001/
816 Alternatively, you may use the `proxy-user' and `proxy-password'
817 options, and the equivalent `.wgetrc' settings `proxy_user' and
818 `proxy_passwd' to set the proxy username and password.
821 File: wget.info, Node: Distribution, Next: Mailing List, Prev: Proxies, Up: Various
826 Like all GNU utilities, the latest version of Wget can be found at
827 the master GNU archive site prep.ai.mit.edu, and its mirrors. For
828 example, Wget 1.5.3+dev can be found at
829 `ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/gnu/wget/wget-1.5.3+dev.tar.gz'
832 File: wget.info, Node: Mailing List, Next: Reporting Bugs, Prev: Distribution, Up: Various
837 Wget has its own mailing list at <wget@sunsite.auc.dk>, thanks to
838 Karsten Thygesen. The mailing list is for discussion of Wget features
839 and web, reporting Wget bugs (those that you think may be of interest
840 to the public) and mailing announcements. You are welcome to
841 subscribe. The more people on the list, the better!
843 To subscribe, send mail to <wget-subscribe@sunsite.auc.dk>. the
844 magic word `subscribe' in the subject line. Unsubscribe by mailing to
845 <wget-unsubscribe@sunsite.auc.dk>.
847 The mailing list is archived at `http://fly.cc.fer.hr/archive/wget'.
850 File: wget.info, Node: Reporting Bugs, Next: Portability, Prev: Mailing List, Up: Various
855 You are welcome to send bug reports about GNU Wget to
856 <bug-wget@gnu.org>. The bugs that you think are of the interest to the
857 public (i.e. more people should be informed about them) can be Cc-ed to
858 the mailing list at <wget@sunsite.auc.dk>.
860 Before actually submitting a bug report, please try to follow a few
863 1. Please try to ascertain that the behaviour you see really is a
864 bug. If Wget crashes, it's a bug. If Wget does not behave as
865 documented, it's a bug. If things work strange, but you are not
866 sure about the way they are supposed to work, it might well be a
869 2. Try to repeat the bug in as simple circumstances as possible.
870 E.g. if Wget crashes on `wget -rLl0 -t5 -Y0 http://yoyodyne.com -o
871 /tmp/log', you should try to see if it will crash with a simpler
874 Also, while I will probably be interested to know the contents of
875 your `.wgetrc' file, just dumping it into the debug message is
876 probably a bad idea. Instead, you should first try to see if the
877 bug repeats with `.wgetrc' moved out of the way. Only if it turns
878 out that `.wgetrc' settings affect the bug, should you mail me the
879 relevant parts of the file.
881 3. Please start Wget with `-d' option and send the log (or the
882 relevant parts of it). If Wget was compiled without debug support,
883 recompile it. It is *much* easier to trace bugs with debug support
886 4. If Wget has crashed, try to run it in a debugger, e.g. `gdb `which
887 wget` core' and type `where' to get the backtrace.
889 5. Find where the bug is, fix it and send me the patches. :-)
892 File: wget.info, Node: Portability, Next: Signals, Prev: Reporting Bugs, Up: Various
897 Since Wget uses GNU Autoconf for building and configuring, and avoids
898 using "special" ultra-mega-cool features of any particular Unix, it
899 should compile (and work) on all common Unix flavors.
901 Various Wget versions have been compiled and tested under many kinds
902 of Unix systems, including Solaris, Linux, SunOS, OSF (aka Digital
903 Unix), Ultrix, *BSD, IRIX, and others; refer to the file `MACHINES' in
904 the distribution directory for a comprehensive list. If you compile it
905 on an architecture not listed there, please let me know so I can update
908 Wget should also compile on the other Unix systems, not listed in
909 `MACHINES'. If it doesn't, please let me know.
911 Thanks to kind contributors, this version of Wget compiles and works
912 on Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows NT platforms. It has been compiled
913 successfully using MS Visual C++ 4.0, Watcom, and Borland C compilers,
914 with Winsock as networking software. Naturally, it is crippled of some
915 features available on Unix, but it should work as a substitute for
916 people stuck with Windows. Note that the Windows port is *neither
917 tested nor maintained* by me--all questions and problems should be
918 reported to Wget mailing list at <wget@sunsite.auc.dk> where the
919 maintainers will look at them.
922 File: wget.info, Node: Signals, Prev: Portability, Up: Various
927 Since the purpose of Wget is background work, it catches the hangup
928 signal (`SIGHUP') and ignores it. If the output was on standard
929 output, it will be redirected to a file named `wget-log'. Otherwise,
930 `SIGHUP' is ignored. This is convenient when you wish to redirect the
931 output of Wget after having started it.
933 $ wget http://www.ifi.uio.no/~larsi/gnus.tar.gz &
934 $ kill -HUP %% # Redirect the output to wget-log
936 Other than that, Wget will not try to interfere with signals in any
937 way. `C-c', `kill -TERM' and `kill -KILL' should kill it alike.
940 File: wget.info, Node: Appendices, Next: Copying, Prev: Various, Up: Top
945 This chapter contains some references I consider useful, like the
946 Robots Exclusion Standard specification, as well as a list of
947 contributors to GNU Wget.
951 * Robots:: Wget as a WWW robot.
952 * Security Considerations:: Security with Wget.
953 * Contributors:: People who helped.
956 File: wget.info, Node: Robots, Next: Security Considerations, Prev: Appendices, Up: Appendices
961 Since Wget is able to traverse the web, it counts as one of the Web
962 "robots". Thus Wget understands "Robots Exclusion Standard"
963 (RES)--contents of `/robots.txt', used by server administrators to
964 shield parts of their systems from wanderings of Wget.
966 Norobots support is turned on only when retrieving recursively, and
967 *never* for the first page. Thus, you may issue:
969 wget -r http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
971 First the index of fly.cc.fer.hr will be downloaded. If Wget finds
972 anything worth downloading on the same host, only *then* will it load
973 the robots, and decide whether or not to load the links after all.
974 `/robots.txt' is loaded only once per host. Wget does not support the
977 The description of the norobots standard was written, and is
978 maintained by Martijn Koster <m.koster@webcrawler.com>. With his
979 permission, I contribute a (slightly modified) TeXified version of the
984 * Introduction to RES::
988 * Norobots Examples::
991 File: wget.info, Node: Introduction to RES, Next: RES Format, Prev: Robots, Up: Robots
996 "WWW Robots" (also called "wanderers" or "spiders") are programs
997 that traverse many pages in the World Wide Web by recursively
998 retrieving linked pages. For more information see the robots page.
1000 In 1993 and 1994 there have been occasions where robots have visited
1001 WWW servers where they weren't welcome for various reasons. Sometimes
1002 these reasons were robot specific, e.g. certain robots swamped servers
1003 with rapid-fire requests, or retrieved the same files repeatedly. In
1004 other situations robots traversed parts of WWW servers that weren't
1005 suitable, e.g. very deep virtual trees, duplicated information,
1006 temporary information, or cgi-scripts with side-effects (such as
1009 These incidents indicated the need for established mechanisms for
1010 WWW servers to indicate to robots which parts of their server should
1011 not be accessed. This standard addresses this need with an operational
1014 This document represents a consensus on 30 June 1994 on the robots
1015 mailing list (`robots@webcrawler.com'), between the majority of robot
1016 authors and other people with an interest in robots. It has also been
1017 open for discussion on the Technical World Wide Web mailing list
1018 (`www-talk@info.cern.ch'). This document is based on a previous working
1019 draft under the same title.
1021 It is not an official standard backed by a standards body, or owned
1022 by any commercial organization. It is not enforced by anybody, and there
1023 no guarantee that all current and future robots will use it. Consider
1024 it a common facility the majority of robot authors offer the WWW
1025 community to protect WWW server against unwanted accesses by their
1028 The latest version of this document can be found at
1029 `http://info.webcrawler.com/mak/projects/robots/norobots.html'.
1032 File: wget.info, Node: RES Format, Next: User-Agent Field, Prev: Introduction to RES, Up: Robots
1037 The format and semantics of the `/robots.txt' file are as follows:
1039 The file consists of one or more records separated by one or more
1040 blank lines (terminated by `CR', `CR/NL', or `NL'). Each record
1041 contains lines of the form:
1043 <field>:<optionalspace><value><optionalspace>
1045 The field name is case insensitive.
1047 Comments can be included in file using UNIX Bourne shell conventions:
1048 the `#' character is used to indicate that preceding space (if any) and
1049 the remainder of the line up to the line termination is discarded.
1050 Lines containing only a comment are discarded completely, and therefore
1051 do not indicate a record boundary.
1053 The record starts with one or more User-agent lines, followed by one
1054 or more Disallow lines, as detailed below. Unrecognized headers are
1057 The presence of an empty `/robots.txt' file has no explicit
1058 associated semantics, it will be treated as if it was not present, i.e.
1059 all robots will consider themselves welcome.
1062 File: wget.info, Node: User-Agent Field, Next: Disallow Field, Prev: RES Format, Up: Robots
1067 The value of this field is the name of the robot the record is
1068 describing access policy for.
1070 If more than one User-agent field is present the record describes an
1071 identical access policy for more than one robot. At least one field
1072 needs to be present per record.
1074 The robot should be liberal in interpreting this field. A case
1075 insensitive substring match of the name without version information is
1078 If the value is `*', the record describes the default access policy
1079 for any robot that has not matched any of the other records. It is not
1080 allowed to have multiple such records in the `/robots.txt' file.
1083 File: wget.info, Node: Disallow Field, Next: Norobots Examples, Prev: User-Agent Field, Up: Robots
1088 The value of this field specifies a partial URL that is not to be
1089 visited. This can be a full path, or a partial path; any URL that
1090 starts with this value will not be retrieved. For example,
1091 `Disallow: /help' disallows both `/help.html' and `/help/index.html',
1092 whereas `Disallow: /help/' would disallow `/help/index.html' but allow
1095 Any empty value, indicates that all URLs can be retrieved. At least
1096 one Disallow field needs to be present in a record.
1099 File: wget.info, Node: Norobots Examples, Prev: Disallow Field, Up: Robots
1104 The following example `/robots.txt' file specifies that no robots
1105 should visit any URL starting with `/cyberworld/map/' or `/tmp/':
1107 # robots.txt for http://www.site.com/
1110 Disallow: /cyberworld/map/ # This is an infinite virtual URL space
1111 Disallow: /tmp/ # these will soon disappear
1113 This example `/robots.txt' file specifies that no robots should
1114 visit any URL starting with `/cyberworld/map/', except the robot called
1117 # robots.txt for http://www.site.com/
1120 Disallow: /cyberworld/map/ # This is an infinite virtual URL space
1122 # Cybermapper knows where to go.
1123 User-agent: cybermapper
1126 This example indicates that no robots should visit this site further:
1133 File: wget.info, Node: Security Considerations, Next: Contributors, Prev: Robots, Up: Appendices
1135 Security Considerations
1136 =======================
1138 When using Wget, you must be aware that it sends unencrypted
1139 passwords through the network, which may present a security problem.
1140 Here are the main issues, and some solutions.
1142 1. The passwords on the command line are visible using `ps'. If this
1143 is a problem, avoid putting passwords from the command line--e.g.
1144 you can use `.netrc' for this.
1146 2. Using the insecure "basic" authentication scheme, unencrypted
1147 passwords are transmitted through the network routers and gateways.
1149 3. The FTP passwords are also in no way encrypted. There is no good
1150 solution for this at the moment.
1152 4. Although the "normal" output of Wget tries to hide the passwords,
1153 debugging logs show them, in all forms. This problem is avoided by
1154 being careful when you send debug logs (yes, even when you send
1158 File: wget.info, Node: Contributors, Prev: Security Considerations, Up: Appendices
1163 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@iskon.hr>. However,
1164 its development could never have gone as far as it has, were it not for
1165 the help of many people, either with bug reports, feature proposals,
1166 patches, or letters saying "Thanks!".
1168 Special thanks goes to the following people (no particular order):
1170 * Karsten Thygesen--donated the mailing list and the initial FTP
1173 * Shawn McHorse--bug reports and patches.
1175 * Kaveh R. Ghazi--on-the-fly `ansi2knr'-ization.
1177 * Gordon Matzigkeit--`.netrc' support.
1179 * Zlatko Calusic, Tomislav Vujec and Drazen Kacar--feature
1180 suggestions and "philosophical" discussions.
1182 * Darko Budor--initial port to Windows.
1184 * Antonio Rosella--help and suggestions, plus the Italian
1187 * Tomislav Petrovic, Mario Mikocevic--many bug reports and
1190 * Francois Pinard--many thorough bug reports and discussions.
1192 * Karl Eichwalder--lots of help with internationalization and other
1195 * Junio Hamano--donated support for Opie and HTTP `Digest'
1198 * Brian Gough--a generous donation.
1200 The following people have provided patches, bug/build reports, useful
1201 suggestions, beta testing services, fan mail and all the other things
1202 that make maintenance so much fun:
1204 Tim Adam, Martin Baehr, Dieter Baron, Roger Beeman and the Gurus at
1205 Cisco, Dan Berger, Mark Boyns, John Burden, Wanderlei Cavassin, Gilles
1206 Cedoc, Tim Charron, Noel Cragg, Kristijan Conkas, Andrew Deryabin,
1207 Damir Dzeko, Andrew Davison, Ulrich Drepper, Marc Duponcheel,
1208 Aleksandar Erkalovic, Andy Eskilsson, Masashi Fujita, Howard Gayle,
1209 Marcel Gerrits, Hans Grobler, Mathieu Guillaume, Dan Harkless, Heiko
1210 Herold, Karl Heuer, HIROSE Masaaki, Gregor Hoffleit, Erik Magnus
1211 Hulthen, Richard Huveneers, Simon Josefsson, Mario Juric, Goran
1212 Kezunovic, Robert Kleine, Fila Kolodny, Alexander Kourakos, Martin
1213 Kraemer, Simos KSenitellis, Hrvoje Lacko, Daniel S. Lewart, Dave Love,
1214 Jordan Mendelson, Lin Zhe Min, Charlie Negyesi, Andrew Pollock, Steve
1215 Pothier, Jan Prikryl, Marin Purgar, Keith Refson, Tobias Ringstrom,
1216 Juan Jose Rodrigues, Edward J. Sabol, Heinz Salzmann, Robert Schmidt,
1217 Toomas Soome, Tage Stabell-Kulo, Sven Sternberger, Markus Strasser,
1218 Szakacsits Szabolcs, Mike Thomas, Russell Vincent, Charles G Waldman,
1219 Douglas E. Wegscheid, Jasmin Zainul, Bojan Zdrnja, Kristijan Zimmer.
1221 Apologies to all who I accidentally left out, and many thanks to all
1222 the subscribers of the Wget mailing list.