1 \input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
7 @settitle GNU Wget @value{VERSION} Manual
8 @c Disable the monstrous rectangles beside overfull hbox-es.
10 @c Use `odd' to print double-sided.
15 @c Remove this if you don't use A4 paper.
19 @c Title for man page. The weird way texi2pod.pl is written requires
20 @c the preceding @set.
22 @c man title Wget The non-interactive network downloader.
24 @dircategory Network Applications
26 * Wget: (wget). The non-interactive network downloader.
30 This file documents the the GNU Wget utility for downloading network
33 @c man begin COPYRIGHT
34 Copyright @copyright{} 1996--2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
36 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
37 this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice
38 are preserved on all copies.
41 Permission is granted to process this file through TeX and print the
42 results, provided the printed document carries a copying permission
43 notice identical to this one except for the removal of this paragraph
44 (this paragraph not being relevant to the printed manual).
46 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
47 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
48 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
49 Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A
50 copy of the license is included in the section entitled ``GNU Free
51 Documentation License''.
56 @title GNU Wget @value{VERSION}
57 @subtitle The non-interactive download utility
58 @subtitle Updated for Wget @value{VERSION}, @value{UPDATED}
59 @author by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} and others
63 Originally written by Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@xemacs.org>.
64 Currently maintained by Micah Cowan <micah@cowan.name>.
67 GNU Info entry for @file{wget}.
72 @vskip 0pt plus 1filll
73 Copyright @copyright{} 1996--2006, Free Software Foundation, Inc.
75 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
76 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
77 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
78 Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A
79 copy of the license is included in the section entitled ``GNU Free
80 Documentation License''.
85 @top Wget @value{VERSION}
87 This manual documents version @value{VERSION} of GNU Wget, the freely
88 available utility for network downloads.
90 Copyright @copyright{} 1996--2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
93 * Overview:: Features of Wget.
94 * Invoking:: Wget command-line arguments.
95 * Recursive Download:: Downloading interlinked pages.
96 * Following Links:: The available methods of chasing links.
97 * Time-Stamping:: Mirroring according to time-stamps.
98 * Startup File:: Wget's initialization file.
99 * Examples:: Examples of usage.
100 * Various:: The stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else.
101 * Appendices:: Some useful references.
102 * Copying this manual:: You may give out copies of Wget and of this manual.
103 * Concept Index:: Topics covered by this manual.
112 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
113 GNU Wget is a free utility for non-interactive download of files from
114 the Web. It supports @sc{http}, @sc{https}, and @sc{ftp} protocols, as
115 well as retrieval through @sc{http} proxies.
118 This chapter is a partial overview of Wget's features.
122 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
123 Wget is non-interactive, meaning that it can work in the background,
124 while the user is not logged on. This allows you to start a retrieval
125 and disconnect from the system, letting Wget finish the work. By
126 contrast, most of the Web browsers require constant user's presence,
127 which can be a great hindrance when transferring a lot of data.
132 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
136 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
137 Wget can follow links in @sc{html} and @sc{xhtml} pages and create local
138 versions of remote web sites, fully recreating the directory structure of
139 the original site. This is sometimes referred to as ``recursive
140 downloading.'' While doing that, Wget respects the Robot Exclusion
141 Standard (@file{/robots.txt}). Wget can be instructed to convert the
142 links in downloaded @sc{html} files to the local files for offline
147 File name wildcard matching and recursive mirroring of directories are
148 available when retrieving via @sc{ftp}. Wget can read the time-stamp
149 information given by both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} servers, and store it
150 locally. Thus Wget can see if the remote file has changed since last
151 retrieval, and automatically retrieve the new version if it has. This
152 makes Wget suitable for mirroring of @sc{ftp} sites, as well as home
157 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
161 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
162 Wget has been designed for robustness over slow or unstable network
163 connections; if a download fails due to a network problem, it will
164 keep retrying until the whole file has been retrieved. If the server
165 supports regetting, it will instruct the server to continue the
166 download from where it left off.
170 Wget supports proxy servers, which can lighten the network load, speed
171 up retrieval and provide access behind firewalls. However, if you are
172 behind a firewall that requires that you use a socks style gateway,
173 you can get the socks library and build Wget with support for socks.
174 Wget uses the passive @sc{ftp} downloading by default, active @sc{ftp}
178 Wget supports IP version 6, the next generation of IP. IPv6 is
179 autodetected at compile-time, and can be disabled at either build or
180 run time. Binaries built with IPv6 support work well in both
181 IPv4-only and dual family environments.
184 Built-in features offer mechanisms to tune which links you wish to follow
185 (@pxref{Following Links}).
188 The progress of individual downloads is traced using a progress gauge.
189 Interactive downloads are tracked using a ``thermometer''-style gauge,
190 whereas non-interactive ones are traced with dots, each dot
191 representing a fixed amount of data received (1KB by default). Either
192 gauge can be customized to your preferences.
195 Most of the features are fully configurable, either through command line
196 options, or via the initialization file @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup
197 File}). Wget allows you to define @dfn{global} startup files
198 (@file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default) for site settings.
203 @item /usr/local/etc/wgetrc
204 Default location of the @dfn{global} startup file.
213 Finally, GNU Wget is free software. This means that everyone may use
214 it, redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
215 Public License, as published by the Free Software Foundation (see the
216 file @file{COPYING} that came with GNU Wget, for details).
226 By default, Wget is very simple to invoke. The basic syntax is:
229 @c man begin SYNOPSIS
230 wget [@var{option}]@dots{} [@var{URL}]@dots{}
234 Wget will simply download all the @sc{url}s specified on the command
235 line. @var{URL} is a @dfn{Uniform Resource Locator}, as defined below.
237 However, you may wish to change some of the default parameters of
238 Wget. You can do it two ways: permanently, adding the appropriate
239 command to @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup File}), or specifying it on
245 * Basic Startup Options::
246 * Logging and Input File Options::
248 * Directory Options::
250 * HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options::
252 * Recursive Retrieval Options::
253 * Recursive Accept/Reject Options::
261 @dfn{URL} is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator. A uniform
262 resource locator is a compact string representation for a resource
263 available via the Internet. Wget recognizes the @sc{url} syntax as per
264 @sc{rfc1738}. This is the most widely used form (square brackets denote
268 http://host[:port]/directory/file
269 ftp://host[:port]/directory/file
272 You can also encode your username and password within a @sc{url}:
275 ftp://user:password@@host/path
276 http://user:password@@host/path
279 Either @var{user} or @var{password}, or both, may be left out. If you
280 leave out either the @sc{http} username or password, no authentication
281 will be sent. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} username, @samp{anonymous}
282 will be used. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} password, your email
283 address will be supplied as a default password.@footnote{If you have a
284 @file{.netrc} file in your home directory, password will also be
287 @strong{Important Note}: if you specify a password-containing @sc{url}
288 on the command line, the username and password will be plainly visible
289 to all users on the system, by way of @code{ps}. On multi-user systems,
290 this is a big security risk. To work around it, use @code{wget -i -}
291 and feed the @sc{url}s to Wget's standard input, each on a separate
292 line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
294 You can encode unsafe characters in a @sc{url} as @samp{%xy}, @code{xy}
295 being the hexadecimal representation of the character's @sc{ascii}
296 value. Some common unsafe characters include @samp{%} (quoted as
297 @samp{%25}), @samp{:} (quoted as @samp{%3A}), and @samp{@@} (quoted as
298 @samp{%40}). Refer to @sc{rfc1738} for a comprehensive list of unsafe
301 Wget also supports the @code{type} feature for @sc{ftp} @sc{url}s. By
302 default, @sc{ftp} documents are retrieved in the binary mode (type
303 @samp{i}), which means that they are downloaded unchanged. Another
304 useful mode is the @samp{a} (@dfn{ASCII}) mode, which converts the line
305 delimiters between the different operating systems, and is thus useful
306 for text files. Here is an example:
309 ftp://host/directory/file;type=a
312 Two alternative variants of @sc{url} specification are also supported,
313 because of historical (hysterical?) reasons and their widespreaded use.
315 @sc{ftp}-only syntax (supported by @code{NcFTP}):
320 @sc{http}-only syntax (introduced by @code{Netscape}):
325 These two alternative forms are deprecated, and may cease being
326 supported in the future.
328 If you do not understand the difference between these notations, or do
329 not know which one to use, just use the plain ordinary format you use
330 with your favorite browser, like @code{Lynx} or @code{Netscape}.
335 @section Option Syntax
336 @cindex option syntax
337 @cindex syntax of options
339 Since Wget uses GNU getopt to process command-line arguments, every
340 option has a long form along with the short one. Long options are
341 more convenient to remember, but take time to type. You may freely
342 mix different option styles, or specify options after the command-line
343 arguments. Thus you may write:
346 wget -r --tries=10 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/ -o log
349 The space between the option accepting an argument and the argument may
350 be omitted. Instead @samp{-o log} you can write @samp{-olog}.
352 You may put several options that do not require arguments together,
359 This is a complete equivalent of:
362 wget -d -r -c @var{URL}
365 Since the options can be specified after the arguments, you may
366 terminate them with @samp{--}. So the following will try to download
367 @sc{url} @samp{-x}, reporting failure to @file{log}:
373 The options that accept comma-separated lists all respect the convention
374 that specifying an empty list clears its value. This can be useful to
375 clear the @file{.wgetrc} settings. For instance, if your @file{.wgetrc}
376 sets @code{exclude_directories} to @file{/cgi-bin}, the following
377 example will first reset it, and then set it to exclude @file{/~nobody}
378 and @file{/~somebody}. You can also clear the lists in @file{.wgetrc}
379 (@pxref{Wgetrc Syntax}).
382 wget -X '' -X /~nobody,/~somebody
385 Most options that do not accept arguments are @dfn{boolean} options,
386 so named because their state can be captured with a yes-or-no
387 (``boolean'') variable. For example, @samp{--follow-ftp} tells Wget
388 to follow FTP links from HTML files and, on the other hand,
389 @samp{--no-glob} tells it not to perform file globbing on FTP URLs. A
390 boolean option is either @dfn{affirmative} or @dfn{negative}
391 (beginning with @samp{--no}). All such options share several
394 Unless stated otherwise, it is assumed that the default behavior is
395 the opposite of what the option accomplishes. For example, the
396 documented existence of @samp{--follow-ftp} assumes that the default
397 is to @emph{not} follow FTP links from HTML pages.
399 Affirmative options can be negated by prepending the @samp{--no-} to
400 the option name; negative options can be negated by omitting the
401 @samp{--no-} prefix. This might seem superfluous---if the default for
402 an affirmative option is to not do something, then why provide a way
403 to explicitly turn it off? But the startup file may in fact change
404 the default. For instance, using @code{follow_ftp = off} in
405 @file{.wgetrc} makes Wget @emph{not} follow FTP links by default, and
406 using @samp{--no-follow-ftp} is the only way to restore the factory
407 default from the command line.
409 @node Basic Startup Options
410 @section Basic Startup Options
415 Display the version of Wget.
419 Print a help message describing all of Wget's command-line options.
423 Go to background immediately after startup. If no output file is
424 specified via the @samp{-o}, output is redirected to @file{wget-log}.
426 @cindex execute wgetrc command
427 @item -e @var{command}
428 @itemx --execute @var{command}
429 Execute @var{command} as if it were a part of @file{.wgetrc}
430 (@pxref{Startup File}). A command thus invoked will be executed
431 @emph{after} the commands in @file{.wgetrc}, thus taking precedence over
432 them. If you need to specify more than one wgetrc command, use multiple
433 instances of @samp{-e}.
437 @node Logging and Input File Options
438 @section Logging and Input File Options
443 @item -o @var{logfile}
444 @itemx --output-file=@var{logfile}
445 Log all messages to @var{logfile}. The messages are normally reported
448 @cindex append to log
449 @item -a @var{logfile}
450 @itemx --append-output=@var{logfile}
451 Append to @var{logfile}. This is the same as @samp{-o}, only it appends
452 to @var{logfile} instead of overwriting the old log file. If
453 @var{logfile} does not exist, a new file is created.
458 Turn on debug output, meaning various information important to the
459 developers of Wget if it does not work properly. Your system
460 administrator may have chosen to compile Wget without debug support, in
461 which case @samp{-d} will not work. Please note that compiling with
462 debug support is always safe---Wget compiled with the debug support will
463 @emph{not} print any debug info unless requested with @samp{-d}.
464 @xref{Reporting Bugs}, for more information on how to use @samp{-d} for
470 Turn off Wget's output.
475 Turn on verbose output, with all the available data. The default output
480 Turn off verbose without being completely quiet (use @samp{-q} for
481 that), which means that error messages and basic information still get
486 @itemx --input-file=@var{file}
487 Read @sc{url}s from @var{file}. If @samp{-} is specified as
488 @var{file}, @sc{url}s are read from the standard input. (Use
489 @samp{./-} to read from a file literally named @samp{-}.)
491 If this function is used, no @sc{url}s need be present on the command
492 line. If there are @sc{url}s both on the command line and in an input
493 file, those on the command lines will be the first ones to be
494 retrieved. The @var{file} need not be an @sc{html} document (but no
495 harm if it is)---it is enough if the @sc{url}s are just listed
498 However, if you specify @samp{--force-html}, the document will be
499 regarded as @samp{html}. In that case you may have problems with
500 relative links, which you can solve either by adding @code{<base
501 href="@var{url}">} to the documents or by specifying
502 @samp{--base=@var{url}} on the command line.
507 When input is read from a file, force it to be treated as an @sc{html}
508 file. This enables you to retrieve relative links from existing
509 @sc{html} files on your local disk, by adding @code{<base
510 href="@var{url}">} to @sc{html}, or using the @samp{--base} command-line
513 @cindex base for relative links in input file
515 @itemx --base=@var{URL}
516 Prepends @var{URL} to relative links read from the file specified with
517 the @samp{-i} option.
520 @node Download Options
521 @section Download Options
525 @cindex client IP address
526 @cindex IP address, client
527 @item --bind-address=@var{ADDRESS}
528 When making client TCP/IP connections, bind to @var{ADDRESS} on
529 the local machine. @var{ADDRESS} may be specified as a hostname or IP
530 address. This option can be useful if your machine is bound to multiple
535 @cindex number of retries
536 @item -t @var{number}
537 @itemx --tries=@var{number}
538 Set number of retries to @var{number}. Specify 0 or @samp{inf} for
539 infinite retrying. The default is to retry 20 times, with the exception
540 of fatal errors like ``connection refused'' or ``not found'' (404),
541 which are not retried.
544 @itemx --output-document=@var{file}
545 The documents will not be written to the appropriate files, but all
546 will be concatenated together and written to @var{file}. If @samp{-}
547 is used as @var{file}, documents will be printed to standard output,
548 disabling link conversion. (Use @samp{./-} to print to a file
549 literally named @samp{-}.)
551 Use of @samp{-O} is @emph{not} intended to mean simply ``use the name
552 @var{file} instead of the one in the URL;'' rather, it is
553 analogous to shell redirection.
554 @samp{wget -O file http://foo} is intended to work like
555 @samp{wget -O - http://foo > file}. @file{file} will be truncated
556 immediately, and don't expect timestamping to work with it.
558 Note that a combination with @samp{-k} is only well-defined for
559 downloading a single document.
561 @cindex clobbering, file
562 @cindex downloading multiple times
566 If a file is downloaded more than once in the same directory, Wget's
567 behavior depends on a few options, including @samp{-nc}. In certain
568 cases, the local file will be @dfn{clobbered}, or overwritten, upon
569 repeated download. In other cases it will be preserved.
571 When running Wget without @samp{-N}, @samp{-nc}, or @samp{-r},
572 downloading the same file in the same directory will result in the
573 original copy of @var{file} being preserved and the second copy being
574 named @samp{@var{file}.1}. If that file is downloaded yet again, the
575 third copy will be named @samp{@var{file}.2}, and so on. When
576 @samp{-nc} is specified, this behavior is suppressed, and Wget will
577 refuse to download newer copies of @samp{@var{file}}. Therefore,
578 ``@code{no-clobber}'' is actually a misnomer in this mode---it's not
579 clobbering that's prevented (as the numeric suffixes were already
580 preventing clobbering), but rather the multiple version saving that's
583 When running Wget with @samp{-r}, but without @samp{-N} or @samp{-nc},
584 re-downloading a file will result in the new copy simply overwriting the
585 old. Adding @samp{-nc} will prevent this behavior, instead causing the
586 original version to be preserved and any newer copies on the server to
589 When running Wget with @samp{-N}, with or without @samp{-r}, the
590 decision as to whether or not to download a newer copy of a file depends
591 on the local and remote timestamp and size of the file
592 (@pxref{Time-Stamping}). @samp{-nc} may not be specified at the same
595 Note that when @samp{-nc} is specified, files with the suffixes
596 @samp{.html} or @samp{.htm} will be loaded from the local disk and
597 parsed as if they had been retrieved from the Web.
599 @cindex continue retrieval
600 @cindex incomplete downloads
601 @cindex resume download
604 Continue getting a partially-downloaded file. This is useful when you
605 want to finish up a download started by a previous instance of Wget, or
606 by another program. For instance:
609 wget -c ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/ls-lR.Z
612 If there is a file named @file{ls-lR.Z} in the current directory, Wget
613 will assume that it is the first portion of the remote file, and will
614 ask the server to continue the retrieval from an offset equal to the
615 length of the local file.
617 Note that you don't need to specify this option if you just want the
618 current invocation of Wget to retry downloading a file should the
619 connection be lost midway through. This is the default behavior.
620 @samp{-c} only affects resumption of downloads started @emph{prior} to
621 this invocation of Wget, and whose local files are still sitting around.
623 Without @samp{-c}, the previous example would just download the remote
624 file to @file{ls-lR.Z.1}, leaving the truncated @file{ls-lR.Z} file
627 Beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a non-empty file, and
628 it turns out that the server does not support continued downloading,
629 Wget will refuse to start the download from scratch, which would
630 effectively ruin existing contents. If you really want the download to
631 start from scratch, remove the file.
633 Also beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a file which is of
634 equal size as the one on the server, Wget will refuse to download the
635 file and print an explanatory message. The same happens when the file
636 is smaller on the server than locally (presumably because it was changed
637 on the server since your last download attempt)---because ``continuing''
638 is not meaningful, no download occurs.
640 On the other side of the coin, while using @samp{-c}, any file that's
641 bigger on the server than locally will be considered an incomplete
642 download and only @code{(length(remote) - length(local))} bytes will be
643 downloaded and tacked onto the end of the local file. This behavior can
644 be desirable in certain cases---for instance, you can use @samp{wget -c}
645 to download just the new portion that's been appended to a data
646 collection or log file.
648 However, if the file is bigger on the server because it's been
649 @emph{changed}, as opposed to just @emph{appended} to, you'll end up
650 with a garbled file. Wget has no way of verifying that the local file
651 is really a valid prefix of the remote file. You need to be especially
652 careful of this when using @samp{-c} in conjunction with @samp{-r},
653 since every file will be considered as an "incomplete download" candidate.
655 Another instance where you'll get a garbled file if you try to use
656 @samp{-c} is if you have a lame @sc{http} proxy that inserts a
657 ``transfer interrupted'' string into the local file. In the future a
658 ``rollback'' option may be added to deal with this case.
660 Note that @samp{-c} only works with @sc{ftp} servers and with @sc{http}
661 servers that support the @code{Range} header.
663 @cindex progress indicator
665 @item --progress=@var{type}
666 Select the type of the progress indicator you wish to use. Legal
667 indicators are ``dot'' and ``bar''.
669 The ``bar'' indicator is used by default. It draws an @sc{ascii} progress
670 bar graphics (a.k.a ``thermometer'' display) indicating the status of
671 retrieval. If the output is not a TTY, the ``dot'' bar will be used by
674 Use @samp{--progress=dot} to switch to the ``dot'' display. It traces
675 the retrieval by printing dots on the screen, each dot representing a
676 fixed amount of downloaded data.
678 When using the dotted retrieval, you may also set the @dfn{style} by
679 specifying the type as @samp{dot:@var{style}}. Different styles assign
680 different meaning to one dot. With the @code{default} style each dot
681 represents 1K, there are ten dots in a cluster and 50 dots in a line.
682 The @code{binary} style has a more ``computer''-like orientation---8K
683 dots, 16-dots clusters and 48 dots per line (which makes for 384K
684 lines). The @code{mega} style is suitable for downloading very large
685 files---each dot represents 64K retrieved, there are eight dots in a
686 cluster, and 48 dots on each line (so each line contains 3M).
688 Note that you can set the default style using the @code{progress}
689 command in @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the
690 command line. The exception is that, when the output is not a TTY, the
691 ``dot'' progress will be favored over ``bar''. To force the bar output,
692 use @samp{--progress=bar:force}.
695 @itemx --timestamping
696 Turn on time-stamping. @xref{Time-Stamping}, for details.
698 @cindex server response, print
700 @itemx --server-response
701 Print the headers sent by @sc{http} servers and responses sent by
704 @cindex Wget as spider
707 When invoked with this option, Wget will behave as a Web @dfn{spider},
708 which means that it will not download the pages, just check that they
709 are there. For example, you can use Wget to check your bookmarks:
712 wget --spider --force-html -i bookmarks.html
715 This feature needs much more work for Wget to get close to the
716 functionality of real web spiders.
720 @itemx --timeout=@var{seconds}
721 Set the network timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. This is equivalent
722 to specifying @samp{--dns-timeout}, @samp{--connect-timeout}, and
723 @samp{--read-timeout}, all at the same time.
725 When interacting with the network, Wget can check for timeout and
726 abort the operation if it takes too long. This prevents anomalies
727 like hanging reads and infinite connects. The only timeout enabled by
728 default is a 900-second read timeout. Setting a timeout to 0 disables
729 it altogether. Unless you know what you are doing, it is best not to
730 change the default timeout settings.
732 All timeout-related options accept decimal values, as well as
733 subsecond values. For example, @samp{0.1} seconds is a legal (though
734 unwise) choice of timeout. Subsecond timeouts are useful for checking
735 server response times or for testing network latency.
739 @item --dns-timeout=@var{seconds}
740 Set the DNS lookup timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. DNS lookups that
741 don't complete within the specified time will fail. By default, there
742 is no timeout on DNS lookups, other than that implemented by system
745 @cindex connect timeout
746 @cindex timeout, connect
747 @item --connect-timeout=@var{seconds}
748 Set the connect timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. TCP connections that
749 take longer to establish will be aborted. By default, there is no
750 connect timeout, other than that implemented by system libraries.
753 @cindex timeout, read
754 @item --read-timeout=@var{seconds}
755 Set the read (and write) timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. The
756 ``time'' of this timeout refers @dfn{idle time}: if, at any point in
757 the download, no data is received for more than the specified number
758 of seconds, reading fails and the download is restarted. This option
759 does not directly affect the duration of the entire download.
761 Of course, the remote server may choose to terminate the connection
762 sooner than this option requires. The default read timeout is 900
765 @cindex bandwidth, limit
767 @cindex limit bandwidth
768 @item --limit-rate=@var{amount}
769 Limit the download speed to @var{amount} bytes per second. Amount may
770 be expressed in bytes, kilobytes with the @samp{k} suffix, or megabytes
771 with the @samp{m} suffix. For example, @samp{--limit-rate=20k} will
772 limit the retrieval rate to 20KB/s. This is useful when, for whatever
773 reason, you don't want Wget to consume the entire available bandwidth.
775 This option allows the use of decimal numbers, usually in conjunction
776 with power suffixes; for example, @samp{--limit-rate=2.5k} is a legal
779 Note that Wget implements the limiting by sleeping the appropriate
780 amount of time after a network read that took less time than specified
781 by the rate. Eventually this strategy causes the TCP transfer to slow
782 down to approximately the specified rate. However, it may take some
783 time for this balance to be achieved, so don't be surprised if limiting
784 the rate doesn't work well with very small files.
788 @item -w @var{seconds}
789 @itemx --wait=@var{seconds}
790 Wait the specified number of seconds between the retrievals. Use of
791 this option is recommended, as it lightens the server load by making the
792 requests less frequent. Instead of in seconds, the time can be
793 specified in minutes using the @code{m} suffix, in hours using @code{h}
794 suffix, or in days using @code{d} suffix.
796 Specifying a large value for this option is useful if the network or the
797 destination host is down, so that Wget can wait long enough to
798 reasonably expect the network error to be fixed before the retry. The
799 waiting interval specified by this function is influenced by
800 @code{--random-wait}, which see.
802 @cindex retries, waiting between
803 @cindex waiting between retries
804 @item --waitretry=@var{seconds}
805 If you don't want Wget to wait between @emph{every} retrieval, but only
806 between retries of failed downloads, you can use this option. Wget will
807 use @dfn{linear backoff}, waiting 1 second after the first failure on a
808 given file, then waiting 2 seconds after the second failure on that
809 file, up to the maximum number of @var{seconds} you specify. Therefore,
810 a value of 10 will actually make Wget wait up to (1 + 2 + ... + 10) = 55
813 Note that this option is turned on by default in the global
819 Some web sites may perform log analysis to identify retrieval programs
820 such as Wget by looking for statistically significant similarities in
821 the time between requests. This option causes the time between requests
822 to vary between 0.5 and 1.5 * @var{wait} seconds, where @var{wait} was
823 specified using the @samp{--wait} option, in order to mask Wget's
824 presence from such analysis.
826 A 2001 article in a publication devoted to development on a popular
827 consumer platform provided code to perform this analysis on the fly.
828 Its author suggested blocking at the class C address level to ensure
829 automated retrieval programs were blocked despite changing DHCP-supplied
832 The @samp{--random-wait} option was inspired by this ill-advised
833 recommendation to block many unrelated users from a web site due to the
838 Don't use proxies, even if the appropriate @code{*_proxy} environment
842 For more information about the use of proxies with Wget, @xref{Proxies}.
847 @itemx --quota=@var{quota}
848 Specify download quota for automatic retrievals. The value can be
849 specified in bytes (default), kilobytes (with @samp{k} suffix), or
850 megabytes (with @samp{m} suffix).
852 Note that quota will never affect downloading a single file. So if you
853 specify @samp{wget -Q10k ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/ls-lR.gz}, all of the
854 @file{ls-lR.gz} will be downloaded. The same goes even when several
855 @sc{url}s are specified on the command-line. However, quota is
856 respected when retrieving either recursively, or from an input file.
857 Thus you may safely type @samp{wget -Q2m -i sites}---download will be
858 aborted when the quota is exceeded.
860 Setting quota to 0 or to @samp{inf} unlimits the download quota.
863 @cindex caching of DNS lookups
865 Turn off caching of DNS lookups. Normally, Wget remembers the IP
866 addresses it looked up from DNS so it doesn't have to repeatedly
867 contact the DNS server for the same (typically small) set of hosts it
868 retrieves from. This cache exists in memory only; a new Wget run will
871 However, it has been reported that in some situations it is not
872 desirable to cache host names, even for the duration of a
873 short-running application like Wget. With this option Wget issues a
874 new DNS lookup (more precisely, a new call to @code{gethostbyname} or
875 @code{getaddrinfo}) each time it makes a new connection. Please note
876 that this option will @emph{not} affect caching that might be
877 performed by the resolving library or by an external caching layer,
880 If you don't understand exactly what this option does, you probably
883 @cindex file names, restrict
884 @cindex Windows file names
885 @item --restrict-file-names=@var{mode}
886 Change which characters found in remote URLs may show up in local file
887 names generated from those URLs. Characters that are @dfn{restricted}
888 by this option are escaped, i.e. replaced with @samp{%HH}, where
889 @samp{HH} is the hexadecimal number that corresponds to the restricted
892 By default, Wget escapes the characters that are not valid as part of
893 file names on your operating system, as well as control characters that
894 are typically unprintable. This option is useful for changing these
895 defaults, either because you are downloading to a non-native partition,
896 or because you want to disable escaping of the control characters.
898 When mode is set to ``unix'', Wget escapes the character @samp{/} and
899 the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159. This is the
900 default on Unix-like OS'es.
902 When mode is set to ``windows'', Wget escapes the characters @samp{\},
903 @samp{|}, @samp{/}, @samp{:}, @samp{?}, @samp{"}, @samp{*}, @samp{<},
904 @samp{>}, and the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159.
905 In addition to this, Wget in Windows mode uses @samp{+} instead of
906 @samp{:} to separate host and port in local file names, and uses
907 @samp{@@} instead of @samp{?} to separate the query portion of the file
908 name from the rest. Therefore, a URL that would be saved as
909 @samp{www.xemacs.org:4300/search.pl?input=blah} in Unix mode would be
910 saved as @samp{www.xemacs.org+4300/search.pl@@input=blah} in Windows
911 mode. This mode is the default on Windows.
913 If you append @samp{,nocontrol} to the mode, as in
914 @samp{unix,nocontrol}, escaping of the control characters is also
915 switched off. You can use @samp{--restrict-file-names=nocontrol} to
916 turn off escaping of control characters without affecting the choice of
917 the OS to use as file name restriction mode.
924 Force connecting to IPv4 or IPv6 addresses. With @samp{--inet4-only}
925 or @samp{-4}, Wget will only connect to IPv4 hosts, ignoring AAAA
926 records in DNS, and refusing to connect to IPv6 addresses specified in
927 URLs. Conversely, with @samp{--inet6-only} or @samp{-6}, Wget will
928 only connect to IPv6 hosts and ignore A records and IPv4 addresses.
930 Neither options should be needed normally. By default, an IPv6-aware
931 Wget will use the address family specified by the host's DNS record.
932 If the DNS responds with both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, Wget will try
933 them in sequence until it finds one it can connect to. (Also see
934 @code{--prefer-family} option described below.)
936 These options can be used to deliberately force the use of IPv4 or
937 IPv6 address families on dual family systems, usually to aid debugging
938 or to deal with broken network configuration. Only one of
939 @samp{--inet6-only} and @samp{--inet4-only} may be specified at the
940 same time. Neither option is available in Wget compiled without IPv6
943 @item --prefer-family=IPv4/IPv6/none
944 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
945 with specified address family first. IPv4 addresses are preferred by
948 This avoids spurious errors and connect attempts when accessing hosts
949 that resolve to both IPv6 and IPv4 addresses from IPv4 networks. For
950 example, @samp{www.kame.net} resolves to
951 @samp{2001:200:0:8002:203:47ff:fea5:3085} and to
952 @samp{203.178.141.194}. When the preferred family is @code{IPv4}, the
953 IPv4 address is used first; when the preferred family is @code{IPv6},
954 the IPv6 address is used first; if the specified value is @code{none},
955 the address order returned by DNS is used without change.
957 Unlike @samp{-4} and @samp{-6}, this option doesn't inhibit access to
958 any address family, it only changes the @emph{order} in which the
959 addresses are accessed. Also note that the reordering performed by
960 this option is @dfn{stable}---it doesn't affect order of addresses of
961 the same family. That is, the relative order of all IPv4 addresses
962 and of all IPv6 addresses remains intact in all cases.
964 @item --retry-connrefused
965 Consider ``connection refused'' a transient error and try again.
966 Normally Wget gives up on a URL when it is unable to connect to the
967 site because failure to connect is taken as a sign that the server is
968 not running at all and that retries would not help. This option is
969 for mirroring unreliable sites whose servers tend to disappear for
970 short periods of time.
974 @cindex authentication
975 @item --user=@var{user}
976 @itemx --password=@var{password}
977 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for both
978 @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval. These parameters can be overridden
979 using the @samp{--ftp-user} and @samp{--ftp-password} options for
980 @sc{ftp} connections and the @samp{--http-user} and @samp{--http-password}
981 options for @sc{http} connections.
984 @node Directory Options
985 @section Directory Options
989 @itemx --no-directories
990 Do not create a hierarchy of directories when retrieving recursively.
991 With this option turned on, all files will get saved to the current
992 directory, without clobbering (if a name shows up more than once, the
993 filenames will get extensions @samp{.n}).
996 @itemx --force-directories
997 The opposite of @samp{-nd}---create a hierarchy of directories, even if
998 one would not have been created otherwise. E.g. @samp{wget -x
999 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt} will save the downloaded file to
1000 @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt}.
1003 @itemx --no-host-directories
1004 Disable generation of host-prefixed directories. By default, invoking
1005 Wget with @samp{-r http://fly.srk.fer.hr/} will create a structure of
1006 directories beginning with @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/}. This option disables
1009 @item --protocol-directories
1010 Use the protocol name as a directory component of local file names. For
1011 example, with this option, @samp{wget -r http://@var{host}} will save to
1012 @samp{http/@var{host}/...} rather than just to @samp{@var{host}/...}.
1014 @cindex cut directories
1015 @item --cut-dirs=@var{number}
1016 Ignore @var{number} directory components. This is useful for getting a
1017 fine-grained control over the directory where recursive retrieval will
1020 Take, for example, the directory at
1021 @samp{ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. If you retrieve it with
1022 @samp{-r}, it will be saved locally under
1023 @file{ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. While the @samp{-nH} option can
1024 remove the @file{ftp.xemacs.org/} part, you are still stuck with
1025 @file{pub/xemacs}. This is where @samp{--cut-dirs} comes in handy; it
1026 makes Wget not ``see'' @var{number} remote directory components. Here
1027 are several examples of how @samp{--cut-dirs} option works.
1031 No options -> ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/
1033 -nH --cut-dirs=1 -> xemacs/
1034 -nH --cut-dirs=2 -> .
1036 --cut-dirs=1 -> ftp.xemacs.org/xemacs/
1041 If you just want to get rid of the directory structure, this option is
1042 similar to a combination of @samp{-nd} and @samp{-P}. However, unlike
1043 @samp{-nd}, @samp{--cut-dirs} does not lose with subdirectories---for
1044 instance, with @samp{-nH --cut-dirs=1}, a @file{beta/} subdirectory will
1045 be placed to @file{xemacs/beta}, as one would expect.
1047 @cindex directory prefix
1048 @item -P @var{prefix}
1049 @itemx --directory-prefix=@var{prefix}
1050 Set directory prefix to @var{prefix}. The @dfn{directory prefix} is the
1051 directory where all other files and subdirectories will be saved to,
1052 i.e. the top of the retrieval tree. The default is @samp{.} (the
1057 @section HTTP Options
1060 @cindex .html extension
1062 @itemx --html-extension
1063 If a file of type @samp{application/xhtml+xml} or @samp{text/html} is
1064 downloaded and the URL does not end with the regexp
1065 @samp{\.[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]?}, this option will cause the suffix @samp{.html}
1066 to be appended to the local filename. This is useful, for instance, when
1067 you're mirroring a remote site that uses @samp{.asp} pages, but you want
1068 the mirrored pages to be viewable on your stock Apache server. Another
1069 good use for this is when you're downloading CGI-generated materials. A URL
1070 like @samp{http://site.com/article.cgi?25} will be saved as
1071 @file{article.cgi?25.html}.
1073 Note that filenames changed in this way will be re-downloaded every time
1074 you re-mirror a site, because Wget can't tell that the local
1075 @file{@var{X}.html} file corresponds to remote URL @samp{@var{X}} (since
1076 it doesn't yet know that the URL produces output of type
1077 @samp{text/html} or @samp{application/xhtml+xml}. To prevent this
1078 re-downloading, you must use @samp{-k} and @samp{-K} so that the original
1079 version of the file will be saved as @file{@var{X}.orig} (@pxref{Recursive
1080 Retrieval Options}).
1083 @cindex http password
1084 @cindex authentication
1085 @item --http-user=@var{user}
1086 @itemx --http-password=@var{password}
1087 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1088 @sc{http} server. According to the type of the challenge, Wget will
1089 encode them using either the @code{basic} (insecure) or the
1090 @code{digest} authentication scheme.
1092 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1093 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1094 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1095 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1096 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1097 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1098 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1101 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1108 Disable server-side cache. In this case, Wget will send the remote
1109 server an appropriate directive (@samp{Pragma: no-cache}) to get the
1110 file from the remote service, rather than returning the cached version.
1111 This is especially useful for retrieving and flushing out-of-date
1112 documents on proxy servers.
1114 Caching is allowed by default.
1118 Disable the use of cookies. Cookies are a mechanism for maintaining
1119 server-side state. The server sends the client a cookie using the
1120 @code{Set-Cookie} header, and the client responds with the same cookie
1121 upon further requests. Since cookies allow the server owners to keep
1122 track of visitors and for sites to exchange this information, some
1123 consider them a breach of privacy. The default is to use cookies;
1124 however, @emph{storing} cookies is not on by default.
1126 @cindex loading cookies
1127 @cindex cookies, loading
1128 @item --load-cookies @var{file}
1129 Load cookies from @var{file} before the first HTTP retrieval.
1130 @var{file} is a textual file in the format originally used by Netscape's
1131 @file{cookies.txt} file.
1133 You will typically use this option when mirroring sites that require
1134 that you be logged in to access some or all of their content. The login
1135 process typically works by the web server issuing an @sc{http} cookie
1136 upon receiving and verifying your credentials. The cookie is then
1137 resent by the browser when accessing that part of the site, and so
1138 proves your identity.
1140 Mirroring such a site requires Wget to send the same cookies your
1141 browser sends when communicating with the site. This is achieved by
1142 @samp{--load-cookies}---simply point Wget to the location of the
1143 @file{cookies.txt} file, and it will send the same cookies your browser
1144 would send in the same situation. Different browsers keep textual
1145 cookie files in different locations:
1149 The cookies are in @file{~/.netscape/cookies.txt}.
1151 @item Mozilla and Netscape 6.x.
1152 Mozilla's cookie file is also named @file{cookies.txt}, located
1153 somewhere under @file{~/.mozilla}, in the directory of your profile.
1154 The full path usually ends up looking somewhat like
1155 @file{~/.mozilla/default/@var{some-weird-string}/cookies.txt}.
1157 @item Internet Explorer.
1158 You can produce a cookie file Wget can use by using the File menu,
1159 Import and Export, Export Cookies. This has been tested with Internet
1160 Explorer 5; it is not guaranteed to work with earlier versions.
1162 @item Other browsers.
1163 If you are using a different browser to create your cookies,
1164 @samp{--load-cookies} will only work if you can locate or produce a
1165 cookie file in the Netscape format that Wget expects.
1168 If you cannot use @samp{--load-cookies}, there might still be an
1169 alternative. If your browser supports a ``cookie manager'', you can use
1170 it to view the cookies used when accessing the site you're mirroring.
1171 Write down the name and value of the cookie, and manually instruct Wget
1172 to send those cookies, bypassing the ``official'' cookie support:
1175 wget --no-cookies --header "Cookie: @var{name}=@var{value}"
1178 @cindex saving cookies
1179 @cindex cookies, saving
1180 @item --save-cookies @var{file}
1181 Save cookies to @var{file} before exiting. This will not save cookies
1182 that have expired or that have no expiry time (so-called ``session
1183 cookies''), but also see @samp{--keep-session-cookies}.
1185 @cindex cookies, session
1186 @cindex session cookies
1187 @item --keep-session-cookies
1188 When specified, causes @samp{--save-cookies} to also save session
1189 cookies. Session cookies are normally not saved because they are
1190 meant to be kept in memory and forgotten when you exit the browser.
1191 Saving them is useful on sites that require you to log in or to visit
1192 the home page before you can access some pages. With this option,
1193 multiple Wget runs are considered a single browser session as far as
1194 the site is concerned.
1196 Since the cookie file format does not normally carry session cookies,
1197 Wget marks them with an expiry timestamp of 0. Wget's
1198 @samp{--load-cookies} recognizes those as session cookies, but it might
1199 confuse other browsers. Also note that cookies so loaded will be
1200 treated as other session cookies, which means that if you want
1201 @samp{--save-cookies} to preserve them again, you must use
1202 @samp{--keep-session-cookies} again.
1204 @cindex Content-Length, ignore
1205 @cindex ignore length
1206 @item --ignore-length
1207 Unfortunately, some @sc{http} servers (@sc{cgi} programs, to be more
1208 precise) send out bogus @code{Content-Length} headers, which makes Wget
1209 go wild, as it thinks not all the document was retrieved. You can spot
1210 this syndrome if Wget retries getting the same document again and again,
1211 each time claiming that the (otherwise normal) connection has closed on
1214 With this option, Wget will ignore the @code{Content-Length} header---as
1215 if it never existed.
1218 @item --header=@var{header-line}
1219 Send @var{header-line} along with the rest of the headers in each
1220 @sc{http} request. The supplied header is sent as-is, which means it
1221 must contain name and value separated by colon, and must not contain
1224 You may define more than one additional header by specifying
1225 @samp{--header} more than once.
1229 wget --header='Accept-Charset: iso-8859-2' \
1230 --header='Accept-Language: hr' \
1231 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
1235 Specification of an empty string as the header value will clear all
1236 previous user-defined headers.
1238 As of Wget 1.10, this option can be used to override headers otherwise
1239 generated automatically. This example instructs Wget to connect to
1240 localhost, but to specify @samp{foo.bar} in the @code{Host} header:
1243 wget --header="Host: foo.bar" http://localhost/
1246 In versions of Wget prior to 1.10 such use of @samp{--header} caused
1247 sending of duplicate headers.
1250 @item --max-redirect=@var{number}
1251 Specifies the maximum number of redirections to follow for a resource.
1252 The default is 20, which is usually far more than necessary. However, on
1253 those occasions where you want to allow more (or fewer), this is the
1257 @cindex proxy password
1258 @cindex proxy authentication
1259 @item --proxy-user=@var{user}
1260 @itemx --proxy-password=@var{password}
1261 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for
1262 authentication on a proxy server. Wget will encode them using the
1263 @code{basic} authentication scheme.
1265 Security considerations similar to those with @samp{--http-password}
1266 pertain here as well.
1268 @cindex http referer
1269 @cindex referer, http
1270 @item --referer=@var{url}
1271 Include `Referer: @var{url}' header in HTTP request. Useful for
1272 retrieving documents with server-side processing that assume they are
1273 always being retrieved by interactive web browsers and only come out
1274 properly when Referer is set to one of the pages that point to them.
1276 @cindex server response, save
1277 @item --save-headers
1278 Save the headers sent by the @sc{http} server to the file, preceding the
1279 actual contents, with an empty line as the separator.
1282 @item -U @var{agent-string}
1283 @itemx --user-agent=@var{agent-string}
1284 Identify as @var{agent-string} to the @sc{http} server.
1286 The @sc{http} protocol allows the clients to identify themselves using a
1287 @code{User-Agent} header field. This enables distinguishing the
1288 @sc{www} software, usually for statistical purposes or for tracing of
1289 protocol violations. Wget normally identifies as
1290 @samp{Wget/@var{version}}, @var{version} being the current version
1293 However, some sites have been known to impose the policy of tailoring
1294 the output according to the @code{User-Agent}-supplied information.
1295 While this is not such a bad idea in theory, it has been abused by
1296 servers denying information to clients other than (historically)
1297 Netscape or, more frequently, Microsoft Internet Explorer. This
1298 option allows you to change the @code{User-Agent} line issued by Wget.
1299 Use of this option is discouraged, unless you really know what you are
1302 Specifying empty user agent with @samp{--user-agent=""} instructs Wget
1303 not to send the @code{User-Agent} header in @sc{http} requests.
1306 @item --post-data=@var{string}
1307 @itemx --post-file=@var{file}
1308 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the specified data
1309 in the request body. @code{--post-data} sends @var{string} as data,
1310 whereas @code{--post-file} sends the contents of @var{file}. Other than
1311 that, they work in exactly the same way.
1313 Please be aware that Wget needs to know the size of the POST data in
1314 advance. Therefore the argument to @code{--post-file} must be a regular
1315 file; specifying a FIFO or something like @file{/dev/stdin} won't work.
1316 It's not quite clear how to work around this limitation inherent in
1317 HTTP/1.0. Although HTTP/1.1 introduces @dfn{chunked} transfer that
1318 doesn't require knowing the request length in advance, a client can't
1319 use chunked unless it knows it's talking to an HTTP/1.1 server. And it
1320 can't know that until it receives a response, which in turn requires the
1321 request to have been completed -- a chicken-and-egg problem.
1323 Note: if Wget is redirected after the POST request is completed, it
1324 will not send the POST data to the redirected URL. This is because
1325 URLs that process POST often respond with a redirection to a regular
1326 page, which does not desire or accept POST. It is not completely
1327 clear that this behavior is optimal; if it doesn't work out, it might
1328 be changed in the future.
1330 This example shows how to log to a server using POST and then proceed to
1331 download the desired pages, presumably only accessible to authorized
1336 # @r{Log in to the server. This can be done only once.}
1337 wget --save-cookies cookies.txt \
1338 --post-data 'user=foo&password=bar' \
1339 http://server.com/auth.php
1341 # @r{Now grab the page or pages we care about.}
1342 wget --load-cookies cookies.txt \
1343 -p http://server.com/interesting/article.php
1347 If the server is using session cookies to track user authentication,
1348 the above will not work because @samp{--save-cookies} will not save
1349 them (and neither will browsers) and the @file{cookies.txt} file will
1350 be empty. In that case use @samp{--keep-session-cookies} along with
1351 @samp{--save-cookies} to force saving of session cookies.
1354 @node HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options
1355 @section HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options
1358 To support encrypted HTTP (HTTPS) downloads, Wget must be compiled
1359 with an external SSL library, currently OpenSSL. If Wget is compiled
1360 without SSL support, none of these options are available.
1363 @cindex SSL protocol, choose
1364 @item --secure-protocol=@var{protocol}
1365 Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are @samp{auto},
1366 @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, and @samp{TLSv1}. If @samp{auto} is used,
1367 the SSL library is given the liberty of choosing the appropriate
1368 protocol automatically, which is achieved by sending an SSLv2 greeting
1369 and announcing support for SSLv3 and TLSv1. This is the default.
1371 Specifying @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, or @samp{TLSv1} forces the use
1372 of the corresponding protocol. This is useful when talking to old and
1373 buggy SSL server implementations that make it hard for OpenSSL to
1374 choose the correct protocol version. Fortunately, such servers are
1377 @cindex SSL certificate, check
1378 @item --no-check-certificate
1379 Don't check the server certificate against the available certificate
1380 authorities. Also don't require the URL host name to match the common
1381 name presented by the certificate.
1383 As of Wget 1.10, the default is to verify the server's certificate
1384 against the recognized certificate authorities, breaking the SSL
1385 handshake and aborting the download if the verification fails.
1386 Although this provides more secure downloads, it does break
1387 interoperability with some sites that worked with previous Wget
1388 versions, particularly those using self-signed, expired, or otherwise
1389 invalid certificates. This option forces an ``insecure'' mode of
1390 operation that turns the certificate verification errors into warnings
1391 and allows you to proceed.
1393 If you encounter ``certificate verification'' errors or ones saying
1394 that ``common name doesn't match requested host name'', you can use
1395 this option to bypass the verification and proceed with the download.
1396 @emph{Only use this option if you are otherwise convinced of the
1397 site's authenticity, or if you really don't care about the validity of
1398 its certificate.} It is almost always a bad idea not to check the
1399 certificates when transmitting confidential or important data.
1401 @cindex SSL certificate
1402 @item --certificate=@var{file}
1403 Use the client certificate stored in @var{file}. This is needed for
1404 servers that are configured to require certificates from the clients
1405 that connect to them. Normally a certificate is not required and this
1408 @cindex SSL certificate type, specify
1409 @item --certificate-type=@var{type}
1410 Specify the type of the client certificate. Legal values are
1411 @samp{PEM} (assumed by default) and @samp{DER}, also known as
1414 @item --private-key=@var{file}
1415 Read the private key from @var{file}. This allows you to provide the
1416 private key in a file separate from the certificate.
1418 @item --private-key-type=@var{type}
1419 Specify the type of the private key. Accepted values are @samp{PEM}
1420 (the default) and @samp{DER}.
1422 @item --ca-certificate=@var{file}
1423 Use @var{file} as the file with the bundle of certificate authorities
1424 (``CA'') to verify the peers. The certificates must be in PEM format.
1426 Without this option Wget looks for CA certificates at the
1427 system-specified locations, chosen at OpenSSL installation time.
1429 @cindex SSL certificate authority
1430 @item --ca-directory=@var{directory}
1431 Specifies directory containing CA certificates in PEM format. Each
1432 file contains one CA certificate, and the file name is based on a hash
1433 value derived from the certificate. This is achieved by processing a
1434 certificate directory with the @code{c_rehash} utility supplied with
1435 OpenSSL. Using @samp{--ca-directory} is more efficient than
1436 @samp{--ca-certificate} when many certificates are installed because
1437 it allows Wget to fetch certificates on demand.
1439 Without this option Wget looks for CA certificates at the
1440 system-specified locations, chosen at OpenSSL installation time.
1442 @cindex entropy, specifying source of
1443 @cindex randomness, specifying source of
1444 @item --random-file=@var{file}
1445 Use @var{file} as the source of random data for seeding the
1446 pseudo-random number generator on systems without @file{/dev/random}.
1448 On such systems the SSL library needs an external source of randomness
1449 to initialize. Randomness may be provided by EGD (see
1450 @samp{--egd-file} below) or read from an external source specified by
1451 the user. If this option is not specified, Wget looks for random data
1452 in @code{$RANDFILE} or, if that is unset, in @file{$HOME/.rnd}. If
1453 none of those are available, it is likely that SSL encryption will not
1456 If you're getting the ``Could not seed OpenSSL PRNG; disabling SSL.''
1457 error, you should provide random data using some of the methods
1461 @item --egd-file=@var{file}
1462 Use @var{file} as the EGD socket. EGD stands for @dfn{Entropy
1463 Gathering Daemon}, a user-space program that collects data from
1464 various unpredictable system sources and makes it available to other
1465 programs that might need it. Encryption software, such as the SSL
1466 library, needs sources of non-repeating randomness to seed the random
1467 number generator used to produce cryptographically strong keys.
1469 OpenSSL allows the user to specify his own source of entropy using the
1470 @code{RAND_FILE} environment variable. If this variable is unset, or
1471 if the specified file does not produce enough randomness, OpenSSL will
1472 read random data from EGD socket specified using this option.
1474 If this option is not specified (and the equivalent startup command is
1475 not used), EGD is never contacted. EGD is not needed on modern Unix
1476 systems that support @file{/dev/random}.
1480 @section FTP Options
1484 @cindex ftp password
1485 @cindex ftp authentication
1486 @item --ftp-user=@var{user}
1487 @itemx --ftp-password=@var{password}
1488 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1489 @sc{ftp} server. Without this, or the corresponding startup option,
1490 the password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, normally used for anonymous
1493 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1494 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1495 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1496 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1497 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1498 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1499 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1502 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1506 @cindex .listing files, removing
1507 @item --no-remove-listing
1508 Don't remove the temporary @file{.listing} files generated by @sc{ftp}
1509 retrievals. Normally, these files contain the raw directory listings
1510 received from @sc{ftp} servers. Not removing them can be useful for
1511 debugging purposes, or when you want to be able to easily check on the
1512 contents of remote server directories (e.g. to verify that a mirror
1513 you're running is complete).
1515 Note that even though Wget writes to a known filename for this file,
1516 this is not a security hole in the scenario of a user making
1517 @file{.listing} a symbolic link to @file{/etc/passwd} or something and
1518 asking @code{root} to run Wget in his or her directory. Depending on
1519 the options used, either Wget will refuse to write to @file{.listing},
1520 making the globbing/recursion/time-stamping operation fail, or the
1521 symbolic link will be deleted and replaced with the actual
1522 @file{.listing} file, or the listing will be written to a
1523 @file{.listing.@var{number}} file.
1525 Even though this situation isn't a problem, though, @code{root} should
1526 never run Wget in a non-trusted user's directory. A user could do
1527 something as simple as linking @file{index.html} to @file{/etc/passwd}
1528 and asking @code{root} to run Wget with @samp{-N} or @samp{-r} so the file
1529 will be overwritten.
1531 @cindex globbing, toggle
1533 Turn off @sc{ftp} globbing. Globbing refers to the use of shell-like
1534 special characters (@dfn{wildcards}), like @samp{*}, @samp{?}, @samp{[}
1535 and @samp{]} to retrieve more than one file from the same directory at
1539 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/*.msg
1542 By default, globbing will be turned on if the @sc{url} contains a
1543 globbing character. This option may be used to turn globbing on or off
1546 You may have to quote the @sc{url} to protect it from being expanded by
1547 your shell. Globbing makes Wget look for a directory listing, which is
1548 system-specific. This is why it currently works only with Unix @sc{ftp}
1549 servers (and the ones emulating Unix @code{ls} output).
1552 @item --no-passive-ftp
1553 Disable the use of the @dfn{passive} FTP transfer mode. Passive FTP
1554 mandates that the client connect to the server to establish the data
1555 connection rather than the other way around.
1557 If the machine is connected to the Internet directly, both passive and
1558 active FTP should work equally well. Behind most firewall and NAT
1559 configurations passive FTP has a better chance of working. However,
1560 in some rare firewall configurations, active FTP actually works when
1561 passive FTP doesn't. If you suspect this to be the case, use this
1562 option, or set @code{passive_ftp=off} in your init file.
1564 @cindex symbolic links, retrieving
1565 @item --retr-symlinks
1566 Usually, when retrieving @sc{ftp} directories recursively and a symbolic
1567 link is encountered, the linked-to file is not downloaded. Instead, a
1568 matching symbolic link is created on the local filesystem. The
1569 pointed-to file will not be downloaded unless this recursive retrieval
1570 would have encountered it separately and downloaded it anyway.
1572 When @samp{--retr-symlinks} is specified, however, symbolic links are
1573 traversed and the pointed-to files are retrieved. At this time, this
1574 option does not cause Wget to traverse symlinks to directories and
1575 recurse through them, but in the future it should be enhanced to do
1578 Note that when retrieving a file (not a directory) because it was
1579 specified on the command-line, rather than because it was recursed to,
1580 this option has no effect. Symbolic links are always traversed in this
1583 @cindex Keep-Alive, turning off
1584 @cindex Persistent Connections, disabling
1585 @item --no-http-keep-alive
1586 Turn off the ``keep-alive'' feature for HTTP downloads. Normally, Wget
1587 asks the server to keep the connection open so that, when you download
1588 more than one document from the same server, they get transferred over
1589 the same TCP connection. This saves time and at the same time reduces
1590 the load on the server.
1592 This option is useful when, for some reason, persistent (keep-alive)
1593 connections don't work for you, for example due to a server bug or due
1594 to the inability of server-side scripts to cope with the connections.
1597 @node Recursive Retrieval Options
1598 @section Recursive Retrieval Options
1603 Turn on recursive retrieving. @xref{Recursive Download}, for more
1606 @item -l @var{depth}
1607 @itemx --level=@var{depth}
1608 Specify recursion maximum depth level @var{depth} (@pxref{Recursive
1609 Download}). The default maximum depth is 5.
1611 @cindex proxy filling
1612 @cindex delete after retrieval
1613 @cindex filling proxy cache
1614 @item --delete-after
1615 This option tells Wget to delete every single file it downloads,
1616 @emph{after} having done so. It is useful for pre-fetching popular
1617 pages through a proxy, e.g.:
1620 wget -r -nd --delete-after http://whatever.com/~popular/page/
1623 The @samp{-r} option is to retrieve recursively, and @samp{-nd} to not
1626 Note that @samp{--delete-after} deletes files on the local machine. It
1627 does not issue the @samp{DELE} command to remote FTP sites, for
1628 instance. Also note that when @samp{--delete-after} is specified,
1629 @samp{--convert-links} is ignored, so @samp{.orig} files are simply not
1630 created in the first place.
1632 @cindex conversion of links
1633 @cindex link conversion
1635 @itemx --convert-links
1636 After the download is complete, convert the links in the document to
1637 make them suitable for local viewing. This affects not only the visible
1638 hyperlinks, but any part of the document that links to external content,
1639 such as embedded images, links to style sheets, hyperlinks to non-@sc{html}
1642 Each link will be changed in one of the two ways:
1646 The links to files that have been downloaded by Wget will be changed to
1647 refer to the file they point to as a relative link.
1649 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1650 @file{/bar/img.gif}, also downloaded, then the link in @file{doc.html}
1651 will be modified to point to @samp{../bar/img.gif}. This kind of
1652 transformation works reliably for arbitrary combinations of directories.
1655 The links to files that have not been downloaded by Wget will be changed
1656 to include host name and absolute path of the location they point to.
1658 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1659 @file{/bar/img.gif} (or to @file{../bar/img.gif}), then the link in
1660 @file{doc.html} will be modified to point to
1661 @file{http://@var{hostname}/bar/img.gif}.
1664 Because of this, local browsing works reliably: if a linked file was
1665 downloaded, the link will refer to its local name; if it was not
1666 downloaded, the link will refer to its full Internet address rather than
1667 presenting a broken link. The fact that the former links are converted
1668 to relative links ensures that you can move the downloaded hierarchy to
1671 Note that only at the end of the download can Wget know which links have
1672 been downloaded. Because of that, the work done by @samp{-k} will be
1673 performed at the end of all the downloads.
1675 @cindex backing up converted files
1677 @itemx --backup-converted
1678 When converting a file, back up the original version with a @samp{.orig}
1679 suffix. Affects the behavior of @samp{-N} (@pxref{HTTP Time-Stamping
1684 Turn on options suitable for mirroring. This option turns on recursion
1685 and time-stamping, sets infinite recursion depth and keeps @sc{ftp}
1686 directory listings. It is currently equivalent to
1687 @samp{-r -N -l inf --no-remove-listing}.
1689 @cindex page requisites
1690 @cindex required images, downloading
1692 @itemx --page-requisites
1693 This option causes Wget to download all the files that are necessary to
1694 properly display a given @sc{html} page. This includes such things as
1695 inlined images, sounds, and referenced stylesheets.
1697 Ordinarily, when downloading a single @sc{html} page, any requisite documents
1698 that may be needed to display it properly are not downloaded. Using
1699 @samp{-r} together with @samp{-l} can help, but since Wget does not
1700 ordinarily distinguish between external and inlined documents, one is
1701 generally left with ``leaf documents'' that are missing their
1704 For instance, say document @file{1.html} contains an @code{<IMG>} tag
1705 referencing @file{1.gif} and an @code{<A>} tag pointing to external
1706 document @file{2.html}. Say that @file{2.html} is similar but that its
1707 image is @file{2.gif} and it links to @file{3.html}. Say this
1708 continues up to some arbitrarily high number.
1710 If one executes the command:
1713 wget -r -l 2 http://@var{site}/1.html
1716 then @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, @file{2.gif}, and
1717 @file{3.html} will be downloaded. As you can see, @file{3.html} is
1718 without its requisite @file{3.gif} because Wget is simply counting the
1719 number of hops (up to 2) away from @file{1.html} in order to determine
1720 where to stop the recursion. However, with this command:
1723 wget -r -l 2 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1726 all the above files @emph{and} @file{3.html}'s requisite @file{3.gif}
1727 will be downloaded. Similarly,
1730 wget -r -l 1 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1733 will cause @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, and @file{2.gif}
1734 to be downloaded. One might think that:
1737 wget -r -l 0 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1740 would download just @file{1.html} and @file{1.gif}, but unfortunately
1741 this is not the case, because @samp{-l 0} is equivalent to
1742 @samp{-l inf}---that is, infinite recursion. To download a single @sc{html}
1743 page (or a handful of them, all specified on the command-line or in a
1744 @samp{-i} @sc{url} input file) and its (or their) requisites, simply leave off
1745 @samp{-r} and @samp{-l}:
1748 wget -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1751 Note that Wget will behave as if @samp{-r} had been specified, but only
1752 that single page and its requisites will be downloaded. Links from that
1753 page to external documents will not be followed. Actually, to download
1754 a single page and all its requisites (even if they exist on separate
1755 websites), and make sure the lot displays properly locally, this author
1756 likes to use a few options in addition to @samp{-p}:
1759 wget -E -H -k -K -p http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1762 To finish off this topic, it's worth knowing that Wget's idea of an
1763 external document link is any URL specified in an @code{<A>} tag, an
1764 @code{<AREA>} tag, or a @code{<LINK>} tag other than @code{<LINK
1767 @cindex @sc{html} comments
1768 @cindex comments, @sc{html}
1769 @item --strict-comments
1770 Turn on strict parsing of @sc{html} comments. The default is to terminate
1771 comments at the first occurrence of @samp{-->}.
1773 According to specifications, @sc{html} comments are expressed as @sc{sgml}
1774 @dfn{declarations}. Declaration is special markup that begins with
1775 @samp{<!} and ends with @samp{>}, such as @samp{<!DOCTYPE ...>}, that
1776 may contain comments between a pair of @samp{--} delimiters. @sc{html}
1777 comments are ``empty declarations'', @sc{sgml} declarations without any
1778 non-comment text. Therefore, @samp{<!--foo-->} is a valid comment, and
1779 so is @samp{<!--one-- --two-->}, but @samp{<!--1--2-->} is not.
1781 On the other hand, most @sc{html} writers don't perceive comments as anything
1782 other than text delimited with @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}, which is not
1783 quite the same. For example, something like @samp{<!------------>}
1784 works as a valid comment as long as the number of dashes is a multiple
1785 of four (!). If not, the comment technically lasts until the next
1786 @samp{--}, which may be at the other end of the document. Because of
1787 this, many popular browsers completely ignore the specification and
1788 implement what users have come to expect: comments delimited with
1789 @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}.
1791 Until version 1.9, Wget interpreted comments strictly, which resulted in
1792 missing links in many web pages that displayed fine in browsers, but had
1793 the misfortune of containing non-compliant comments. Beginning with
1794 version 1.9, Wget has joined the ranks of clients that implements
1795 ``naive'' comments, terminating each comment at the first occurrence of
1798 If, for whatever reason, you want strict comment parsing, use this
1799 option to turn it on.
1802 @node Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1803 @section Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1806 @item -A @var{acclist} --accept @var{acclist}
1807 @itemx -R @var{rejlist} --reject @var{rejlist}
1808 Specify comma-separated lists of file name suffixes or patterns to
1809 accept or reject (@pxref{Types of Files} for more details).
1811 @item -D @var{domain-list}
1812 @itemx --domains=@var{domain-list}
1813 Set domains to be followed. @var{domain-list} is a comma-separated list
1814 of domains. Note that it does @emph{not} turn on @samp{-H}.
1816 @item --exclude-domains @var{domain-list}
1817 Specify the domains that are @emph{not} to be followed.
1818 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1820 @cindex follow FTP links
1822 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents. Without this option,
1823 Wget will ignore all the @sc{ftp} links.
1825 @cindex tag-based recursive pruning
1826 @item --follow-tags=@var{list}
1827 Wget has an internal table of @sc{html} tag / attribute pairs that it
1828 considers when looking for linked documents during a recursive
1829 retrieval. If a user wants only a subset of those tags to be
1830 considered, however, he or she should be specify such tags in a
1831 comma-separated @var{list} with this option.
1833 @item --ignore-tags=@var{list}
1834 This is the opposite of the @samp{--follow-tags} option. To skip
1835 certain @sc{html} tags when recursively looking for documents to download,
1836 specify them in a comma-separated @var{list}.
1838 In the past, this option was the best bet for downloading a single page
1839 and its requisites, using a command-line like:
1842 wget --ignore-tags=a,area -H -k -K -r http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1845 However, the author of this option came across a page with tags like
1846 @code{<LINK REL="home" HREF="/">} and came to the realization that
1847 specifying tags to ignore was not enough. One can't just tell Wget to
1848 ignore @code{<LINK>}, because then stylesheets will not be downloaded.
1849 Now the best bet for downloading a single page and its requisites is the
1850 dedicated @samp{--page-requisites} option.
1855 Ignore case when matching files and directories. This influences the
1856 behavior of -R, -A, -I, and -X options, as well as globbing
1857 implemented when downloading from FTP sites. For example, with this
1858 option, @samp{-A *.txt} will match @samp{file1.txt}, but also
1859 @samp{file2.TXT}, @samp{file3.TxT}, and so on.
1863 Enable spanning across hosts when doing recursive retrieving
1864 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1868 Follow relative links only. Useful for retrieving a specific home page
1869 without any distractions, not even those from the same hosts
1870 (@pxref{Relative Links}).
1873 @itemx --include-directories=@var{list}
1874 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
1875 downloading (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits} for more details.) Elements
1876 of @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1879 @itemx --exclude-directories=@var{list}
1880 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
1881 download (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits} for more details.) Elements of
1882 @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1886 Do not ever ascend to the parent directory when retrieving recursively.
1887 This is a useful option, since it guarantees that only the files
1888 @emph{below} a certain hierarchy will be downloaded.
1889 @xref{Directory-Based Limits}, for more details.
1894 @node Recursive Download
1895 @chapter Recursive Download
1898 @cindex recursive download
1900 GNU Wget is capable of traversing parts of the Web (or a single
1901 @sc{http} or @sc{ftp} server), following links and directory structure.
1902 We refer to this as to @dfn{recursive retrieval}, or @dfn{recursion}.
1904 With @sc{http} @sc{url}s, Wget retrieves and parses the @sc{html} from
1905 the given @sc{url}, documents, retrieving the files the @sc{html}
1906 document was referring to, through markup like @code{href}, or
1907 @code{src}. If the freshly downloaded file is also of type
1908 @code{text/html} or @code{application/xhtml+xml}, it will be parsed and
1911 Recursive retrieval of @sc{http} and @sc{html} content is
1912 @dfn{breadth-first}. This means that Wget first downloads the requested
1913 @sc{html} document, then the documents linked from that document, then the
1914 documents linked by them, and so on. In other words, Wget first
1915 downloads the documents at depth 1, then those at depth 2, and so on
1916 until the specified maximum depth.
1918 The maximum @dfn{depth} to which the retrieval may descend is specified
1919 with the @samp{-l} option. The default maximum depth is five layers.
1921 When retrieving an @sc{ftp} @sc{url} recursively, Wget will retrieve all
1922 the data from the given directory tree (including the subdirectories up
1923 to the specified depth) on the remote server, creating its mirror image
1924 locally. @sc{ftp} retrieval is also limited by the @code{depth}
1925 parameter. Unlike @sc{http} recursion, @sc{ftp} recursion is performed
1928 By default, Wget will create a local directory tree, corresponding to
1929 the one found on the remote server.
1931 Recursive retrieving can find a number of applications, the most
1932 important of which is mirroring. It is also useful for @sc{www}
1933 presentations, and any other opportunities where slow network
1934 connections should be bypassed by storing the files locally.
1936 You should be warned that recursive downloads can overload the remote
1937 servers. Because of that, many administrators frown upon them and may
1938 ban access from your site if they detect very fast downloads of big
1939 amounts of content. When downloading from Internet servers, consider
1940 using the @samp{-w} option to introduce a delay between accesses to the
1941 server. The download will take a while longer, but the server
1942 administrator will not be alarmed by your rudeness.
1944 Of course, recursive download may cause problems on your machine. If
1945 left to run unchecked, it can easily fill up the disk. If downloading
1946 from local network, it can also take bandwidth on the system, as well as
1947 consume memory and CPU.
1949 Try to specify the criteria that match the kind of download you are
1950 trying to achieve. If you want to download only one page, use
1951 @samp{--page-requisites} without any additional recursion. If you want
1952 to download things under one directory, use @samp{-np} to avoid
1953 downloading things from other directories. If you want to download all
1954 the files from one directory, use @samp{-l 1} to make sure the recursion
1955 depth never exceeds one. @xref{Following Links}, for more information
1958 Recursive retrieval should be used with care. Don't say you were not
1961 @node Following Links
1962 @chapter Following Links
1964 @cindex following links
1966 When retrieving recursively, one does not wish to retrieve loads of
1967 unnecessary data. Most of the time the users bear in mind exactly what
1968 they want to download, and want Wget to follow only specific links.
1970 For example, if you wish to download the music archive from
1971 @samp{fly.srk.fer.hr}, you will not want to download all the home pages
1972 that happen to be referenced by an obscure part of the archive.
1974 Wget possesses several mechanisms that allows you to fine-tune which
1975 links it will follow.
1978 * Spanning Hosts:: (Un)limiting retrieval based on host name.
1979 * Types of Files:: Getting only certain files.
1980 * Directory-Based Limits:: Getting only certain directories.
1981 * Relative Links:: Follow relative links only.
1982 * FTP Links:: Following FTP links.
1985 @node Spanning Hosts
1986 @section Spanning Hosts
1987 @cindex spanning hosts
1988 @cindex hosts, spanning
1990 Wget's recursive retrieval normally refuses to visit hosts different
1991 than the one you specified on the command line. This is a reasonable
1992 default; without it, every retrieval would have the potential to turn
1993 your Wget into a small version of google.
1995 However, visiting different hosts, or @dfn{host spanning,} is sometimes
1996 a useful option. Maybe the images are served from a different server.
1997 Maybe you're mirroring a site that consists of pages interlinked between
1998 three servers. Maybe the server has two equivalent names, and the @sc{html}
1999 pages refer to both interchangeably.
2002 @item Span to any host---@samp{-H}
2004 The @samp{-H} option turns on host spanning, thus allowing Wget's
2005 recursive run to visit any host referenced by a link. Unless sufficient
2006 recursion-limiting criteria are applied depth, these foreign hosts will
2007 typically link to yet more hosts, and so on until Wget ends up sucking
2008 up much more data than you have intended.
2010 @item Limit spanning to certain domains---@samp{-D}
2012 The @samp{-D} option allows you to specify the domains that will be
2013 followed, thus limiting the recursion only to the hosts that belong to
2014 these domains. Obviously, this makes sense only in conjunction with
2015 @samp{-H}. A typical example would be downloading the contents of
2016 @samp{www.server.com}, but allowing downloads from
2017 @samp{images.server.com}, etc.:
2020 wget -rH -Dserver.com http://www.server.com/
2023 You can specify more than one address by separating them with a comma,
2024 e.g. @samp{-Ddomain1.com,domain2.com}.
2026 @item Keep download off certain domains---@samp{--exclude-domains}
2028 If there are domains you want to exclude specifically, you can do it
2029 with @samp{--exclude-domains}, which accepts the same type of arguments
2030 of @samp{-D}, but will @emph{exclude} all the listed domains. For
2031 example, if you want to download all the hosts from @samp{foo.edu}
2032 domain, with the exception of @samp{sunsite.foo.edu}, you can do it like
2036 wget -rH -Dfoo.edu --exclude-domains sunsite.foo.edu \
2042 @node Types of Files
2043 @section Types of Files
2044 @cindex types of files
2046 When downloading material from the web, you will often want to restrict
2047 the retrieval to only certain file types. For example, if you are
2048 interested in downloading @sc{gif}s, you will not be overjoyed to get
2049 loads of PostScript documents, and vice versa.
2051 Wget offers two options to deal with this problem. Each option
2052 description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent command
2055 @cindex accept wildcards
2056 @cindex accept suffixes
2057 @cindex wildcards, accept
2058 @cindex suffixes, accept
2060 @item -A @var{acclist}
2061 @itemx --accept @var{acclist}
2062 @itemx accept = @var{acclist}
2063 The argument to @samp{--accept} option is a list of file suffixes or
2064 patterns that Wget will download during recursive retrieval. A suffix
2065 is the ending part of a file, and consists of ``normal'' letters,
2066 e.g. @samp{gif} or @samp{.jpg}. A matching pattern contains shell-like
2067 wildcards, e.g. @samp{books*} or @samp{zelazny*196[0-9]*}.
2069 So, specifying @samp{wget -A gif,jpg} will make Wget download only the
2070 files ending with @samp{gif} or @samp{jpg}, i.e. @sc{gif}s and
2071 @sc{jpeg}s. On the other hand, @samp{wget -A "zelazny*196[0-9]*"} will
2072 download only files beginning with @samp{zelazny} and containing numbers
2073 from 1960 to 1969 anywhere within. Look up the manual of your shell for
2074 a description of how pattern matching works.
2076 Of course, any number of suffixes and patterns can be combined into a
2077 comma-separated list, and given as an argument to @samp{-A}.
2079 @cindex reject wildcards
2080 @cindex reject suffixes
2081 @cindex wildcards, reject
2082 @cindex suffixes, reject
2083 @item -R @var{rejlist}
2084 @itemx --reject @var{rejlist}
2085 @itemx reject = @var{rejlist}
2086 The @samp{--reject} option works the same way as @samp{--accept}, only
2087 its logic is the reverse; Wget will download all files @emph{except} the
2088 ones matching the suffixes (or patterns) in the list.
2090 So, if you want to download a whole page except for the cumbersome
2091 @sc{mpeg}s and @sc{.au} files, you can use @samp{wget -R mpg,mpeg,au}.
2092 Analogously, to download all files except the ones beginning with
2093 @samp{bjork}, use @samp{wget -R "bjork*"}. The quotes are to prevent
2094 expansion by the shell.
2097 The @samp{-A} and @samp{-R} options may be combined to achieve even
2098 better fine-tuning of which files to retrieve. E.g. @samp{wget -A
2099 "*zelazny*" -R .ps} will download all the files having @samp{zelazny} as
2100 a part of their name, but @emph{not} the PostScript files.
2102 Note that these two options do not affect the downloading of @sc{html}
2103 files; Wget must load all the @sc{html}s to know where to go at
2104 all---recursive retrieval would make no sense otherwise.
2106 @node Directory-Based Limits
2107 @section Directory-Based Limits
2109 @cindex directory limits
2111 Regardless of other link-following facilities, it is often useful to
2112 place the restriction of what files to retrieve based on the directories
2113 those files are placed in. There can be many reasons for this---the
2114 home pages may be organized in a reasonable directory structure; or some
2115 directories may contain useless information, e.g. @file{/cgi-bin} or
2116 @file{/dev} directories.
2118 Wget offers three different options to deal with this requirement. Each
2119 option description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent
2120 command in @file{.wgetrc}.
2122 @cindex directories, include
2123 @cindex include directories
2124 @cindex accept directories
2127 @itemx --include @var{list}
2128 @itemx include_directories = @var{list}
2129 @samp{-I} option accepts a comma-separated list of directories included
2130 in the retrieval. Any other directories will simply be ignored. The
2131 directories are absolute paths.
2133 So, if you wish to download from @samp{http://host/people/bozo/}
2134 following only links to bozo's colleagues in the @file{/people}
2135 directory and the bogus scripts in @file{/cgi-bin}, you can specify:
2138 wget -I /people,/cgi-bin http://host/people/bozo/
2141 @cindex directories, exclude
2142 @cindex exclude directories
2143 @cindex reject directories
2145 @itemx --exclude @var{list}
2146 @itemx exclude_directories = @var{list}
2147 @samp{-X} option is exactly the reverse of @samp{-I}---this is a list of
2148 directories @emph{excluded} from the download. E.g. if you do not want
2149 Wget to download things from @file{/cgi-bin} directory, specify @samp{-X
2150 /cgi-bin} on the command line.
2152 The same as with @samp{-A}/@samp{-R}, these two options can be combined
2153 to get a better fine-tuning of downloading subdirectories. E.g. if you
2154 want to load all the files from @file{/pub} hierarchy except for
2155 @file{/pub/worthless}, specify @samp{-I/pub -X/pub/worthless}.
2160 @itemx no_parent = on
2161 The simplest, and often very useful way of limiting directories is
2162 disallowing retrieval of the links that refer to the hierarchy
2163 @dfn{above} than the beginning directory, i.e. disallowing ascent to the
2164 parent directory/directories.
2166 The @samp{--no-parent} option (short @samp{-np}) is useful in this case.
2167 Using it guarantees that you will never leave the existing hierarchy.
2168 Supposing you issue Wget with:
2171 wget -r --no-parent http://somehost/~luzer/my-archive/
2174 You may rest assured that none of the references to
2175 @file{/~his-girls-homepage/} or @file{/~luzer/all-my-mpegs/} will be
2176 followed. Only the archive you are interested in will be downloaded.
2177 Essentially, @samp{--no-parent} is similar to
2178 @samp{-I/~luzer/my-archive}, only it handles redirections in a more
2179 intelligent fashion.
2182 @node Relative Links
2183 @section Relative Links
2184 @cindex relative links
2186 When @samp{-L} is turned on, only the relative links are ever followed.
2187 Relative links are here defined those that do not refer to the web
2188 server root. For example, these links are relative:
2192 <a href="foo/bar.gif">
2193 <a href="../foo/bar.gif">
2196 These links are not relative:
2200 <a href="/foo/bar.gif">
2201 <a href="http://www.server.com/foo/bar.gif">
2204 Using this option guarantees that recursive retrieval will not span
2205 hosts, even without @samp{-H}. In simple cases it also allows downloads
2206 to ``just work'' without having to convert links.
2208 This option is probably not very useful and might be removed in a future
2212 @section Following FTP Links
2213 @cindex following ftp links
2215 The rules for @sc{ftp} are somewhat specific, as it is necessary for
2216 them to be. @sc{ftp} links in @sc{html} documents are often included
2217 for purposes of reference, and it is often inconvenient to download them
2220 To have @sc{ftp} links followed from @sc{html} documents, you need to
2221 specify the @samp{--follow-ftp} option. Having done that, @sc{ftp}
2222 links will span hosts regardless of @samp{-H} setting. This is logical,
2223 as @sc{ftp} links rarely point to the same host where the @sc{http}
2224 server resides. For similar reasons, the @samp{-L} options has no
2225 effect on such downloads. On the other hand, domain acceptance
2226 (@samp{-D}) and suffix rules (@samp{-A} and @samp{-R}) apply normally.
2228 Also note that followed links to @sc{ftp} directories will not be
2229 retrieved recursively further.
2232 @chapter Time-Stamping
2233 @cindex time-stamping
2234 @cindex timestamping
2235 @cindex updating the archives
2236 @cindex incremental updating
2238 One of the most important aspects of mirroring information from the
2239 Internet is updating your archives.
2241 Downloading the whole archive again and again, just to replace a few
2242 changed files is expensive, both in terms of wasted bandwidth and money,
2243 and the time to do the update. This is why all the mirroring tools
2244 offer the option of incremental updating.
2246 Such an updating mechanism means that the remote server is scanned in
2247 search of @dfn{new} files. Only those new files will be downloaded in
2248 the place of the old ones.
2250 A file is considered new if one of these two conditions are met:
2254 A file of that name does not already exist locally.
2257 A file of that name does exist, but the remote file was modified more
2258 recently than the local file.
2261 To implement this, the program needs to be aware of the time of last
2262 modification of both local and remote files. We call this information the
2263 @dfn{time-stamp} of a file.
2265 The time-stamping in GNU Wget is turned on using @samp{--timestamping}
2266 (@samp{-N}) option, or through @code{timestamping = on} directive in
2267 @file{.wgetrc}. With this option, for each file it intends to download,
2268 Wget will check whether a local file of the same name exists. If it
2269 does, and the remote file is older, Wget will not download it.
2271 If the local file does not exist, or the sizes of the files do not
2272 match, Wget will download the remote file no matter what the time-stamps
2276 * Time-Stamping Usage::
2277 * HTTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2278 * FTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2281 @node Time-Stamping Usage
2282 @section Time-Stamping Usage
2283 @cindex time-stamping usage
2284 @cindex usage, time-stamping
2286 The usage of time-stamping is simple. Say you would like to download a
2287 file so that it keeps its date of modification.
2290 wget -S http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2293 A simple @code{ls -l} shows that the time stamp on the local file equals
2294 the state of the @code{Last-Modified} header, as returned by the server.
2295 As you can see, the time-stamping info is preserved locally, even
2296 without @samp{-N} (at least for @sc{http}).
2298 Several days later, you would like Wget to check if the remote file has
2299 changed, and download it if it has.
2302 wget -N http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2305 Wget will ask the server for the last-modified date. If the local file
2306 has the same timestamp as the server, or a newer one, the remote file
2307 will not be re-fetched. However, if the remote file is more recent,
2308 Wget will proceed to fetch it.
2310 The same goes for @sc{ftp}. For example:
2313 wget "ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/emacs/gnus/*"
2316 (The quotes around that URL are to prevent the shell from trying to
2317 interpret the @samp{*}.)
2319 After download, a local directory listing will show that the timestamps
2320 match those on the remote server. Reissuing the command with @samp{-N}
2321 will make Wget re-fetch @emph{only} the files that have been modified
2322 since the last download.
2324 If you wished to mirror the GNU archive every week, you would use a
2325 command like the following, weekly:
2328 wget --timestamping -r ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
2331 Note that time-stamping will only work for files for which the server
2332 gives a timestamp. For @sc{http}, this depends on getting a
2333 @code{Last-Modified} header. For @sc{ftp}, this depends on getting a
2334 directory listing with dates in a format that Wget can parse
2335 (@pxref{FTP Time-Stamping Internals}).
2337 @node HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2338 @section HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2339 @cindex http time-stamping
2341 Time-stamping in @sc{http} is implemented by checking of the
2342 @code{Last-Modified} header. If you wish to retrieve the file
2343 @file{foo.html} through @sc{http}, Wget will check whether
2344 @file{foo.html} exists locally. If it doesn't, @file{foo.html} will be
2345 retrieved unconditionally.
2347 If the file does exist locally, Wget will first check its local
2348 time-stamp (similar to the way @code{ls -l} checks it), and then send a
2349 @code{HEAD} request to the remote server, demanding the information on
2352 The @code{Last-Modified} header is examined to find which file was
2353 modified more recently (which makes it ``newer''). If the remote file
2354 is newer, it will be downloaded; if it is older, Wget will give
2355 up.@footnote{As an additional check, Wget will look at the
2356 @code{Content-Length} header, and compare the sizes; if they are not the
2357 same, the remote file will be downloaded no matter what the time-stamp
2360 When @samp{--backup-converted} (@samp{-K}) is specified in conjunction
2361 with @samp{-N}, server file @samp{@var{X}} is compared to local file
2362 @samp{@var{X}.orig}, if extant, rather than being compared to local file
2363 @samp{@var{X}}, which will always differ if it's been converted by
2364 @samp{--convert-links} (@samp{-k}).
2366 Arguably, @sc{http} time-stamping should be implemented using the
2367 @code{If-Modified-Since} request.
2369 @node FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2370 @section FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2371 @cindex ftp time-stamping
2373 In theory, @sc{ftp} time-stamping works much the same as @sc{http}, only
2374 @sc{ftp} has no headers---time-stamps must be ferreted out of directory
2377 If an @sc{ftp} download is recursive or uses globbing, Wget will use the
2378 @sc{ftp} @code{LIST} command to get a file listing for the directory
2379 containing the desired file(s). It will try to analyze the listing,
2380 treating it like Unix @code{ls -l} output, extracting the time-stamps.
2381 The rest is exactly the same as for @sc{http}. Note that when
2382 retrieving individual files from an @sc{ftp} server without using
2383 globbing or recursion, listing files will not be downloaded (and thus
2384 files will not be time-stamped) unless @samp{-N} is specified.
2386 Assumption that every directory listing is a Unix-style listing may
2387 sound extremely constraining, but in practice it is not, as many
2388 non-Unix @sc{ftp} servers use the Unixoid listing format because most
2389 (all?) of the clients understand it. Bear in mind that @sc{rfc959}
2390 defines no standard way to get a file list, let alone the time-stamps.
2391 We can only hope that a future standard will define this.
2393 Another non-standard solution includes the use of @code{MDTM} command
2394 that is supported by some @sc{ftp} servers (including the popular
2395 @code{wu-ftpd}), which returns the exact time of the specified file.
2396 Wget may support this command in the future.
2399 @chapter Startup File
2400 @cindex startup file
2406 Once you know how to change default settings of Wget through command
2407 line arguments, you may wish to make some of those settings permanent.
2408 You can do that in a convenient way by creating the Wget startup
2409 file---@file{.wgetrc}.
2411 Besides @file{.wgetrc} is the ``main'' initialization file, it is
2412 convenient to have a special facility for storing passwords. Thus Wget
2413 reads and interprets the contents of @file{$HOME/.netrc}, if it finds
2414 it. You can find @file{.netrc} format in your system manuals.
2416 Wget reads @file{.wgetrc} upon startup, recognizing a limited set of
2420 * Wgetrc Location:: Location of various wgetrc files.
2421 * Wgetrc Syntax:: Syntax of wgetrc.
2422 * Wgetrc Commands:: List of available commands.
2423 * Sample Wgetrc:: A wgetrc example.
2426 @node Wgetrc Location
2427 @section Wgetrc Location
2428 @cindex wgetrc location
2429 @cindex location of wgetrc
2431 When initializing, Wget will look for a @dfn{global} startup file,
2432 @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default (or some prefix other than
2433 @file{/usr/local}, if Wget was not installed there) and read commands
2434 from there, if it exists.
2436 Then it will look for the user's file. If the environmental variable
2437 @code{WGETRC} is set, Wget will try to load that file. Failing that, no
2438 further attempts will be made.
2440 If @code{WGETRC} is not set, Wget will try to load @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}.
2442 The fact that user's settings are loaded after the system-wide ones
2443 means that in case of collision user's wgetrc @emph{overrides} the
2444 system-wide wgetrc (in @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default).
2445 Fascist admins, away!
2448 @section Wgetrc Syntax
2449 @cindex wgetrc syntax
2450 @cindex syntax of wgetrc
2452 The syntax of a wgetrc command is simple:
2458 The @dfn{variable} will also be called @dfn{command}. Valid
2459 @dfn{values} are different for different commands.
2461 The commands are case-insensitive and underscore-insensitive. Thus
2462 @samp{DIr__PrefiX} is the same as @samp{dirprefix}. Empty lines, lines
2463 beginning with @samp{#} and lines containing white-space only are
2466 Commands that expect a comma-separated list will clear the list on an
2467 empty command. So, if you wish to reset the rejection list specified in
2468 global @file{wgetrc}, you can do it with:
2474 @node Wgetrc Commands
2475 @section Wgetrc Commands
2476 @cindex wgetrc commands
2478 The complete set of commands is listed below. Legal values are listed
2479 after the @samp{=}. Simple Boolean values can be set or unset using
2480 @samp{on} and @samp{off} or @samp{1} and @samp{0}.
2482 Some commands take pseudo-arbitrary values. @var{address} values can be
2483 hostnames or dotted-quad IP addresses. @var{n} can be any positive
2484 integer, or @samp{inf} for infinity, where appropriate. @var{string}
2485 values can be any non-empty string.
2487 Most of these commands have direct command-line equivalents. Also, any
2488 wgetrc command can be specified on the command line using the
2489 @samp{--execute} switch (@pxref{Basic Startup Options}.)
2492 @item accept/reject = @var{string}
2493 Same as @samp{-A}/@samp{-R} (@pxref{Types of Files}).
2495 @item add_hostdir = on/off
2496 Enable/disable host-prefixed file names. @samp{-nH} disables it.
2498 @item continue = on/off
2499 If set to on, force continuation of preexistent partially retrieved
2500 files. See @samp{-c} before setting it.
2502 @item background = on/off
2503 Enable/disable going to background---the same as @samp{-b} (which
2506 @item backup_converted = on/off
2507 Enable/disable saving pre-converted files with the suffix
2508 @samp{.orig}---the same as @samp{-K} (which enables it).
2510 @c @item backups = @var{number}
2511 @c #### Document me!
2513 @item base = @var{string}
2514 Consider relative @sc{url}s in @sc{url} input files forced to be
2515 interpreted as @sc{html} as being relative to @var{string}---the same as
2516 @samp{--base=@var{string}}.
2518 @item bind_address = @var{address}
2519 Bind to @var{address}, like the @samp{--bind-address=@var{address}}.
2521 @item ca_certificate = @var{file}
2522 Set the certificate authority bundle file to @var{file}. The same
2523 as @samp{--ca-certificate=@var{file}}.
2525 @item ca_directory = @var{directory}
2526 Set the directory used for certificate authorities. The same as
2527 @samp{--ca-directory=@var{directory}}.
2529 @item cache = on/off
2530 When set to off, disallow server-caching. See the @samp{--no-cache}
2533 @item certificate = @var{file}
2534 Set the client certificate file name to @var{file}. The same as
2535 @samp{--certificate=@var{file}}.
2537 @item certificate_type = @var{string}
2538 Specify the type of the client certificate, legal values being
2539 @samp{PEM} (the default) and @samp{DER} (aka ASN1). The same as
2540 @samp{--certificate-type=@var{string}}.
2542 @item check_certificate = on/off
2543 If this is set to off, the server certificate is not checked against
2544 the specified client authorities. The default is ``on''. The same as
2545 @samp{--check-certificate}.
2547 @item convert_links = on/off
2548 Convert non-relative links locally. The same as @samp{-k}.
2550 @item cookies = on/off
2551 When set to off, disallow cookies. See the @samp{--cookies} option.
2553 @item connect_timeout = @var{n}
2554 Set the connect timeout---the same as @samp{--connect-timeout}.
2556 @item cut_dirs = @var{n}
2557 Ignore @var{n} remote directory components. Equivalent to
2558 @samp{--cut-dirs=@var{n}}.
2560 @item debug = on/off
2561 Debug mode, same as @samp{-d}.
2563 @item delete_after = on/off
2564 Delete after download---the same as @samp{--delete-after}.
2566 @item dir_prefix = @var{string}
2567 Top of directory tree---the same as @samp{-P @var{string}}.
2569 @item dirstruct = on/off
2570 Turning dirstruct on or off---the same as @samp{-x} or @samp{-nd},
2573 @item dns_cache = on/off
2574 Turn DNS caching on/off. Since DNS caching is on by default, this
2575 option is normally used to turn it off and is equivalent to
2576 @samp{--no-dns-cache}.
2578 @item dns_timeout = @var{n}
2579 Set the DNS timeout---the same as @samp{--dns-timeout}.
2581 @item domains = @var{string}
2582 Same as @samp{-D} (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
2584 @item dot_bytes = @var{n}
2585 Specify the number of bytes ``contained'' in a dot, as seen throughout
2586 the retrieval (1024 by default). You can postfix the value with
2587 @samp{k} or @samp{m}, representing kilobytes and megabytes,
2588 respectively. With dot settings you can tailor the dot retrieval to
2589 suit your needs, or you can use the predefined @dfn{styles}
2590 (@pxref{Download Options}).
2592 @item dots_in_line = @var{n}
2593 Specify the number of dots that will be printed in each line throughout
2594 the retrieval (50 by default).
2596 @item dot_spacing = @var{n}
2597 Specify the number of dots in a single cluster (10 by default).
2599 @item egd_file = @var{file}
2600 Use @var{string} as the EGD socket file name. The same as
2601 @samp{--egd-file=@var{file}}.
2603 @item exclude_directories = @var{string}
2604 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
2605 download---the same as @samp{-X @var{string}} (@pxref{Directory-Based
2608 @item exclude_domains = @var{string}
2609 Same as @samp{--exclude-domains=@var{string}} (@pxref{Spanning
2612 @item follow_ftp = on/off
2613 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents---the same as
2614 @samp{--follow-ftp}.
2616 @item follow_tags = @var{string}
2617 Only follow certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval,
2618 just like @samp{--follow-tags=@var{string}}.
2620 @item force_html = on/off
2621 If set to on, force the input filename to be regarded as an @sc{html}
2622 document---the same as @samp{-F}.
2624 @item ftp_password = @var{string}
2625 Set your @sc{ftp} password to @var{string}. Without this setting, the
2626 password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, which is a useful default for
2627 anonymous @sc{ftp} access.
2629 This command used to be named @code{passwd} prior to Wget 1.10.
2631 @item ftp_proxy = @var{string}
2632 Use @var{string} as @sc{ftp} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2635 @item ftp_user = @var{string}
2636 Set @sc{ftp} user to @var{string}.
2638 This command used to be named @code{login} prior to Wget 1.10.
2641 Turn globbing on/off---the same as @samp{--glob} and @samp{--no-glob}.
2643 @item header = @var{string}
2644 Define a header for HTTP doewnloads, like using
2645 @samp{--header=@var{string}}.
2647 @item html_extension = on/off
2648 Add a @samp{.html} extension to @samp{text/html} or
2649 @samp{application/xhtml+xml} files without it, like @samp{-E}.
2651 @item http_keep_alive = on/off
2652 Turn the keep-alive feature on or off (defaults to on). Turning it
2653 off is equivalent to @samp{--no-http-keep-alive}.
2655 @item http_password = @var{string}
2656 Set @sc{http} password, equivalent to
2657 @samp{--http-password=@var{string}}.
2659 @item http_proxy = @var{string}
2660 Use @var{string} as @sc{http} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2663 @item http_user = @var{string}
2664 Set @sc{http} user to @var{string}, equivalent to
2665 @samp{--http-user=@var{string}}.
2667 @item https_proxy = @var{string}
2668 Use @var{string} as @sc{https} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2671 @item ignore_case = on/off
2672 When set to on, match files and directories case insensitively; the
2673 same as @samp{--ignore-case}.
2675 @item ignore_length = on/off
2676 When set to on, ignore @code{Content-Length} header; the same as
2677 @samp{--ignore-length}.
2679 @item ignore_tags = @var{string}
2680 Ignore certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval, like
2681 @samp{--ignore-tags=@var{string}}.
2683 @item include_directories = @var{string}
2684 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
2685 downloading---the same as @samp{-I @var{string}}.
2687 @item inet4_only = on/off
2688 Force connecting to IPv4 addresses, off by default. You can put this
2689 in the global init file to disable Wget's attempts to resolve and
2690 connect to IPv6 hosts. Available only if Wget was compiled with IPv6
2691 support. The same as @samp{--inet4-only} or @samp{-4}.
2693 @item inet6_only = on/off
2694 Force connecting to IPv6 addresses, off by default. Available only if
2695 Wget was compiled with IPv6 support. The same as @samp{--inet6-only}
2698 @item input = @var{file}
2699 Read the @sc{url}s from @var{string}, like @samp{-i @var{file}}.
2701 @item limit_rate = @var{rate}
2702 Limit the download speed to no more than @var{rate} bytes per second.
2703 The same as @samp{--limit-rate=@var{rate}}.
2705 @item load_cookies = @var{file}
2706 Load cookies from @var{file}. See @samp{--load-cookies @var{file}}.
2708 @item logfile = @var{file}
2709 Set logfile to @var{file}, the same as @samp{-o @var{file}}.
2711 @item mirror = on/off
2712 Turn mirroring on/off. The same as @samp{-m}.
2714 @item netrc = on/off
2715 Turn reading netrc on or off.
2717 @item noclobber = on/off
2720 @item no_parent = on/off
2721 Disallow retrieving outside the directory hierarchy, like
2722 @samp{--no-parent} (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}).
2724 @item no_proxy = @var{string}
2725 Use @var{string} as the comma-separated list of domains to avoid in
2726 proxy loading, instead of the one specified in environment.
2728 @item output_document = @var{file}
2729 Set the output filename---the same as @samp{-O @var{file}}.
2731 @item page_requisites = on/off
2732 Download all ancillary documents necessary for a single @sc{html} page to
2733 display properly---the same as @samp{-p}.
2735 @item passive_ftp = on/off
2736 Change setting of passive @sc{ftp}, equivalent to the
2737 @samp{--passive-ftp} option.
2739 @itemx password = @var{string}
2740 Specify password @var{string} for both @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval.
2741 This command can be overridden using the @samp{ftp_password} and
2742 @samp{http_password} command for @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} respectively.
2744 @item post_data = @var{string}
2745 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send @var{string} in
2746 the request body. The same as @samp{--post-data=@var{string}}.
2748 @item post_file = @var{file}
2749 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the contents of
2750 @var{file} in the request body. The same as
2751 @samp{--post-file=@var{file}}.
2753 @item prefer_family = IPv4/IPv6/none
2754 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
2755 with specified address family first. IPv4 addresses are preferred by
2756 default. The same as @samp{--prefer-family}, which see for a detailed
2757 discussion of why this is useful.
2759 @item private_key = @var{file}
2760 Set the private key file to @var{file}. The same as
2761 @samp{--private-key=@var{file}}.
2763 @item private_key_type = @var{string}
2764 Specify the type of the private key, legal values being @samp{PEM}
2765 (the default) and @samp{DER} (aka ASN1). The same as
2766 @samp{--private-type=@var{string}}.
2768 @item progress = @var{string}
2769 Set the type of the progress indicator. Legal types are @samp{dot}
2770 and @samp{bar}. Equivalent to @samp{--progress=@var{string}}.
2772 @item protocol_directories = on/off
2773 When set, use the protocol name as a directory component of local file
2774 names. The same as @samp{--protocol-directories}.
2776 @item proxy_user = @var{string}
2777 Set proxy authentication user name to @var{string}, like
2778 @samp{--proxy-user=@var{string}}.
2780 @item proxy_password = @var{string}
2781 Set proxy authentication password to @var{string}, like
2782 @samp{--proxy-password=@var{string}}.
2784 @item quiet = on/off
2785 Quiet mode---the same as @samp{-q}.
2787 @item quota = @var{quota}
2788 Specify the download quota, which is useful to put in the global
2789 @file{wgetrc}. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop
2790 retrieving after the download sum has become greater than quota. The
2791 quota can be specified in bytes (default), kbytes @samp{k} appended) or
2792 mbytes (@samp{m} appended). Thus @samp{quota = 5m} will set the quota
2793 to 5 megabytes. Note that the user's startup file overrides system
2796 @item random_file = @var{file}
2797 Use @var{file} as a source of randomness on systems lacking
2800 @item random_wait = on/off
2801 Turn random between-request wait times on or off. The same as
2802 @samp{--random-wait}.
2804 @item read_timeout = @var{n}
2805 Set the read (and write) timeout---the same as
2806 @samp{--read-timeout=@var{n}}.
2808 @item reclevel = @var{n}
2809 Recursion level (depth)---the same as @samp{-l @var{n}}.
2811 @item recursive = on/off
2812 Recursive on/off---the same as @samp{-r}.
2814 @item referer = @var{string}
2815 Set HTTP @samp{Referer:} header just like
2816 @samp{--referer=@var{string}}. (Note it was the folks who wrote the
2817 @sc{http} spec who got the spelling of ``referrer'' wrong.)
2819 @item relative_only = on/off
2820 Follow only relative links---the same as @samp{-L} (@pxref{Relative
2823 @item remove_listing = on/off
2824 If set to on, remove @sc{ftp} listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it
2825 to off is the same as @samp{--no-remove-listing}.
2827 @item restrict_file_names = unix/windows
2828 Restrict the file names generated by Wget from URLs. See
2829 @samp{--restrict-file-names} for a more detailed description.
2831 @item retr_symlinks = on/off
2832 When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain files; the
2833 same as @samp{--retr-symlinks}.
2835 @item retry_connrefused = on/off
2836 When set to on, consider ``connection refused'' a transient
2837 error---the same as @samp{--retry-connrefused}.
2839 @item robots = on/off
2840 Specify whether the norobots convention is respected by Wget, ``on'' by
2841 default. This switch controls both the @file{/robots.txt} and the
2842 @samp{nofollow} aspect of the spec. @xref{Robot Exclusion}, for more
2843 details about this. Be sure you know what you are doing before turning
2846 @item save_cookies = @var{file}
2847 Save cookies to @var{file}. The same as @samp{--save-cookies
2850 @item secure_protocol = @var{string}
2851 Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are @samp{auto}
2852 (the default), @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, and @samp{TLSv1}. The same
2853 as @samp{--secure-protocol=@var{string}}.
2855 @item server_response = on/off
2856 Choose whether or not to print the @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} server
2857 responses---the same as @samp{-S}.
2859 @item span_hosts = on/off
2862 @item strict_comments = on/off
2863 Same as @samp{--strict-comments}.
2865 @item timeout = @var{n}
2866 Set all applicable timeout values to @var{n}, the same as @samp{-T
2869 @item timestamping = on/off
2870 Turn timestamping on/off. The same as @samp{-N} (@pxref{Time-Stamping}).
2872 @item tries = @var{n}
2873 Set number of retries per @sc{url}---the same as @samp{-t @var{n}}.
2875 @item use_proxy = on/off
2876 When set to off, don't use proxy even when proxy-related environment
2877 variables are set. In that case it is the same as using
2880 @item user = @var{string}
2881 Specify username @var{string} for both @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval.
2882 This command can be overridden using the @samp{ftp_user} and
2883 @samp{http_user} command for @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} respectively.
2885 @item verbose = on/off
2886 Turn verbose on/off---the same as @samp{-v}/@samp{-nv}.
2888 @item wait = @var{n}
2889 Wait @var{n} seconds between retrievals---the same as @samp{-w
2892 @item waitretry = @var{n}
2893 Wait up to @var{n} seconds between retries of failed retrievals
2894 only---the same as @samp{--waitretry=@var{n}}. Note that this is
2895 turned on by default in the global @file{wgetrc}.
2899 @section Sample Wgetrc
2900 @cindex sample wgetrc
2902 This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution.
2903 It is divided in two section---one for global usage (suitable for global
2904 startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for
2905 @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}). Be careful about the things you change.
2907 Note that almost all the lines are commented out. For a command to have
2908 any effect, you must remove the @samp{#} character at the beginning of
2912 @include sample.wgetrc.munged_for_texi_inclusion
2919 @c man begin EXAMPLES
2920 The examples are divided into three sections loosely based on their
2924 * Simple Usage:: Simple, basic usage of the program.
2925 * Advanced Usage:: Advanced tips.
2926 * Very Advanced Usage:: The hairy stuff.
2930 @section Simple Usage
2934 Say you want to download a @sc{url}. Just type:
2937 wget http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
2941 But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is lengthy?
2942 The connection will probably fail before the whole file is retrieved,
2943 more than once. In this case, Wget will try getting the file until it
2944 either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the default number of retries
2945 (this being 20). It is easy to change the number of tries to 45, to
2946 insure that the whole file will arrive safely:
2949 wget --tries=45 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
2953 Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its progress
2954 to log file @file{log}. It is tiring to type @samp{--tries}, so we
2955 shall use @samp{-t}.
2958 wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &
2961 The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in the
2962 background. To unlimit the number of retries, use @samp{-t inf}.
2965 The usage of @sc{ftp} is as simple. Wget will take care of login and
2969 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/welcome.msg
2973 If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory listing,
2974 parse it and convert it to @sc{html}. Try:
2977 wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
2982 @node Advanced Usage
2983 @section Advanced Usage
2987 You have a file that contains the URLs you want to download? Use the
2994 If you specify @samp{-} as file name, the @sc{url}s will be read from
2998 Create a five levels deep mirror image of the GNU web site, with the
2999 same directory structure the original has, with only one try per
3000 document, saving the log of the activities to @file{gnulog}:
3003 wget -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
3007 The same as the above, but convert the links in the @sc{html} files to
3008 point to local files, so you can view the documents off-line:
3011 wget --convert-links -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
3015 Retrieve only one @sc{html} page, but make sure that all the elements needed
3016 for the page to be displayed, such as inline images and external style
3017 sheets, are also downloaded. Also make sure the downloaded page
3018 references the downloaded links.
3021 wget -p --convert-links http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
3024 The @sc{html} page will be saved to @file{www.server.com/dir/page.html}, and
3025 the images, stylesheets, etc., somewhere under @file{www.server.com/},
3026 depending on where they were on the remote server.
3029 The same as the above, but without the @file{www.server.com/} directory.
3030 In fact, I don't want to have all those random server directories
3031 anyway---just save @emph{all} those files under a @file{download/}
3032 subdirectory of the current directory.
3035 wget -p --convert-links -nH -nd -Pdownload \
3036 http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
3040 Retrieve the index.html of @samp{www.lycos.com}, showing the original
3044 wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
3048 Save the server headers with the file, perhaps for post-processing.
3051 wget --save-headers http://www.lycos.com/
3056 Retrieve the first two levels of @samp{wuarchive.wustl.edu}, saving them
3060 wget -r -l2 -P/tmp ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
3064 You want to download all the @sc{gif}s from a directory on an @sc{http}
3065 server. You tried @samp{wget http://www.server.com/dir/*.gif}, but that
3066 didn't work because @sc{http} retrieval does not support globbing. In
3070 wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://www.server.com/dir/
3073 More verbose, but the effect is the same. @samp{-r -l1} means to
3074 retrieve recursively (@pxref{Recursive Download}), with maximum depth
3075 of 1. @samp{--no-parent} means that references to the parent directory
3076 are ignored (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}), and @samp{-A.gif} means to
3077 download only the @sc{gif} files. @samp{-A "*.gif"} would have worked
3081 Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
3082 interrupted. Now you do not want to clobber the files already present.
3086 wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.org/
3090 If you want to encode your own username and password to @sc{http} or
3091 @sc{ftp}, use the appropriate @sc{url} syntax (@pxref{URL Format}).
3094 wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@@unix.server.com/.emacs
3097 Note, however, that this usage is not advisable on multi-user systems
3098 because it reveals your password to anyone who looks at the output of
3101 @cindex redirecting output
3103 You would like the output documents to go to standard output instead of
3107 wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/
3110 You can also combine the two options and make pipelines to retrieve the
3111 documents from remote hotlists:
3114 wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
3118 @node Very Advanced Usage
3119 @section Very Advanced Usage
3124 If you wish Wget to keep a mirror of a page (or @sc{ftp}
3125 subdirectories), use @samp{--mirror} (@samp{-m}), which is the shorthand
3126 for @samp{-r -l inf -N}. You can put Wget in the crontab file asking it
3127 to recheck a site each Sunday:
3131 0 0 * * 0 wget --mirror http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3135 In addition to the above, you want the links to be converted for local
3136 viewing. But, after having read this manual, you know that link
3137 conversion doesn't play well with timestamping, so you also want Wget to
3138 back up the original @sc{html} files before the conversion. Wget invocation
3139 would look like this:
3142 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
3143 http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3147 But you've also noticed that local viewing doesn't work all that well
3148 when @sc{html} files are saved under extensions other than @samp{.html},
3149 perhaps because they were served as @file{index.cgi}. So you'd like
3150 Wget to rename all the files served with content-type @samp{text/html}
3151 or @samp{application/xhtml+xml} to @file{@var{name}.html}.
3154 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
3155 --html-extension -o /home/me/weeklog \
3159 Or, with less typing:
3162 wget -m -k -K -E http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3171 This chapter contains all the stuff that could not fit anywhere else.
3174 * Proxies:: Support for proxy servers
3175 * Distribution:: Getting the latest version.
3176 * Mailing List:: Wget mailing list for announcements and discussion.
3177 * Reporting Bugs:: How and where to report bugs.
3178 * Portability:: The systems Wget works on.
3179 * Signals:: Signal-handling performed by Wget.
3186 @dfn{Proxies} are special-purpose @sc{http} servers designed to transfer
3187 data from remote servers to local clients. One typical use of proxies
3188 is lightening network load for users behind a slow connection. This is
3189 achieved by channeling all @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} requests through the
3190 proxy which caches the transferred data. When a cached resource is
3191 requested again, proxy will return the data from cache. Another use for
3192 proxies is for companies that separate (for security reasons) their
3193 internal networks from the rest of Internet. In order to obtain
3194 information from the Web, their users connect and retrieve remote data
3195 using an authorized proxy.
3197 Wget supports proxies for both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} retrievals. The
3198 standard way to specify proxy location, which Wget recognizes, is using
3199 the following environment variables:
3204 If set, the @code{http_proxy} and @code{https_proxy} variables should
3205 contain the @sc{url}s of the proxies for @sc{http} and @sc{https}
3206 connections respectively.
3209 This variable should contain the @sc{url} of the proxy for @sc{ftp}
3210 connections. It is quite common that @code{http_proxy} and
3211 @code{ftp_proxy} are set to the same @sc{url}.
3214 This variable should contain a comma-separated list of domain extensions
3215 proxy should @emph{not} be used for. For instance, if the value of
3216 @code{no_proxy} is @samp{.mit.edu}, proxy will not be used to retrieve
3220 In addition to the environment variables, proxy location and settings
3221 may be specified from within Wget itself.
3225 @itemx proxy = on/off
3226 This option and the corresponding command may be used to suppress the
3227 use of proxy, even if the appropriate environment variables are set.
3229 @item http_proxy = @var{URL}
3230 @itemx https_proxy = @var{URL}
3231 @itemx ftp_proxy = @var{URL}
3232 @itemx no_proxy = @var{string}
3233 These startup file variables allow you to override the proxy settings
3234 specified by the environment.
3237 Some proxy servers require authorization to enable you to use them. The
3238 authorization consists of @dfn{username} and @dfn{password}, which must
3239 be sent by Wget. As with @sc{http} authorization, several
3240 authentication schemes exist. For proxy authorization only the
3241 @code{Basic} authentication scheme is currently implemented.
3243 You may specify your username and password either through the proxy
3244 @sc{url} or through the command-line options. Assuming that the
3245 company's proxy is located at @samp{proxy.company.com} at port 8001, a
3246 proxy @sc{url} location containing authorization data might look like
3250 http://hniksic:mypassword@@proxy.company.com:8001/
3253 Alternatively, you may use the @samp{proxy-user} and
3254 @samp{proxy-password} options, and the equivalent @file{.wgetrc}
3255 settings @code{proxy_user} and @code{proxy_password} to set the proxy
3256 username and password.
3259 @section Distribution
3260 @cindex latest version
3262 Like all GNU utilities, the latest version of Wget can be found at the
3263 master GNU archive site ftp.gnu.org, and its mirrors. For example,
3264 Wget @value{VERSION} can be found at
3265 @url{ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/wget/wget-@value{VERSION}.tar.gz}
3268 @section Mailing List
3269 @cindex mailing list
3272 There are several Wget-related mailing lists, all hosted by
3273 SunSITE.dk. The general discussion list is at
3274 @email{wget@@sunsite.dk}. It is the preferred place for bug reports
3275 and suggestions, as well as for discussion of development. You are
3276 invited to subscribe.
3278 To subscribe, simply send mail to @email{wget-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}
3279 and follow the instructions. Unsubscribe by mailing to
3280 @email{wget-unsubscribe@@sunsite.dk}. The mailing list is archived at
3281 @url{http://www.mail-archive.com/wget%40sunsite.dk/} and at
3282 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.general}.
3284 The second mailing list is at @email{wget-patches@@sunsite.dk}, and is
3285 used to submit patches for review by Wget developers. A ``patch'' is
3286 a textual representation of change to source code, readable by both
3287 humans and programs. The file @file{PATCHES} that comes with Wget
3288 covers the creation and submitting of patches in detail. Please don't
3289 send general suggestions or bug reports to @samp{wget-patches}; use it
3290 only for patch submissions.
3292 To subscribe, simply send mail to @email{wget-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}
3293 and follow the instructions. Unsubscribe by mailing to
3294 @email{wget-unsubscribe@@sunsite.dk}. The mailing list is archived at
3295 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.patches}.
3297 @node Reporting Bugs
3298 @section Reporting Bugs
3300 @cindex reporting bugs
3304 You are welcome to send bug reports about GNU Wget to
3305 @email{bug-wget@@gnu.org}.
3307 Before actually submitting a bug report, please try to follow a few
3312 Please try to ascertain that the behavior you see really is a bug. If
3313 Wget crashes, it's a bug. If Wget does not behave as documented,
3314 it's a bug. If things work strange, but you are not sure about the way
3315 they are supposed to work, it might well be a bug.
3318 Try to repeat the bug in as simple circumstances as possible. E.g. if
3319 Wget crashes while downloading @samp{wget -rl0 -kKE -t5 -Y0
3320 http://yoyodyne.com -o /tmp/log}, you should try to see if the crash is
3321 repeatable, and if will occur with a simpler set of options. You might
3322 even try to start the download at the page where the crash occurred to
3323 see if that page somehow triggered the crash.
3325 Also, while I will probably be interested to know the contents of your
3326 @file{.wgetrc} file, just dumping it into the debug message is probably
3327 a bad idea. Instead, you should first try to see if the bug repeats
3328 with @file{.wgetrc} moved out of the way. Only if it turns out that
3329 @file{.wgetrc} settings affect the bug, mail me the relevant parts of
3333 Please start Wget with @samp{-d} option and send us the resulting
3334 output (or relevant parts thereof). If Wget was compiled without
3335 debug support, recompile it---it is @emph{much} easier to trace bugs
3336 with debug support on.
3338 Note: please make sure to remove any potentially sensitive information
3339 from the debug log before sending it to the bug address. The
3340 @code{-d} won't go out of its way to collect sensitive information,
3341 but the log @emph{will} contain a fairly complete transcript of Wget's
3342 communication with the server, which may include passwords and pieces
3343 of downloaded data. Since the bug address is publically archived, you
3344 may assume that all bug reports are visible to the public.
3347 If Wget has crashed, try to run it in a debugger, e.g. @code{gdb `which
3348 wget` core} and type @code{where} to get the backtrace. This may not
3349 work if the system administrator has disabled core files, but it is
3355 @section Portability
3357 @cindex operating systems
3359 Like all GNU software, Wget works on the GNU system. However, since it
3360 uses GNU Autoconf for building and configuring, and mostly avoids using
3361 ``special'' features of any particular Unix, it should compile (and
3362 work) on all common Unix flavors.
3364 Various Wget versions have been compiled and tested under many kinds
3365 of Unix systems, including GNU/Linux, Solaris, SunOS 4.x, OSF (aka
3366 Digital Unix or Tru64), Ultrix, *BSD, IRIX, AIX, and others. Some of
3367 those systems are no longer in widespread use and may not be able to
3368 support recent versions of Wget. If Wget fails to compile on your
3369 system, we would like to know about it.
3371 Thanks to kind contributors, this version of Wget compiles and works
3372 on 32-bit Microsoft Windows platforms. It has been compiled
3373 successfully using MS Visual C++ 6.0, Watcom, Borland C, and GCC
3374 compilers. Naturally, it is crippled of some features available on
3375 Unix, but it should work as a substitute for people stuck with
3376 Windows. Note that Windows-specific portions of Wget are not
3377 guaranteed to be supported in the future, although this has been the
3378 case in practice for many years now. All questions and problems in
3379 Windows usage should be reported to Wget mailing list at
3380 @email{wget@@sunsite.dk} where the volunteers who maintain the
3381 Windows-related features might look at them.
3385 @cindex signal handling
3388 Since the purpose of Wget is background work, it catches the hangup
3389 signal (@code{SIGHUP}) and ignores it. If the output was on standard
3390 output, it will be redirected to a file named @file{wget-log}.
3391 Otherwise, @code{SIGHUP} is ignored. This is convenient when you wish
3392 to redirect the output of Wget after having started it.
3395 $ wget http://www.gnus.org/dist/gnus.tar.gz &
3398 SIGHUP received, redirecting output to `wget-log'.
3401 Other than that, Wget will not try to interfere with signals in any way.
3402 @kbd{C-c}, @code{kill -TERM} and @code{kill -KILL} should kill it alike.
3407 This chapter contains some references I consider useful.
3410 * Robot Exclusion:: Wget's support for RES.
3411 * Security Considerations:: Security with Wget.
3412 * Contributors:: People who helped.
3415 @node Robot Exclusion
3416 @section Robot Exclusion
3417 @cindex robot exclusion
3419 @cindex server maintenance
3421 It is extremely easy to make Wget wander aimlessly around a web site,
3422 sucking all the available data in progress. @samp{wget -r @var{site}},
3423 and you're set. Great? Not for the server admin.
3425 As long as Wget is only retrieving static pages, and doing it at a
3426 reasonable rate (see the @samp{--wait} option), there's not much of a
3427 problem. The trouble is that Wget can't tell the difference between the
3428 smallest static page and the most demanding CGI. A site I know has a
3429 section handled by a CGI Perl script that converts Info files to @sc{html} on
3430 the fly. The script is slow, but works well enough for human users
3431 viewing an occasional Info file. However, when someone's recursive Wget
3432 download stumbles upon the index page that links to all the Info files
3433 through the script, the system is brought to its knees without providing
3434 anything useful to the user (This task of converting Info files could be
3435 done locally and access to Info documentation for all installed GNU
3436 software on a system is available from the @code{info} command).
3438 To avoid this kind of accident, as well as to preserve privacy for
3439 documents that need to be protected from well-behaved robots, the
3440 concept of @dfn{robot exclusion} was invented. The idea is that
3441 the server administrators and document authors can specify which
3442 portions of the site they wish to protect from robots and those
3443 they will permit access.
3445 The most popular mechanism, and the @i{de facto} standard supported by
3446 all the major robots, is the ``Robots Exclusion Standard'' (RES) written
3447 by Martijn Koster et al. in 1994. It specifies the format of a text
3448 file containing directives that instruct the robots which URL paths to
3449 avoid. To be found by the robots, the specifications must be placed in
3450 @file{/robots.txt} in the server root, which the robots are expected to
3453 Although Wget is not a web robot in the strictest sense of the word, it
3454 can downloads large parts of the site without the user's intervention to
3455 download an individual page. Because of that, Wget honors RES when
3456 downloading recursively. For instance, when you issue:
3459 wget -r http://www.server.com/
3462 First the index of @samp{www.server.com} will be downloaded. If Wget
3463 finds that it wants to download more documents from that server, it will
3464 request @samp{http://www.server.com/robots.txt} and, if found, use it
3465 for further downloads. @file{robots.txt} is loaded only once per each
3468 Until version 1.8, Wget supported the first version of the standard,
3469 written by Martijn Koster in 1994 and available at
3470 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html}. As of version 1.8,
3471 Wget has supported the additional directives specified in the internet
3472 draft @samp{<draft-koster-robots-00.txt>} titled ``A Method for Web
3473 Robots Control''. The draft, which has as far as I know never made to
3474 an @sc{rfc}, is available at
3475 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots-rfc.txt}.
3477 This manual no longer includes the text of the Robot Exclusion Standard.
3479 The second, less known mechanism, enables the author of an individual
3480 document to specify whether they want the links from the file to be
3481 followed by a robot. This is achieved using the @code{META} tag, like
3485 <meta name="robots" content="nofollow">
3488 This is explained in some detail at
3489 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/meta-user.html}. Wget supports this
3490 method of robot exclusion in addition to the usual @file{/robots.txt}
3493 If you know what you are doing and really really wish to turn off the
3494 robot exclusion, set the @code{robots} variable to @samp{off} in your
3495 @file{.wgetrc}. You can achieve the same effect from the command line
3496 using the @code{-e} switch, e.g. @samp{wget -e robots=off @var{url}...}.
3498 @node Security Considerations
3499 @section Security Considerations
3502 When using Wget, you must be aware that it sends unencrypted passwords
3503 through the network, which may present a security problem. Here are the
3504 main issues, and some solutions.
3508 The passwords on the command line are visible using @code{ps}. The best
3509 way around it is to use @code{wget -i -} and feed the @sc{url}s to
3510 Wget's standard input, each on a separate line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
3511 Another workaround is to use @file{.netrc} to store passwords; however,
3512 storing unencrypted passwords is also considered a security risk.
3515 Using the insecure @dfn{basic} authentication scheme, unencrypted
3516 passwords are transmitted through the network routers and gateways.
3519 The @sc{ftp} passwords are also in no way encrypted. There is no good
3520 solution for this at the moment.
3523 Although the ``normal'' output of Wget tries to hide the passwords,
3524 debugging logs show them, in all forms. This problem is avoided by
3525 being careful when you send debug logs (yes, even when you send them to
3530 @section Contributors
3531 @cindex contributors
3534 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org},
3537 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Niksic @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org},
3539 and it is currently maintained by Micah Cowan @email{micah@@cowan.name}.
3541 However, the development of Wget could never have gone as far as it has, were
3542 it not for the help of many people, either with bug reports, feature proposals,
3543 patches, or letters saying ``Thanks!''.
3545 Special thanks goes to the following people (no particular order):
3548 @item Dan Harkless---contributed a lot of code and documentation of
3549 extremely high quality, as well as the @code{--page-requisites} and
3550 related options. He was the principal maintainer for some time and
3553 @item Ian Abbott---contributed bug fixes, Windows-related fixes, and
3554 provided a prototype implementation of the breadth-first recursive
3555 download. Co-maintained Wget during the 1.8 release cycle.
3558 The dotsrc.org crew, in particular Karsten Thygesen---donated system
3559 resources such as the mailing list, web space, @sc{ftp} space, and
3560 version control repositories, along with a lot of time to make these
3561 actually work. Christian Reiniger was of invaluable help with setting
3565 Heiko Herold---provided high-quality Windows builds and contributed
3566 bug and build reports for many years.
3569 Shawn McHorse---bug reports and patches.
3572 Kaveh R. Ghazi---on-the-fly @code{ansi2knr}-ization. Lots of
3576 Gordon Matzigkeit---@file{.netrc} support.
3580 Zlatko @v{C}alu@v{s}i@'{c}, Tomislav Vujec and Dra@v{z}en
3581 Ka@v{c}ar---feature suggestions and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3584 Zlatko Calusic, Tomislav Vujec and Drazen Kacar---feature suggestions
3585 and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3589 Darko Budor---initial port to Windows.
3592 Antonio Rosella---help and suggestions, plus the initial Italian
3597 Tomislav Petrovi@'{c}, Mario Miko@v{c}evi@'{c}---many bug reports and
3601 Tomislav Petrovic, Mario Mikocevic---many bug reports and suggestions.
3606 Fran@,{c}ois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3609 Francois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3613 Karl Eichwalder---lots of help with internationalization, Makefile
3614 layout and many other things.
3617 Junio Hamano---donated support for Opie and @sc{http} @code{Digest}
3621 People who provided donations for development---including Brian Gough.
3624 The following people have provided patches, bug/build reports, useful
3625 suggestions, beta testing services, fan mail and all the other things
3626 that make maintenance so much fun:
3645 Kristijan @v{C}onka@v{s},
3654 Bertrand Demiddelaer,
3667 Aleksandar Erkalovi@'{c},
3670 Aleksandar Erkalovic,
3689 Erik Magnus Hulthen,
3708 Goran Kezunovi@'{c},
3721 $\Sigma\acute{\iota}\mu o\varsigma\;
3722 \Xi\varepsilon\nu\iota\tau\acute{\epsilon}\lambda\lambda\eta\varsigma$
3723 (Simos KSenitellis),
3732 Nicol@'{a}s Lichtmeier,
3738 Alexander V. Lukyanov,
3778 @c Texinfo doesn't grok @'{@i}, so we have to use TeX itself.
3780 Juan Jos\'{e} Rodr\'{\i}guez,
3783 Juan Jose Rodriguez,
3801 Szakacsits Szabolcs,
3815 Douglas E. Wegscheid,
3826 Apologies to all who I accidentally left out, and many thanks to all the
3827 subscribers of the Wget mailing list.
3829 @node Copying this manual
3830 @appendix Copying this manual
3833 * GNU Free Documentation License:: Licnse for copying this manual.
3840 @unnumbered Concept Index