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, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
50 Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section
51 entitled ``GNU Free 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 Mauro Tortonesi <mauro@ferrara.linux.it>.
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, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
79 Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section
80 entitled ``GNU Free 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:: 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
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 Note that a combination with @samp{-k} is only well-defined for
552 downloading a single document.
554 @cindex clobbering, file
555 @cindex downloading multiple times
559 If a file is downloaded more than once in the same directory, Wget's
560 behavior depends on a few options, including @samp{-nc}. In certain
561 cases, the local file will be @dfn{clobbered}, or overwritten, upon
562 repeated download. In other cases it will be preserved.
564 When running Wget without @samp{-N}, @samp{-nc}, or @samp{-r},
565 downloading the same file in the same directory will result in the
566 original copy of @var{file} being preserved and the second copy being
567 named @samp{@var{file}.1}. If that file is downloaded yet again, the
568 third copy will be named @samp{@var{file}.2}, and so on. When
569 @samp{-nc} is specified, this behavior is suppressed, and Wget will
570 refuse to download newer copies of @samp{@var{file}}. Therefore,
571 ``@code{no-clobber}'' is actually a misnomer in this mode---it's not
572 clobbering that's prevented (as the numeric suffixes were already
573 preventing clobbering), but rather the multiple version saving that's
576 When running Wget with @samp{-r}, but without @samp{-N} or @samp{-nc},
577 re-downloading a file will result in the new copy simply overwriting the
578 old. Adding @samp{-nc} will prevent this behavior, instead causing the
579 original version to be preserved and any newer copies on the server to
582 When running Wget with @samp{-N}, with or without @samp{-r}, the
583 decision as to whether or not to download a newer copy of a file depends
584 on the local and remote timestamp and size of the file
585 (@pxref{Time-Stamping}). @samp{-nc} may not be specified at the same
588 Note that when @samp{-nc} is specified, files with the suffixes
589 @samp{.html} or @samp{.htm} will be loaded from the local disk and
590 parsed as if they had been retrieved from the Web.
592 @cindex continue retrieval
593 @cindex incomplete downloads
594 @cindex resume download
597 Continue getting a partially-downloaded file. This is useful when you
598 want to finish up a download started by a previous instance of Wget, or
599 by another program. For instance:
602 wget -c ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/ls-lR.Z
605 If there is a file named @file{ls-lR.Z} in the current directory, Wget
606 will assume that it is the first portion of the remote file, and will
607 ask the server to continue the retrieval from an offset equal to the
608 length of the local file.
610 Note that you don't need to specify this option if you just want the
611 current invocation of Wget to retry downloading a file should the
612 connection be lost midway through. This is the default behavior.
613 @samp{-c} only affects resumption of downloads started @emph{prior} to
614 this invocation of Wget, and whose local files are still sitting around.
616 Without @samp{-c}, the previous example would just download the remote
617 file to @file{ls-lR.Z.1}, leaving the truncated @file{ls-lR.Z} file
620 Beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a non-empty file, and
621 it turns out that the server does not support continued downloading,
622 Wget will refuse to start the download from scratch, which would
623 effectively ruin existing contents. If you really want the download to
624 start from scratch, remove the file.
626 Also beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a file which is of
627 equal size as the one on the server, Wget will refuse to download the
628 file and print an explanatory message. The same happens when the file
629 is smaller on the server than locally (presumably because it was changed
630 on the server since your last download attempt)---because ``continuing''
631 is not meaningful, no download occurs.
633 On the other side of the coin, while using @samp{-c}, any file that's
634 bigger on the server than locally will be considered an incomplete
635 download and only @code{(length(remote) - length(local))} bytes will be
636 downloaded and tacked onto the end of the local file. This behavior can
637 be desirable in certain cases---for instance, you can use @samp{wget -c}
638 to download just the new portion that's been appended to a data
639 collection or log file.
641 However, if the file is bigger on the server because it's been
642 @emph{changed}, as opposed to just @emph{appended} to, you'll end up
643 with a garbled file. Wget has no way of verifying that the local file
644 is really a valid prefix of the remote file. You need to be especially
645 careful of this when using @samp{-c} in conjunction with @samp{-r},
646 since every file will be considered as an "incomplete download" candidate.
648 Another instance where you'll get a garbled file if you try to use
649 @samp{-c} is if you have a lame @sc{http} proxy that inserts a
650 ``transfer interrupted'' string into the local file. In the future a
651 ``rollback'' option may be added to deal with this case.
653 Note that @samp{-c} only works with @sc{ftp} servers and with @sc{http}
654 servers that support the @code{Range} header.
656 @cindex progress indicator
658 @item --progress=@var{type}
659 Select the type of the progress indicator you wish to use. Legal
660 indicators are ``dot'' and ``bar''.
662 The ``bar'' indicator is used by default. It draws an @sc{ascii} progress
663 bar graphics (a.k.a ``thermometer'' display) indicating the status of
664 retrieval. If the output is not a TTY, the ``dot'' bar will be used by
667 Use @samp{--progress=dot} to switch to the ``dot'' display. It traces
668 the retrieval by printing dots on the screen, each dot representing a
669 fixed amount of downloaded data.
671 When using the dotted retrieval, you may also set the @dfn{style} by
672 specifying the type as @samp{dot:@var{style}}. Different styles assign
673 different meaning to one dot. With the @code{default} style each dot
674 represents 1K, there are ten dots in a cluster and 50 dots in a line.
675 The @code{binary} style has a more ``computer''-like orientation---8K
676 dots, 16-dots clusters and 48 dots per line (which makes for 384K
677 lines). The @code{mega} style is suitable for downloading very large
678 files---each dot represents 64K retrieved, there are eight dots in a
679 cluster, and 48 dots on each line (so each line contains 3M).
681 Note that you can set the default style using the @code{progress}
682 command in @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the
683 command line. The exception is that, when the output is not a TTY, the
684 ``dot'' progress will be favored over ``bar''. To force the bar output,
685 use @samp{--progress=bar:force}.
688 @itemx --timestamping
689 Turn on time-stamping. @xref{Time-Stamping}, for details.
691 @cindex server response, print
693 @itemx --server-response
694 Print the headers sent by @sc{http} servers and responses sent by
697 @cindex Wget as spider
700 When invoked with this option, Wget will behave as a Web @dfn{spider},
701 which means that it will not download the pages, just check that they
702 are there. For example, you can use Wget to check your bookmarks:
705 wget --spider --force-html -i bookmarks.html
708 This feature needs much more work for Wget to get close to the
709 functionality of real web spiders.
713 @itemx --timeout=@var{seconds}
714 Set the network timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. This is equivalent
715 to specifying @samp{--dns-timeout}, @samp{--connect-timeout}, and
716 @samp{--read-timeout}, all at the same time.
718 When interacting with the network, Wget can check for timeout and
719 abort the operation if it takes too long. This prevents anomalies
720 like hanging reads and infinite connects. The only timeout enabled by
721 default is a 900-second read timeout. Setting a timeout to 0 disables
722 it altogether. Unless you know what you are doing, it is best not to
723 change the default timeout settings.
725 All timeout-related options accept decimal values, as well as
726 subsecond values. For example, @samp{0.1} seconds is a legal (though
727 unwise) choice of timeout. Subsecond timeouts are useful for checking
728 server response times or for testing network latency.
732 @item --dns-timeout=@var{seconds}
733 Set the DNS lookup timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. DNS lookups that
734 don't complete within the specified time will fail. By default, there
735 is no timeout on DNS lookups, other than that implemented by system
738 @cindex connect timeout
739 @cindex timeout, connect
740 @item --connect-timeout=@var{seconds}
741 Set the connect timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. TCP connections that
742 take longer to establish will be aborted. By default, there is no
743 connect timeout, other than that implemented by system libraries.
746 @cindex timeout, read
747 @item --read-timeout=@var{seconds}
748 Set the read (and write) timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. The
749 ``time'' of this timeout refers @dfn{idle time}: if, at any point in
750 the download, no data is received for more than the specified number
751 of seconds, reading fails and the download is restarted. This option
752 does not directly affect the duration of the entire download.
754 Of course, the remote server may choose to terminate the connection
755 sooner than this option requires. The default read timeout is 900
758 @cindex bandwidth, limit
760 @cindex limit bandwidth
761 @item --limit-rate=@var{amount}
762 Limit the download speed to @var{amount} bytes per second. Amount may
763 be expressed in bytes, kilobytes with the @samp{k} suffix, or megabytes
764 with the @samp{m} suffix. For example, @samp{--limit-rate=20k} will
765 limit the retrieval rate to 20KB/s. This is useful when, for whatever
766 reason, you don't want Wget to consume the entire available bandwidth.
768 This option allows the use of decimal numbers, usually in conjunction
769 with power suffixes; for example, @samp{--limit-rate=2.5k} is a legal
772 Note that Wget implements the limiting by sleeping the appropriate
773 amount of time after a network read that took less time than specified
774 by the rate. Eventually this strategy causes the TCP transfer to slow
775 down to approximately the specified rate. However, it may take some
776 time for this balance to be achieved, so don't be surprised if limiting
777 the rate doesn't work well with very small files.
781 @item -w @var{seconds}
782 @itemx --wait=@var{seconds}
783 Wait the specified number of seconds between the retrievals. Use of
784 this option is recommended, as it lightens the server load by making the
785 requests less frequent. Instead of in seconds, the time can be
786 specified in minutes using the @code{m} suffix, in hours using @code{h}
787 suffix, or in days using @code{d} suffix.
789 Specifying a large value for this option is useful if the network or the
790 destination host is down, so that Wget can wait long enough to
791 reasonably expect the network error to be fixed before the retry. The
792 waiting interval specified by this function is influenced by
793 @code{--random-wait}, which see.
795 @cindex retries, waiting between
796 @cindex waiting between retries
797 @item --waitretry=@var{seconds}
798 If you don't want Wget to wait between @emph{every} retrieval, but only
799 between retries of failed downloads, you can use this option. Wget will
800 use @dfn{linear backoff}, waiting 1 second after the first failure on a
801 given file, then waiting 2 seconds after the second failure on that
802 file, up to the maximum number of @var{seconds} you specify. Therefore,
803 a value of 10 will actually make Wget wait up to (1 + 2 + ... + 10) = 55
806 Note that this option is turned on by default in the global
812 Some web sites may perform log analysis to identify retrieval programs
813 such as Wget by looking for statistically significant similarities in
814 the time between requests. This option causes the time between requests
815 to vary between 0.5 and 1.5 * @var{wait} seconds, where @var{wait} was
816 specified using the @samp{--wait} option, in order to mask Wget's
817 presence from such analysis.
819 A 2001 article in a publication devoted to development on a popular
820 consumer platform provided code to perform this analysis on the fly.
821 Its author suggested blocking at the class C address level to ensure
822 automated retrieval programs were blocked despite changing DHCP-supplied
825 The @samp{--random-wait} option was inspired by this ill-advised
826 recommendation to block many unrelated users from a web site due to the
831 Don't use proxies, even if the appropriate @code{*_proxy} environment
835 For more information about the use of proxies with Wget, @xref{Proxies}.
840 @itemx --quota=@var{quota}
841 Specify download quota for automatic retrievals. The value can be
842 specified in bytes (default), kilobytes (with @samp{k} suffix), or
843 megabytes (with @samp{m} suffix).
845 Note that quota will never affect downloading a single file. So if you
846 specify @samp{wget -Q10k ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/ls-lR.gz}, all of the
847 @file{ls-lR.gz} will be downloaded. The same goes even when several
848 @sc{url}s are specified on the command-line. However, quota is
849 respected when retrieving either recursively, or from an input file.
850 Thus you may safely type @samp{wget -Q2m -i sites}---download will be
851 aborted when the quota is exceeded.
853 Setting quota to 0 or to @samp{inf} unlimits the download quota.
856 @cindex caching of DNS lookups
858 Turn off caching of DNS lookups. Normally, Wget remembers the IP
859 addresses it looked up from DNS so it doesn't have to repeatedly
860 contact the DNS server for the same (typically small) set of hosts it
861 retrieves from. This cache exists in memory only; a new Wget run will
864 However, it has been reported that in some situations it is not
865 desirable to cache host names, even for the duration of a
866 short-running application like Wget. With this option Wget issues a
867 new DNS lookup (more precisely, a new call to @code{gethostbyname} or
868 @code{getaddrinfo}) each time it makes a new connection. Please note
869 that this option will @emph{not} affect caching that might be
870 performed by the resolving library or by an external caching layer,
873 If you don't understand exactly what this option does, you probably
876 @cindex file names, restrict
877 @cindex Windows file names
878 @item --restrict-file-names=@var{mode}
879 Change which characters found in remote URLs may show up in local file
880 names generated from those URLs. Characters that are @dfn{restricted}
881 by this option are escaped, i.e. replaced with @samp{%HH}, where
882 @samp{HH} is the hexadecimal number that corresponds to the restricted
885 By default, Wget escapes the characters that are not valid as part of
886 file names on your operating system, as well as control characters that
887 are typically unprintable. This option is useful for changing these
888 defaults, either because you are downloading to a non-native partition,
889 or because you want to disable escaping of the control characters.
891 When mode is set to ``unix'', Wget escapes the character @samp{/} and
892 the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159. This is the
893 default on Unix-like OS'es.
895 When mode is set to ``windows'', Wget escapes the characters @samp{\},
896 @samp{|}, @samp{/}, @samp{:}, @samp{?}, @samp{"}, @samp{*}, @samp{<},
897 @samp{>}, and the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159.
898 In addition to this, Wget in Windows mode uses @samp{+} instead of
899 @samp{:} to separate host and port in local file names, and uses
900 @samp{@@} instead of @samp{?} to separate the query portion of the file
901 name from the rest. Therefore, a URL that would be saved as
902 @samp{www.xemacs.org:4300/search.pl?input=blah} in Unix mode would be
903 saved as @samp{www.xemacs.org+4300/search.pl@@input=blah} in Windows
904 mode. This mode is the default on Windows.
906 If you append @samp{,nocontrol} to the mode, as in
907 @samp{unix,nocontrol}, escaping of the control characters is also
908 switched off. You can use @samp{--restrict-file-names=nocontrol} to
909 turn off escaping of control characters without affecting the choice of
910 the OS to use as file name restriction mode.
917 Force connecting to IPv4 or IPv6 addresses. With @samp{--inet4-only}
918 or @samp{-4}, Wget will only connect to IPv4 hosts, ignoring AAAA
919 records in DNS, and refusing to connect to IPv6 addresses specified in
920 URLs. Conversely, with @samp{--inet6-only} or @samp{-6}, Wget will
921 only connect to IPv6 hosts and ignore A records and IPv4 addresses.
923 Neither options should be needed normally. By default, an IPv6-aware
924 Wget will use the address family specified by the host's DNS record.
925 If the DNS responds with both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, Wget will try
926 them in sequence until it finds one it can connect to. (Also see
927 @code{--prefer-family} option described below.)
929 These options can be used to deliberately force the use of IPv4 or
930 IPv6 address families on dual family systems, usually to aid debugging
931 or to deal with broken network configuration. Only one of
932 @samp{--inet6-only} and @samp{--inet4-only} may be specified at the
933 same time. Neither option is available in Wget compiled without IPv6
936 @item --prefer-family=IPv4/IPv6/none
937 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
938 with specified address family first. IPv4 addresses are preferred by
941 This avoids spurious errors and connect attempts when accessing hosts
942 that resolve to both IPv6 and IPv4 addresses from IPv4 networks. For
943 example, @samp{www.kame.net} resolves to
944 @samp{2001:200:0:8002:203:47ff:fea5:3085} and to
945 @samp{203.178.141.194}. When the preferred family is @code{IPv4}, the
946 IPv4 address is used first; when the preferred family is @code{IPv6},
947 the IPv6 address is used first; if the specified value is @code{none},
948 the address order returned by DNS is used without change.
950 Unlike @samp{-4} and @samp{-6}, this option doesn't inhibit access to
951 any address family, it only changes the @emph{order} in which the
952 addresses are accessed. Also note that the reordering performed by
953 this option is @dfn{stable}---it doesn't affect order of addresses of
954 the same family. That is, the relative order of all IPv4 addresses
955 and of all IPv6 addresses remains intact in all cases.
957 @item --retry-connrefused
958 Consider ``connection refused'' a transient error and try again.
959 Normally Wget gives up on a URL when it is unable to connect to the
960 site because failure to connect is taken as a sign that the server is
961 not running at all and that retries would not help. This option is
962 for mirroring unreliable sites whose servers tend to disappear for
963 short periods of time.
967 @cindex authentication
968 @item --user=@var{user}
969 @itemx --password=@var{password}
970 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for both
971 @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval. These parameters can be overridden
972 using the @samp{--ftp-user} and @samp{--ftp-password} options for
973 @sc{ftp} connections and the @samp{--http-user} and @samp{--http-password}
974 options for @sc{http} connections.
977 @node Directory Options
978 @section Directory Options
982 @itemx --no-directories
983 Do not create a hierarchy of directories when retrieving recursively.
984 With this option turned on, all files will get saved to the current
985 directory, without clobbering (if a name shows up more than once, the
986 filenames will get extensions @samp{.n}).
989 @itemx --force-directories
990 The opposite of @samp{-nd}---create a hierarchy of directories, even if
991 one would not have been created otherwise. E.g. @samp{wget -x
992 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt} will save the downloaded file to
993 @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt}.
996 @itemx --no-host-directories
997 Disable generation of host-prefixed directories. By default, invoking
998 Wget with @samp{-r http://fly.srk.fer.hr/} will create a structure of
999 directories beginning with @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/}. This option disables
1002 @item --protocol-directories
1003 Use the protocol name as a directory component of local file names. For
1004 example, with this option, @samp{wget -r http://@var{host}} will save to
1005 @samp{http/@var{host}/...} rather than just to @samp{@var{host}/...}.
1007 @cindex cut directories
1008 @item --cut-dirs=@var{number}
1009 Ignore @var{number} directory components. This is useful for getting a
1010 fine-grained control over the directory where recursive retrieval will
1013 Take, for example, the directory at
1014 @samp{ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. If you retrieve it with
1015 @samp{-r}, it will be saved locally under
1016 @file{ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. While the @samp{-nH} option can
1017 remove the @file{ftp.xemacs.org/} part, you are still stuck with
1018 @file{pub/xemacs}. This is where @samp{--cut-dirs} comes in handy; it
1019 makes Wget not ``see'' @var{number} remote directory components. Here
1020 are several examples of how @samp{--cut-dirs} option works.
1024 No options -> ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/
1026 -nH --cut-dirs=1 -> xemacs/
1027 -nH --cut-dirs=2 -> .
1029 --cut-dirs=1 -> ftp.xemacs.org/xemacs/
1034 If you just want to get rid of the directory structure, this option is
1035 similar to a combination of @samp{-nd} and @samp{-P}. However, unlike
1036 @samp{-nd}, @samp{--cut-dirs} does not lose with subdirectories---for
1037 instance, with @samp{-nH --cut-dirs=1}, a @file{beta/} subdirectory will
1038 be placed to @file{xemacs/beta}, as one would expect.
1040 @cindex directory prefix
1041 @item -P @var{prefix}
1042 @itemx --directory-prefix=@var{prefix}
1043 Set directory prefix to @var{prefix}. The @dfn{directory prefix} is the
1044 directory where all other files and subdirectories will be saved to,
1045 i.e. the top of the retrieval tree. The default is @samp{.} (the
1050 @section HTTP Options
1053 @cindex .html extension
1055 @itemx --html-extension
1056 If a file of type @samp{application/xhtml+xml} or @samp{text/html} is
1057 downloaded and the URL does not end with the regexp
1058 @samp{\.[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]?}, this option will cause the suffix @samp{.html}
1059 to be appended to the local filename. This is useful, for instance, when
1060 you're mirroring a remote site that uses @samp{.asp} pages, but you want
1061 the mirrored pages to be viewable on your stock Apache server. Another
1062 good use for this is when you're downloading CGI-generated materials. A URL
1063 like @samp{http://site.com/article.cgi?25} will be saved as
1064 @file{article.cgi?25.html}.
1066 Note that filenames changed in this way will be re-downloaded every time
1067 you re-mirror a site, because Wget can't tell that the local
1068 @file{@var{X}.html} file corresponds to remote URL @samp{@var{X}} (since
1069 it doesn't yet know that the URL produces output of type
1070 @samp{text/html} or @samp{application/xhtml+xml}. To prevent this
1071 re-downloading, you must use @samp{-k} and @samp{-K} so that the original
1072 version of the file will be saved as @file{@var{X}.orig} (@pxref{Recursive
1073 Retrieval Options}).
1076 @cindex http password
1077 @cindex authentication
1078 @item --http-user=@var{user}
1079 @itemx --http-password=@var{password}
1080 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1081 @sc{http} server. According to the type of the challenge, Wget will
1082 encode them using either the @code{basic} (insecure) or the
1083 @code{digest} authentication scheme.
1085 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1086 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1087 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1088 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1089 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1090 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1091 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1094 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1101 Disable server-side cache. In this case, Wget will send the remote
1102 server an appropriate directive (@samp{Pragma: no-cache}) to get the
1103 file from the remote service, rather than returning the cached version.
1104 This is especially useful for retrieving and flushing out-of-date
1105 documents on proxy servers.
1107 Caching is allowed by default.
1111 Disable the use of cookies. Cookies are a mechanism for maintaining
1112 server-side state. The server sends the client a cookie using the
1113 @code{Set-Cookie} header, and the client responds with the same cookie
1114 upon further requests. Since cookies allow the server owners to keep
1115 track of visitors and for sites to exchange this information, some
1116 consider them a breach of privacy. The default is to use cookies;
1117 however, @emph{storing} cookies is not on by default.
1119 @cindex loading cookies
1120 @cindex cookies, loading
1121 @item --load-cookies @var{file}
1122 Load cookies from @var{file} before the first HTTP retrieval.
1123 @var{file} is a textual file in the format originally used by Netscape's
1124 @file{cookies.txt} file.
1126 You will typically use this option when mirroring sites that require
1127 that you be logged in to access some or all of their content. The login
1128 process typically works by the web server issuing an @sc{http} cookie
1129 upon receiving and verifying your credentials. The cookie is then
1130 resent by the browser when accessing that part of the site, and so
1131 proves your identity.
1133 Mirroring such a site requires Wget to send the same cookies your
1134 browser sends when communicating with the site. This is achieved by
1135 @samp{--load-cookies}---simply point Wget to the location of the
1136 @file{cookies.txt} file, and it will send the same cookies your browser
1137 would send in the same situation. Different browsers keep textual
1138 cookie files in different locations:
1142 The cookies are in @file{~/.netscape/cookies.txt}.
1144 @item Mozilla and Netscape 6.x.
1145 Mozilla's cookie file is also named @file{cookies.txt}, located
1146 somewhere under @file{~/.mozilla}, in the directory of your profile.
1147 The full path usually ends up looking somewhat like
1148 @file{~/.mozilla/default/@var{some-weird-string}/cookies.txt}.
1150 @item Internet Explorer.
1151 You can produce a cookie file Wget can use by using the File menu,
1152 Import and Export, Export Cookies. This has been tested with Internet
1153 Explorer 5; it is not guaranteed to work with earlier versions.
1155 @item Other browsers.
1156 If you are using a different browser to create your cookies,
1157 @samp{--load-cookies} will only work if you can locate or produce a
1158 cookie file in the Netscape format that Wget expects.
1161 If you cannot use @samp{--load-cookies}, there might still be an
1162 alternative. If your browser supports a ``cookie manager'', you can use
1163 it to view the cookies used when accessing the site you're mirroring.
1164 Write down the name and value of the cookie, and manually instruct Wget
1165 to send those cookies, bypassing the ``official'' cookie support:
1168 wget --no-cookies --header "Cookie: @var{name}=@var{value}"
1171 @cindex saving cookies
1172 @cindex cookies, saving
1173 @item --save-cookies @var{file}
1174 Save cookies to @var{file} before exiting. This will not save cookies
1175 that have expired or that have no expiry time (so-called ``session
1176 cookies''), but also see @samp{--keep-session-cookies}.
1178 @cindex cookies, session
1179 @cindex session cookies
1180 @item --keep-session-cookies
1181 When specified, causes @samp{--save-cookies} to also save session
1182 cookies. Session cookies are normally not saved because they are
1183 meant to be kept in memory and forgotten when you exit the browser.
1184 Saving them is useful on sites that require you to log in or to visit
1185 the home page before you can access some pages. With this option,
1186 multiple Wget runs are considered a single browser session as far as
1187 the site is concerned.
1189 Since the cookie file format does not normally carry session cookies,
1190 Wget marks them with an expiry timestamp of 0. Wget's
1191 @samp{--load-cookies} recognizes those as session cookies, but it might
1192 confuse other browsers. Also note that cookies so loaded will be
1193 treated as other session cookies, which means that if you want
1194 @samp{--save-cookies} to preserve them again, you must use
1195 @samp{--keep-session-cookies} again.
1197 @cindex Content-Length, ignore
1198 @cindex ignore length
1199 @item --ignore-length
1200 Unfortunately, some @sc{http} servers (@sc{cgi} programs, to be more
1201 precise) send out bogus @code{Content-Length} headers, which makes Wget
1202 go wild, as it thinks not all the document was retrieved. You can spot
1203 this syndrome if Wget retries getting the same document again and again,
1204 each time claiming that the (otherwise normal) connection has closed on
1207 With this option, Wget will ignore the @code{Content-Length} header---as
1208 if it never existed.
1211 @item --header=@var{header-line}
1212 Send @var{header-line} along with the rest of the headers in each
1213 @sc{http} request. The supplied header is sent as-is, which means it
1214 must contain name and value separated by colon, and must not contain
1217 You may define more than one additional header by specifying
1218 @samp{--header} more than once.
1222 wget --header='Accept-Charset: iso-8859-2' \
1223 --header='Accept-Language: hr' \
1224 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
1228 Specification of an empty string as the header value will clear all
1229 previous user-defined headers.
1231 As of Wget 1.10, this option can be used to override headers otherwise
1232 generated automatically. This example instructs Wget to connect to
1233 localhost, but to specify @samp{foo.bar} in the @code{Host} header:
1236 wget --header="Host: foo.bar" http://localhost/
1239 In versions of Wget prior to 1.10 such use of @samp{--header} caused
1240 sending of duplicate headers.
1243 @cindex proxy password
1244 @cindex proxy authentication
1245 @item --proxy-user=@var{user}
1246 @itemx --proxy-password=@var{password}
1247 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for
1248 authentication on a proxy server. Wget will encode them using the
1249 @code{basic} authentication scheme.
1251 Security considerations similar to those with @samp{--http-password}
1252 pertain here as well.
1254 @cindex http referer
1255 @cindex referer, http
1256 @item --referer=@var{url}
1257 Include `Referer: @var{url}' header in HTTP request. Useful for
1258 retrieving documents with server-side processing that assume they are
1259 always being retrieved by interactive web browsers and only come out
1260 properly when Referer is set to one of the pages that point to them.
1262 @cindex server response, save
1263 @item --save-headers
1264 Save the headers sent by the @sc{http} server to the file, preceding the
1265 actual contents, with an empty line as the separator.
1268 @item -U @var{agent-string}
1269 @itemx --user-agent=@var{agent-string}
1270 Identify as @var{agent-string} to the @sc{http} server.
1272 The @sc{http} protocol allows the clients to identify themselves using a
1273 @code{User-Agent} header field. This enables distinguishing the
1274 @sc{www} software, usually for statistical purposes or for tracing of
1275 protocol violations. Wget normally identifies as
1276 @samp{Wget/@var{version}}, @var{version} being the current version
1279 However, some sites have been known to impose the policy of tailoring
1280 the output according to the @code{User-Agent}-supplied information.
1281 While this is not such a bad idea in theory, it has been abused by
1282 servers denying information to clients other than (historically)
1283 Netscape or, more frequently, Microsoft Internet Explorer. This
1284 option allows you to change the @code{User-Agent} line issued by Wget.
1285 Use of this option is discouraged, unless you really know what you are
1288 Specifying empty user agent with @samp{--user-agent=""} instructs Wget
1289 not to send the @code{User-Agent} header in @sc{http} requests.
1292 @item --post-data=@var{string}
1293 @itemx --post-file=@var{file}
1294 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the specified data
1295 in the request body. @code{--post-data} sends @var{string} as data,
1296 whereas @code{--post-file} sends the contents of @var{file}. Other than
1297 that, they work in exactly the same way.
1299 Please be aware that Wget needs to know the size of the POST data in
1300 advance. Therefore the argument to @code{--post-file} must be a regular
1301 file; specifying a FIFO or something like @file{/dev/stdin} won't work.
1302 It's not quite clear how to work around this limitation inherent in
1303 HTTP/1.0. Although HTTP/1.1 introduces @dfn{chunked} transfer that
1304 doesn't require knowing the request length in advance, a client can't
1305 use chunked unless it knows it's talking to an HTTP/1.1 server. And it
1306 can't know that until it receives a response, which in turn requires the
1307 request to have been completed -- a chicken-and-egg problem.
1309 Note: if Wget is redirected after the POST request is completed, it
1310 will not send the POST data to the redirected URL. This is because
1311 URLs that process POST often respond with a redirection to a regular
1312 page, which does not desire or accept POST. It is not completely
1313 clear that this behavior is optimal; if it doesn't work out, it might
1314 be changed in the future.
1316 This example shows how to log to a server using POST and then proceed to
1317 download the desired pages, presumably only accessible to authorized
1322 # @r{Log in to the server. This can be done only once.}
1323 wget --save-cookies cookies.txt \
1324 --post-data 'user=foo&password=bar' \
1325 http://server.com/auth.php
1327 # @r{Now grab the page or pages we care about.}
1328 wget --load-cookies cookies.txt \
1329 -p http://server.com/interesting/article.php
1333 If the server is using session cookies to track user authentication,
1334 the above will not work because @samp{--save-cookies} will not save
1335 them (and neither will browsers) and the @file{cookies.txt} file will
1336 be empty. In that case use @samp{--keep-session-cookies} along with
1337 @samp{--save-cookies} to force saving of session cookies.
1340 @node HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options
1341 @section HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options
1344 To support encrypted HTTP (HTTPS) downloads, Wget must be compiled
1345 with an external SSL library, currently OpenSSL. If Wget is compiled
1346 without SSL support, none of these options are available.
1349 @cindex SSL protocol, choose
1350 @item --secure-protocol=@var{protocol}
1351 Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are @samp{auto},
1352 @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, and @samp{TLSv1}. If @samp{auto} is used,
1353 the SSL library is given the liberty of choosing the appropriate
1354 protocol automatically, which is achieved by sending an SSLv2 greeting
1355 and announcing support for SSLv3 and TLSv1. This is the default.
1357 Specifying @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, or @samp{TLSv1} forces the use
1358 of the corresponding protocol. This is useful when talking to old and
1359 buggy SSL server implementations that make it hard for OpenSSL to
1360 choose the correct protocol version. Fortunately, such servers are
1363 @cindex SSL certificate, check
1364 @item --no-check-certificate
1365 Don't check the server certificate against the available certificate
1366 authorities. Also don't require the URL host name to match the common
1367 name presented by the certificate.
1369 As of Wget 1.10, the default is to verify the server's certificate
1370 against the recognized certificate authorities, breaking the SSL
1371 handshake and aborting the download if the verification fails.
1372 Although this provides more secure downloads, it does break
1373 interoperability with some sites that worked with previous Wget
1374 versions, particularly those using self-signed, expired, or otherwise
1375 invalid certificates. This option forces an ``insecure'' mode of
1376 operation that turns the certificate verification errors into warnings
1377 and allows you to proceed.
1379 If you encounter ``certificate verification'' errors or ones saying
1380 that ``common name doesn't match requested host name'', you can use
1381 this option to bypass the verification and proceed with the download.
1382 @emph{Only use this option if you are otherwise convinced of the
1383 site's authenticity, or if you really don't care about the validity of
1384 its certificate.} It is almost always a bad idea not to check the
1385 certificates when transmitting confidential or important data.
1387 @cindex SSL certificate
1388 @item --certificate=@var{file}
1389 Use the client certificate stored in @var{file}. This is needed for
1390 servers that are configured to require certificates from the clients
1391 that connect to them. Normally a certificate is not required and this
1394 @cindex SSL certificate type, specify
1395 @item --certificate-type=@var{type}
1396 Specify the type of the client certificate. Legal values are
1397 @samp{PEM} (assumed by default) and @samp{DER}, also known as
1400 @item --private-key=@var{file}
1401 Read the private key from @var{file}. This allows you to provide the
1402 private key in a file separate from the certificate.
1404 @item --private-key-type=@var{type}
1405 Specify the type of the private key. Accepted values are @samp{PEM}
1406 (the default) and @samp{DER}.
1408 @item --ca-certificate=@var{file}
1409 Use @var{file} as the file with the bundle of certificate authorities
1410 (``CA'') to verify the peers. The certificates must be in PEM format.
1412 Without this option Wget looks for CA certificates at the
1413 system-specified locations, chosen at OpenSSL installation time.
1415 @cindex SSL certificate authority
1416 @item --ca-directory=@var{directory}
1417 Specifies directory containing CA certificates in PEM format. Each
1418 file contains one CA certificate, and the file name is based on a hash
1419 value derived from the certificate. This is achieved by processing a
1420 certificate directory with the @code{c_rehash} utility supplied with
1421 OpenSSL. Using @samp{--ca-directory} is more efficient than
1422 @samp{--ca-certificate} when many certificates are installed because
1423 it allows Wget to fetch certificates on demand.
1425 Without this option Wget looks for CA certificates at the
1426 system-specified locations, chosen at OpenSSL installation time.
1428 @cindex entropy, specifying source of
1429 @cindex randomness, specifying source of
1430 @item --random-file=@var{file}
1431 Use @var{file} as the source of random data for seeding the
1432 pseudo-random number generator on systems without @file{/dev/random}.
1434 On such systems the SSL library needs an external source of randomness
1435 to initialize. Randomness may be provided by EGD (see
1436 @samp{--egd-file} below) or read from an external source specified by
1437 the user. If this option is not specified, Wget looks for random data
1438 in @code{$RANDFILE} or, if that is unset, in @file{$HOME/.rnd}. If
1439 none of those are available, it is likely that SSL encryption will not
1442 If you're getting the ``Could not seed OpenSSL PRNG; disabling SSL.''
1443 error, you should provide random data using some of the methods
1447 @item --egd-file=@var{file}
1448 Use @var{file} as the EGD socket. EGD stands for @dfn{Entropy
1449 Gathering Daemon}, a user-space program that collects data from
1450 various unpredictable system sources and makes it available to other
1451 programs that might need it. Encryption software, such as the SSL
1452 library, needs sources of non-repeating randomness to seed the random
1453 number generator used to produce cryptographically strong keys.
1455 OpenSSL allows the user to specify his own source of entropy using the
1456 @code{RAND_FILE} environment variable. If this variable is unset, or
1457 if the specified file does not produce enough randomness, OpenSSL will
1458 read random data from EGD socket specified using this option.
1460 If this option is not specified (and the equivalent startup command is
1461 not used), EGD is never contacted. EGD is not needed on modern Unix
1462 systems that support @file{/dev/random}.
1466 @section FTP Options
1470 @cindex ftp password
1471 @cindex ftp authentication
1472 @item --ftp-user=@var{user}
1473 @itemx --ftp-password=@var{password}
1474 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1475 @sc{ftp} server. Without this, or the corresponding startup option,
1476 the password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, normally used for anonymous
1479 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1480 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1481 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1482 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1483 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1484 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1485 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1488 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1492 @cindex .listing files, removing
1493 @item --no-remove-listing
1494 Don't remove the temporary @file{.listing} files generated by @sc{ftp}
1495 retrievals. Normally, these files contain the raw directory listings
1496 received from @sc{ftp} servers. Not removing them can be useful for
1497 debugging purposes, or when you want to be able to easily check on the
1498 contents of remote server directories (e.g. to verify that a mirror
1499 you're running is complete).
1501 Note that even though Wget writes to a known filename for this file,
1502 this is not a security hole in the scenario of a user making
1503 @file{.listing} a symbolic link to @file{/etc/passwd} or something and
1504 asking @code{root} to run Wget in his or her directory. Depending on
1505 the options used, either Wget will refuse to write to @file{.listing},
1506 making the globbing/recursion/time-stamping operation fail, or the
1507 symbolic link will be deleted and replaced with the actual
1508 @file{.listing} file, or the listing will be written to a
1509 @file{.listing.@var{number}} file.
1511 Even though this situation isn't a problem, though, @code{root} should
1512 never run Wget in a non-trusted user's directory. A user could do
1513 something as simple as linking @file{index.html} to @file{/etc/passwd}
1514 and asking @code{root} to run Wget with @samp{-N} or @samp{-r} so the file
1515 will be overwritten.
1517 @cindex globbing, toggle
1519 Turn off @sc{ftp} globbing. Globbing refers to the use of shell-like
1520 special characters (@dfn{wildcards}), like @samp{*}, @samp{?}, @samp{[}
1521 and @samp{]} to retrieve more than one file from the same directory at
1525 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/*.msg
1528 By default, globbing will be turned on if the @sc{url} contains a
1529 globbing character. This option may be used to turn globbing on or off
1532 You may have to quote the @sc{url} to protect it from being expanded by
1533 your shell. Globbing makes Wget look for a directory listing, which is
1534 system-specific. This is why it currently works only with Unix @sc{ftp}
1535 servers (and the ones emulating Unix @code{ls} output).
1538 @item --no-passive-ftp
1539 Disable the use of the @dfn{passive} FTP transfer mode. Passive FTP
1540 mandates that the client connect to the server to establish the data
1541 connection rather than the other way around.
1543 If the machine is connected to the Internet directly, both passive and
1544 active FTP should work equally well. Behind most firewall and NAT
1545 configurations passive FTP has a better chance of working. However,
1546 in some rare firewall configurations, active FTP actually works when
1547 passive FTP doesn't. If you suspect this to be the case, use this
1548 option, or set @code{passive_ftp=off} in your init file.
1550 @cindex symbolic links, retrieving
1551 @item --retr-symlinks
1552 Usually, when retrieving @sc{ftp} directories recursively and a symbolic
1553 link is encountered, the linked-to file is not downloaded. Instead, a
1554 matching symbolic link is created on the local filesystem. The
1555 pointed-to file will not be downloaded unless this recursive retrieval
1556 would have encountered it separately and downloaded it anyway.
1558 When @samp{--retr-symlinks} is specified, however, symbolic links are
1559 traversed and the pointed-to files are retrieved. At this time, this
1560 option does not cause Wget to traverse symlinks to directories and
1561 recurse through them, but in the future it should be enhanced to do
1564 Note that when retrieving a file (not a directory) because it was
1565 specified on the command-line, rather than because it was recursed to,
1566 this option has no effect. Symbolic links are always traversed in this
1569 @cindex Keep-Alive, turning off
1570 @cindex Persistent Connections, disabling
1571 @item --no-http-keep-alive
1572 Turn off the ``keep-alive'' feature for HTTP downloads. Normally, Wget
1573 asks the server to keep the connection open so that, when you download
1574 more than one document from the same server, they get transferred over
1575 the same TCP connection. This saves time and at the same time reduces
1576 the load on the server.
1578 This option is useful when, for some reason, persistent (keep-alive)
1579 connections don't work for you, for example due to a server bug or due
1580 to the inability of server-side scripts to cope with the connections.
1583 @node Recursive Retrieval Options
1584 @section Recursive Retrieval Options
1589 Turn on recursive retrieving. @xref{Recursive Download}, for more
1592 @item -l @var{depth}
1593 @itemx --level=@var{depth}
1594 Specify recursion maximum depth level @var{depth} (@pxref{Recursive
1595 Download}). The default maximum depth is 5.
1597 @cindex proxy filling
1598 @cindex delete after retrieval
1599 @cindex filling proxy cache
1600 @item --delete-after
1601 This option tells Wget to delete every single file it downloads,
1602 @emph{after} having done so. It is useful for pre-fetching popular
1603 pages through a proxy, e.g.:
1606 wget -r -nd --delete-after http://whatever.com/~popular/page/
1609 The @samp{-r} option is to retrieve recursively, and @samp{-nd} to not
1612 Note that @samp{--delete-after} deletes files on the local machine. It
1613 does not issue the @samp{DELE} command to remote FTP sites, for
1614 instance. Also note that when @samp{--delete-after} is specified,
1615 @samp{--convert-links} is ignored, so @samp{.orig} files are simply not
1616 created in the first place.
1618 @cindex conversion of links
1619 @cindex link conversion
1621 @itemx --convert-links
1622 After the download is complete, convert the links in the document to
1623 make them suitable for local viewing. This affects not only the visible
1624 hyperlinks, but any part of the document that links to external content,
1625 such as embedded images, links to style sheets, hyperlinks to non-@sc{html}
1628 Each link will be changed in one of the two ways:
1632 The links to files that have been downloaded by Wget will be changed to
1633 refer to the file they point to as a relative link.
1635 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1636 @file{/bar/img.gif}, also downloaded, then the link in @file{doc.html}
1637 will be modified to point to @samp{../bar/img.gif}. This kind of
1638 transformation works reliably for arbitrary combinations of directories.
1641 The links to files that have not been downloaded by Wget will be changed
1642 to include host name and absolute path of the location they point to.
1644 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1645 @file{/bar/img.gif} (or to @file{../bar/img.gif}), then the link in
1646 @file{doc.html} will be modified to point to
1647 @file{http://@var{hostname}/bar/img.gif}.
1650 Because of this, local browsing works reliably: if a linked file was
1651 downloaded, the link will refer to its local name; if it was not
1652 downloaded, the link will refer to its full Internet address rather than
1653 presenting a broken link. The fact that the former links are converted
1654 to relative links ensures that you can move the downloaded hierarchy to
1657 Note that only at the end of the download can Wget know which links have
1658 been downloaded. Because of that, the work done by @samp{-k} will be
1659 performed at the end of all the downloads.
1661 @cindex backing up converted files
1663 @itemx --backup-converted
1664 When converting a file, back up the original version with a @samp{.orig}
1665 suffix. Affects the behavior of @samp{-N} (@pxref{HTTP Time-Stamping
1670 Turn on options suitable for mirroring. This option turns on recursion
1671 and time-stamping, sets infinite recursion depth and keeps @sc{ftp}
1672 directory listings. It is currently equivalent to
1673 @samp{-r -N -l inf --no-remove-listing}.
1675 @cindex page requisites
1676 @cindex required images, downloading
1678 @itemx --page-requisites
1679 This option causes Wget to download all the files that are necessary to
1680 properly display a given @sc{html} page. This includes such things as
1681 inlined images, sounds, and referenced stylesheets.
1683 Ordinarily, when downloading a single @sc{html} page, any requisite documents
1684 that may be needed to display it properly are not downloaded. Using
1685 @samp{-r} together with @samp{-l} can help, but since Wget does not
1686 ordinarily distinguish between external and inlined documents, one is
1687 generally left with ``leaf documents'' that are missing their
1690 For instance, say document @file{1.html} contains an @code{<IMG>} tag
1691 referencing @file{1.gif} and an @code{<A>} tag pointing to external
1692 document @file{2.html}. Say that @file{2.html} is similar but that its
1693 image is @file{2.gif} and it links to @file{3.html}. Say this
1694 continues up to some arbitrarily high number.
1696 If one executes the command:
1699 wget -r -l 2 http://@var{site}/1.html
1702 then @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, @file{2.gif}, and
1703 @file{3.html} will be downloaded. As you can see, @file{3.html} is
1704 without its requisite @file{3.gif} because Wget is simply counting the
1705 number of hops (up to 2) away from @file{1.html} in order to determine
1706 where to stop the recursion. However, with this command:
1709 wget -r -l 2 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1712 all the above files @emph{and} @file{3.html}'s requisite @file{3.gif}
1713 will be downloaded. Similarly,
1716 wget -r -l 1 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1719 will cause @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, and @file{2.gif}
1720 to be downloaded. One might think that:
1723 wget -r -l 0 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1726 would download just @file{1.html} and @file{1.gif}, but unfortunately
1727 this is not the case, because @samp{-l 0} is equivalent to
1728 @samp{-l inf}---that is, infinite recursion. To download a single @sc{html}
1729 page (or a handful of them, all specified on the command-line or in a
1730 @samp{-i} @sc{url} input file) and its (or their) requisites, simply leave off
1731 @samp{-r} and @samp{-l}:
1734 wget -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1737 Note that Wget will behave as if @samp{-r} had been specified, but only
1738 that single page and its requisites will be downloaded. Links from that
1739 page to external documents will not be followed. Actually, to download
1740 a single page and all its requisites (even if they exist on separate
1741 websites), and make sure the lot displays properly locally, this author
1742 likes to use a few options in addition to @samp{-p}:
1745 wget -E -H -k -K -p http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1748 To finish off this topic, it's worth knowing that Wget's idea of an
1749 external document link is any URL specified in an @code{<A>} tag, an
1750 @code{<AREA>} tag, or a @code{<LINK>} tag other than @code{<LINK
1753 @cindex @sc{html} comments
1754 @cindex comments, @sc{html}
1755 @item --strict-comments
1756 Turn on strict parsing of @sc{html} comments. The default is to terminate
1757 comments at the first occurrence of @samp{-->}.
1759 According to specifications, @sc{html} comments are expressed as @sc{sgml}
1760 @dfn{declarations}. Declaration is special markup that begins with
1761 @samp{<!} and ends with @samp{>}, such as @samp{<!DOCTYPE ...>}, that
1762 may contain comments between a pair of @samp{--} delimiters. @sc{html}
1763 comments are ``empty declarations'', @sc{sgml} declarations without any
1764 non-comment text. Therefore, @samp{<!--foo-->} is a valid comment, and
1765 so is @samp{<!--one-- --two-->}, but @samp{<!--1--2-->} is not.
1767 On the other hand, most @sc{html} writers don't perceive comments as anything
1768 other than text delimited with @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}, which is not
1769 quite the same. For example, something like @samp{<!------------>}
1770 works as a valid comment as long as the number of dashes is a multiple
1771 of four (!). If not, the comment technically lasts until the next
1772 @samp{--}, which may be at the other end of the document. Because of
1773 this, many popular browsers completely ignore the specification and
1774 implement what users have come to expect: comments delimited with
1775 @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}.
1777 Until version 1.9, Wget interpreted comments strictly, which resulted in
1778 missing links in many web pages that displayed fine in browsers, but had
1779 the misfortune of containing non-compliant comments. Beginning with
1780 version 1.9, Wget has joined the ranks of clients that implements
1781 ``naive'' comments, terminating each comment at the first occurrence of
1784 If, for whatever reason, you want strict comment parsing, use this
1785 option to turn it on.
1788 @node Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1789 @section Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1792 @item -A @var{acclist} --accept @var{acclist}
1793 @itemx -R @var{rejlist} --reject @var{rejlist}
1794 Specify comma-separated lists of file name suffixes or patterns to
1795 accept or reject (@pxref{Types of Files} for more details).
1797 @item -D @var{domain-list}
1798 @itemx --domains=@var{domain-list}
1799 Set domains to be followed. @var{domain-list} is a comma-separated list
1800 of domains. Note that it does @emph{not} turn on @samp{-H}.
1802 @item --exclude-domains @var{domain-list}
1803 Specify the domains that are @emph{not} to be followed.
1804 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1806 @cindex follow FTP links
1808 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents. Without this option,
1809 Wget will ignore all the @sc{ftp} links.
1811 @cindex tag-based recursive pruning
1812 @item --follow-tags=@var{list}
1813 Wget has an internal table of @sc{html} tag / attribute pairs that it
1814 considers when looking for linked documents during a recursive
1815 retrieval. If a user wants only a subset of those tags to be
1816 considered, however, he or she should be specify such tags in a
1817 comma-separated @var{list} with this option.
1819 @item --ignore-tags=@var{list}
1820 This is the opposite of the @samp{--follow-tags} option. To skip
1821 certain @sc{html} tags when recursively looking for documents to download,
1822 specify them in a comma-separated @var{list}.
1824 In the past, this option was the best bet for downloading a single page
1825 and its requisites, using a command-line like:
1828 wget --ignore-tags=a,area -H -k -K -r http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1831 However, the author of this option came across a page with tags like
1832 @code{<LINK REL="home" HREF="/">} and came to the realization that
1833 specifying tags to ignore was not enough. One can't just tell Wget to
1834 ignore @code{<LINK>}, because then stylesheets will not be downloaded.
1835 Now the best bet for downloading a single page and its requisites is the
1836 dedicated @samp{--page-requisites} option.
1841 Ignore case when matching files and directories. This influences the
1842 behavior of -R, -A, -I, and -X options, as well as globbing
1843 implemented when downloading from FTP sites. For example, with this
1844 option, @samp{-A *.txt} will match @samp{file1.txt}, but also
1845 @samp{file2.TXT}, @samp{file3.TxT}, and so on.
1849 Enable spanning across hosts when doing recursive retrieving
1850 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1854 Follow relative links only. Useful for retrieving a specific home page
1855 without any distractions, not even those from the same hosts
1856 (@pxref{Relative Links}).
1859 @itemx --include-directories=@var{list}
1860 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
1861 downloading (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits} for more details.) Elements
1862 of @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1865 @itemx --exclude-directories=@var{list}
1866 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
1867 download (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits} for more details.) Elements of
1868 @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1872 Do not ever ascend to the parent directory when retrieving recursively.
1873 This is a useful option, since it guarantees that only the files
1874 @emph{below} a certain hierarchy will be downloaded.
1875 @xref{Directory-Based Limits}, for more details.
1880 @node Recursive Download
1881 @chapter Recursive Download
1884 @cindex recursive download
1886 GNU Wget is capable of traversing parts of the Web (or a single
1887 @sc{http} or @sc{ftp} server), following links and directory structure.
1888 We refer to this as to @dfn{recursive retrieval}, or @dfn{recursion}.
1890 With @sc{http} @sc{url}s, Wget retrieves and parses the @sc{html} from
1891 the given @sc{url}, documents, retrieving the files the @sc{html}
1892 document was referring to, through markup like @code{href}, or
1893 @code{src}. If the freshly downloaded file is also of type
1894 @code{text/html} or @code{application/xhtml+xml}, it will be parsed and
1897 Recursive retrieval of @sc{http} and @sc{html} content is
1898 @dfn{breadth-first}. This means that Wget first downloads the requested
1899 @sc{html} document, then the documents linked from that document, then the
1900 documents linked by them, and so on. In other words, Wget first
1901 downloads the documents at depth 1, then those at depth 2, and so on
1902 until the specified maximum depth.
1904 The maximum @dfn{depth} to which the retrieval may descend is specified
1905 with the @samp{-l} option. The default maximum depth is five layers.
1907 When retrieving an @sc{ftp} @sc{url} recursively, Wget will retrieve all
1908 the data from the given directory tree (including the subdirectories up
1909 to the specified depth) on the remote server, creating its mirror image
1910 locally. @sc{ftp} retrieval is also limited by the @code{depth}
1911 parameter. Unlike @sc{http} recursion, @sc{ftp} recursion is performed
1914 By default, Wget will create a local directory tree, corresponding to
1915 the one found on the remote server.
1917 Recursive retrieving can find a number of applications, the most
1918 important of which is mirroring. It is also useful for @sc{www}
1919 presentations, and any other opportunities where slow network
1920 connections should be bypassed by storing the files locally.
1922 You should be warned that recursive downloads can overload the remote
1923 servers. Because of that, many administrators frown upon them and may
1924 ban access from your site if they detect very fast downloads of big
1925 amounts of content. When downloading from Internet servers, consider
1926 using the @samp{-w} option to introduce a delay between accesses to the
1927 server. The download will take a while longer, but the server
1928 administrator will not be alarmed by your rudeness.
1930 Of course, recursive download may cause problems on your machine. If
1931 left to run unchecked, it can easily fill up the disk. If downloading
1932 from local network, it can also take bandwidth on the system, as well as
1933 consume memory and CPU.
1935 Try to specify the criteria that match the kind of download you are
1936 trying to achieve. If you want to download only one page, use
1937 @samp{--page-requisites} without any additional recursion. If you want
1938 to download things under one directory, use @samp{-np} to avoid
1939 downloading things from other directories. If you want to download all
1940 the files from one directory, use @samp{-l 1} to make sure the recursion
1941 depth never exceeds one. @xref{Following Links}, for more information
1944 Recursive retrieval should be used with care. Don't say you were not
1947 @node Following Links
1948 @chapter Following Links
1950 @cindex following links
1952 When retrieving recursively, one does not wish to retrieve loads of
1953 unnecessary data. Most of the time the users bear in mind exactly what
1954 they want to download, and want Wget to follow only specific links.
1956 For example, if you wish to download the music archive from
1957 @samp{fly.srk.fer.hr}, you will not want to download all the home pages
1958 that happen to be referenced by an obscure part of the archive.
1960 Wget possesses several mechanisms that allows you to fine-tune which
1961 links it will follow.
1964 * Spanning Hosts:: (Un)limiting retrieval based on host name.
1965 * Types of Files:: Getting only certain files.
1966 * Directory-Based Limits:: Getting only certain directories.
1967 * Relative Links:: Follow relative links only.
1968 * FTP Links:: Following FTP links.
1971 @node Spanning Hosts
1972 @section Spanning Hosts
1973 @cindex spanning hosts
1974 @cindex hosts, spanning
1976 Wget's recursive retrieval normally refuses to visit hosts different
1977 than the one you specified on the command line. This is a reasonable
1978 default; without it, every retrieval would have the potential to turn
1979 your Wget into a small version of google.
1981 However, visiting different hosts, or @dfn{host spanning,} is sometimes
1982 a useful option. Maybe the images are served from a different server.
1983 Maybe you're mirroring a site that consists of pages interlinked between
1984 three servers. Maybe the server has two equivalent names, and the @sc{html}
1985 pages refer to both interchangeably.
1988 @item Span to any host---@samp{-H}
1990 The @samp{-H} option turns on host spanning, thus allowing Wget's
1991 recursive run to visit any host referenced by a link. Unless sufficient
1992 recursion-limiting criteria are applied depth, these foreign hosts will
1993 typically link to yet more hosts, and so on until Wget ends up sucking
1994 up much more data than you have intended.
1996 @item Limit spanning to certain domains---@samp{-D}
1998 The @samp{-D} option allows you to specify the domains that will be
1999 followed, thus limiting the recursion only to the hosts that belong to
2000 these domains. Obviously, this makes sense only in conjunction with
2001 @samp{-H}. A typical example would be downloading the contents of
2002 @samp{www.server.com}, but allowing downloads from
2003 @samp{images.server.com}, etc.:
2006 wget -rH -Dserver.com http://www.server.com/
2009 You can specify more than one address by separating them with a comma,
2010 e.g. @samp{-Ddomain1.com,domain2.com}.
2012 @item Keep download off certain domains---@samp{--exclude-domains}
2014 If there are domains you want to exclude specifically, you can do it
2015 with @samp{--exclude-domains}, which accepts the same type of arguments
2016 of @samp{-D}, but will @emph{exclude} all the listed domains. For
2017 example, if you want to download all the hosts from @samp{foo.edu}
2018 domain, with the exception of @samp{sunsite.foo.edu}, you can do it like
2022 wget -rH -Dfoo.edu --exclude-domains sunsite.foo.edu \
2028 @node Types of Files
2029 @section Types of Files
2030 @cindex types of files
2032 When downloading material from the web, you will often want to restrict
2033 the retrieval to only certain file types. For example, if you are
2034 interested in downloading @sc{gif}s, you will not be overjoyed to get
2035 loads of PostScript documents, and vice versa.
2037 Wget offers two options to deal with this problem. Each option
2038 description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent command
2041 @cindex accept wildcards
2042 @cindex accept suffixes
2043 @cindex wildcards, accept
2044 @cindex suffixes, accept
2046 @item -A @var{acclist}
2047 @itemx --accept @var{acclist}
2048 @itemx accept = @var{acclist}
2049 The argument to @samp{--accept} option is a list of file suffixes or
2050 patterns that Wget will download during recursive retrieval. A suffix
2051 is the ending part of a file, and consists of ``normal'' letters,
2052 e.g. @samp{gif} or @samp{.jpg}. A matching pattern contains shell-like
2053 wildcards, e.g. @samp{books*} or @samp{zelazny*196[0-9]*}.
2055 So, specifying @samp{wget -A gif,jpg} will make Wget download only the
2056 files ending with @samp{gif} or @samp{jpg}, i.e. @sc{gif}s and
2057 @sc{jpeg}s. On the other hand, @samp{wget -A "zelazny*196[0-9]*"} will
2058 download only files beginning with @samp{zelazny} and containing numbers
2059 from 1960 to 1969 anywhere within. Look up the manual of your shell for
2060 a description of how pattern matching works.
2062 Of course, any number of suffixes and patterns can be combined into a
2063 comma-separated list, and given as an argument to @samp{-A}.
2065 @cindex reject wildcards
2066 @cindex reject suffixes
2067 @cindex wildcards, reject
2068 @cindex suffixes, reject
2069 @item -R @var{rejlist}
2070 @itemx --reject @var{rejlist}
2071 @itemx reject = @var{rejlist}
2072 The @samp{--reject} option works the same way as @samp{--accept}, only
2073 its logic is the reverse; Wget will download all files @emph{except} the
2074 ones matching the suffixes (or patterns) in the list.
2076 So, if you want to download a whole page except for the cumbersome
2077 @sc{mpeg}s and @sc{.au} files, you can use @samp{wget -R mpg,mpeg,au}.
2078 Analogously, to download all files except the ones beginning with
2079 @samp{bjork}, use @samp{wget -R "bjork*"}. The quotes are to prevent
2080 expansion by the shell.
2083 The @samp{-A} and @samp{-R} options may be combined to achieve even
2084 better fine-tuning of which files to retrieve. E.g. @samp{wget -A
2085 "*zelazny*" -R .ps} will download all the files having @samp{zelazny} as
2086 a part of their name, but @emph{not} the PostScript files.
2088 Note that these two options do not affect the downloading of @sc{html}
2089 files; Wget must load all the @sc{html}s to know where to go at
2090 all---recursive retrieval would make no sense otherwise.
2092 @node Directory-Based Limits
2093 @section Directory-Based Limits
2095 @cindex directory limits
2097 Regardless of other link-following facilities, it is often useful to
2098 place the restriction of what files to retrieve based on the directories
2099 those files are placed in. There can be many reasons for this---the
2100 home pages may be organized in a reasonable directory structure; or some
2101 directories may contain useless information, e.g. @file{/cgi-bin} or
2102 @file{/dev} directories.
2104 Wget offers three different options to deal with this requirement. Each
2105 option description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent
2106 command in @file{.wgetrc}.
2108 @cindex directories, include
2109 @cindex include directories
2110 @cindex accept directories
2113 @itemx --include @var{list}
2114 @itemx include_directories = @var{list}
2115 @samp{-I} option accepts a comma-separated list of directories included
2116 in the retrieval. Any other directories will simply be ignored. The
2117 directories are absolute paths.
2119 So, if you wish to download from @samp{http://host/people/bozo/}
2120 following only links to bozo's colleagues in the @file{/people}
2121 directory and the bogus scripts in @file{/cgi-bin}, you can specify:
2124 wget -I /people,/cgi-bin http://host/people/bozo/
2127 @cindex directories, exclude
2128 @cindex exclude directories
2129 @cindex reject directories
2131 @itemx --exclude @var{list}
2132 @itemx exclude_directories = @var{list}
2133 @samp{-X} option is exactly the reverse of @samp{-I}---this is a list of
2134 directories @emph{excluded} from the download. E.g. if you do not want
2135 Wget to download things from @file{/cgi-bin} directory, specify @samp{-X
2136 /cgi-bin} on the command line.
2138 The same as with @samp{-A}/@samp{-R}, these two options can be combined
2139 to get a better fine-tuning of downloading subdirectories. E.g. if you
2140 want to load all the files from @file{/pub} hierarchy except for
2141 @file{/pub/worthless}, specify @samp{-I/pub -X/pub/worthless}.
2146 @itemx no_parent = on
2147 The simplest, and often very useful way of limiting directories is
2148 disallowing retrieval of the links that refer to the hierarchy
2149 @dfn{above} than the beginning directory, i.e. disallowing ascent to the
2150 parent directory/directories.
2152 The @samp{--no-parent} option (short @samp{-np}) is useful in this case.
2153 Using it guarantees that you will never leave the existing hierarchy.
2154 Supposing you issue Wget with:
2157 wget -r --no-parent http://somehost/~luzer/my-archive/
2160 You may rest assured that none of the references to
2161 @file{/~his-girls-homepage/} or @file{/~luzer/all-my-mpegs/} will be
2162 followed. Only the archive you are interested in will be downloaded.
2163 Essentially, @samp{--no-parent} is similar to
2164 @samp{-I/~luzer/my-archive}, only it handles redirections in a more
2165 intelligent fashion.
2168 @node Relative Links
2169 @section Relative Links
2170 @cindex relative links
2172 When @samp{-L} is turned on, only the relative links are ever followed.
2173 Relative links are here defined those that do not refer to the web
2174 server root. For example, these links are relative:
2178 <a href="foo/bar.gif">
2179 <a href="../foo/bar.gif">
2182 These links are not relative:
2186 <a href="/foo/bar.gif">
2187 <a href="http://www.server.com/foo/bar.gif">
2190 Using this option guarantees that recursive retrieval will not span
2191 hosts, even without @samp{-H}. In simple cases it also allows downloads
2192 to ``just work'' without having to convert links.
2194 This option is probably not very useful and might be removed in a future
2198 @section Following FTP Links
2199 @cindex following ftp links
2201 The rules for @sc{ftp} are somewhat specific, as it is necessary for
2202 them to be. @sc{ftp} links in @sc{html} documents are often included
2203 for purposes of reference, and it is often inconvenient to download them
2206 To have @sc{ftp} links followed from @sc{html} documents, you need to
2207 specify the @samp{--follow-ftp} option. Having done that, @sc{ftp}
2208 links will span hosts regardless of @samp{-H} setting. This is logical,
2209 as @sc{ftp} links rarely point to the same host where the @sc{http}
2210 server resides. For similar reasons, the @samp{-L} options has no
2211 effect on such downloads. On the other hand, domain acceptance
2212 (@samp{-D}) and suffix rules (@samp{-A} and @samp{-R}) apply normally.
2214 Also note that followed links to @sc{ftp} directories will not be
2215 retrieved recursively further.
2218 @chapter Time-Stamping
2219 @cindex time-stamping
2220 @cindex timestamping
2221 @cindex updating the archives
2222 @cindex incremental updating
2224 One of the most important aspects of mirroring information from the
2225 Internet is updating your archives.
2227 Downloading the whole archive again and again, just to replace a few
2228 changed files is expensive, both in terms of wasted bandwidth and money,
2229 and the time to do the update. This is why all the mirroring tools
2230 offer the option of incremental updating.
2232 Such an updating mechanism means that the remote server is scanned in
2233 search of @dfn{new} files. Only those new files will be downloaded in
2234 the place of the old ones.
2236 A file is considered new if one of these two conditions are met:
2240 A file of that name does not already exist locally.
2243 A file of that name does exist, but the remote file was modified more
2244 recently than the local file.
2247 To implement this, the program needs to be aware of the time of last
2248 modification of both local and remote files. We call this information the
2249 @dfn{time-stamp} of a file.
2251 The time-stamping in GNU Wget is turned on using @samp{--timestamping}
2252 (@samp{-N}) option, or through @code{timestamping = on} directive in
2253 @file{.wgetrc}. With this option, for each file it intends to download,
2254 Wget will check whether a local file of the same name exists. If it
2255 does, and the remote file is older, Wget will not download it.
2257 If the local file does not exist, or the sizes of the files do not
2258 match, Wget will download the remote file no matter what the time-stamps
2262 * Time-Stamping Usage::
2263 * HTTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2264 * FTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2267 @node Time-Stamping Usage
2268 @section Time-Stamping Usage
2269 @cindex time-stamping usage
2270 @cindex usage, time-stamping
2272 The usage of time-stamping is simple. Say you would like to download a
2273 file so that it keeps its date of modification.
2276 wget -S http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2279 A simple @code{ls -l} shows that the time stamp on the local file equals
2280 the state of the @code{Last-Modified} header, as returned by the server.
2281 As you can see, the time-stamping info is preserved locally, even
2282 without @samp{-N} (at least for @sc{http}).
2284 Several days later, you would like Wget to check if the remote file has
2285 changed, and download it if it has.
2288 wget -N http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2291 Wget will ask the server for the last-modified date. If the local file
2292 has the same timestamp as the server, or a newer one, the remote file
2293 will not be re-fetched. However, if the remote file is more recent,
2294 Wget will proceed to fetch it.
2296 The same goes for @sc{ftp}. For example:
2299 wget "ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/emacs/gnus/*"
2302 (The quotes around that URL are to prevent the shell from trying to
2303 interpret the @samp{*}.)
2305 After download, a local directory listing will show that the timestamps
2306 match those on the remote server. Reissuing the command with @samp{-N}
2307 will make Wget re-fetch @emph{only} the files that have been modified
2308 since the last download.
2310 If you wished to mirror the GNU archive every week, you would use a
2311 command like the following, weekly:
2314 wget --timestamping -r ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
2317 Note that time-stamping will only work for files for which the server
2318 gives a timestamp. For @sc{http}, this depends on getting a
2319 @code{Last-Modified} header. For @sc{ftp}, this depends on getting a
2320 directory listing with dates in a format that Wget can parse
2321 (@pxref{FTP Time-Stamping Internals}).
2323 @node HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2324 @section HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2325 @cindex http time-stamping
2327 Time-stamping in @sc{http} is implemented by checking of the
2328 @code{Last-Modified} header. If you wish to retrieve the file
2329 @file{foo.html} through @sc{http}, Wget will check whether
2330 @file{foo.html} exists locally. If it doesn't, @file{foo.html} will be
2331 retrieved unconditionally.
2333 If the file does exist locally, Wget will first check its local
2334 time-stamp (similar to the way @code{ls -l} checks it), and then send a
2335 @code{HEAD} request to the remote server, demanding the information on
2338 The @code{Last-Modified} header is examined to find which file was
2339 modified more recently (which makes it ``newer''). If the remote file
2340 is newer, it will be downloaded; if it is older, Wget will give
2341 up.@footnote{As an additional check, Wget will look at the
2342 @code{Content-Length} header, and compare the sizes; if they are not the
2343 same, the remote file will be downloaded no matter what the time-stamp
2346 When @samp{--backup-converted} (@samp{-K}) is specified in conjunction
2347 with @samp{-N}, server file @samp{@var{X}} is compared to local file
2348 @samp{@var{X}.orig}, if extant, rather than being compared to local file
2349 @samp{@var{X}}, which will always differ if it's been converted by
2350 @samp{--convert-links} (@samp{-k}).
2352 Arguably, @sc{http} time-stamping should be implemented using the
2353 @code{If-Modified-Since} request.
2355 @node FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2356 @section FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2357 @cindex ftp time-stamping
2359 In theory, @sc{ftp} time-stamping works much the same as @sc{http}, only
2360 @sc{ftp} has no headers---time-stamps must be ferreted out of directory
2363 If an @sc{ftp} download is recursive or uses globbing, Wget will use the
2364 @sc{ftp} @code{LIST} command to get a file listing for the directory
2365 containing the desired file(s). It will try to analyze the listing,
2366 treating it like Unix @code{ls -l} output, extracting the time-stamps.
2367 The rest is exactly the same as for @sc{http}. Note that when
2368 retrieving individual files from an @sc{ftp} server without using
2369 globbing or recursion, listing files will not be downloaded (and thus
2370 files will not be time-stamped) unless @samp{-N} is specified.
2372 Assumption that every directory listing is a Unix-style listing may
2373 sound extremely constraining, but in practice it is not, as many
2374 non-Unix @sc{ftp} servers use the Unixoid listing format because most
2375 (all?) of the clients understand it. Bear in mind that @sc{rfc959}
2376 defines no standard way to get a file list, let alone the time-stamps.
2377 We can only hope that a future standard will define this.
2379 Another non-standard solution includes the use of @code{MDTM} command
2380 that is supported by some @sc{ftp} servers (including the popular
2381 @code{wu-ftpd}), which returns the exact time of the specified file.
2382 Wget may support this command in the future.
2385 @chapter Startup File
2386 @cindex startup file
2392 Once you know how to change default settings of Wget through command
2393 line arguments, you may wish to make some of those settings permanent.
2394 You can do that in a convenient way by creating the Wget startup
2395 file---@file{.wgetrc}.
2397 Besides @file{.wgetrc} is the ``main'' initialization file, it is
2398 convenient to have a special facility for storing passwords. Thus Wget
2399 reads and interprets the contents of @file{$HOME/.netrc}, if it finds
2400 it. You can find @file{.netrc} format in your system manuals.
2402 Wget reads @file{.wgetrc} upon startup, recognizing a limited set of
2406 * Wgetrc Location:: Location of various wgetrc files.
2407 * Wgetrc Syntax:: Syntax of wgetrc.
2408 * Wgetrc Commands:: List of available commands.
2409 * Sample Wgetrc:: A wgetrc example.
2412 @node Wgetrc Location
2413 @section Wgetrc Location
2414 @cindex wgetrc location
2415 @cindex location of wgetrc
2417 When initializing, Wget will look for a @dfn{global} startup file,
2418 @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default (or some prefix other than
2419 @file{/usr/local}, if Wget was not installed there) and read commands
2420 from there, if it exists.
2422 Then it will look for the user's file. If the environmental variable
2423 @code{WGETRC} is set, Wget will try to load that file. Failing that, no
2424 further attempts will be made.
2426 If @code{WGETRC} is not set, Wget will try to load @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}.
2428 The fact that user's settings are loaded after the system-wide ones
2429 means that in case of collision user's wgetrc @emph{overrides} the
2430 system-wide wgetrc (in @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default).
2431 Fascist admins, away!
2434 @section Wgetrc Syntax
2435 @cindex wgetrc syntax
2436 @cindex syntax of wgetrc
2438 The syntax of a wgetrc command is simple:
2444 The @dfn{variable} will also be called @dfn{command}. Valid
2445 @dfn{values} are different for different commands.
2447 The commands are case-insensitive and underscore-insensitive. Thus
2448 @samp{DIr__PrefiX} is the same as @samp{dirprefix}. Empty lines, lines
2449 beginning with @samp{#} and lines containing white-space only are
2452 Commands that expect a comma-separated list will clear the list on an
2453 empty command. So, if you wish to reset the rejection list specified in
2454 global @file{wgetrc}, you can do it with:
2460 @node Wgetrc Commands
2461 @section Wgetrc Commands
2462 @cindex wgetrc commands
2464 The complete set of commands is listed below. Legal values are listed
2465 after the @samp{=}. Simple Boolean values can be set or unset using
2466 @samp{on} and @samp{off} or @samp{1} and @samp{0}.
2468 Some commands take pseudo-arbitrary values. @var{address} values can be
2469 hostnames or dotted-quad IP addresses. @var{n} can be any positive
2470 integer, or @samp{inf} for infinity, where appropriate. @var{string}
2471 values can be any non-empty string.
2473 Most of these commands have direct command-line equivalents. Also, any
2474 wgetrc command can be specified on the command line using the
2475 @samp{--execute} switch (@pxref{Basic Startup Options}.)
2478 @item accept/reject = @var{string}
2479 Same as @samp{-A}/@samp{-R} (@pxref{Types of Files}).
2481 @item add_hostdir = on/off
2482 Enable/disable host-prefixed file names. @samp{-nH} disables it.
2484 @item continue = on/off
2485 If set to on, force continuation of preexistent partially retrieved
2486 files. See @samp{-c} before setting it.
2488 @item background = on/off
2489 Enable/disable going to background---the same as @samp{-b} (which
2492 @item backup_converted = on/off
2493 Enable/disable saving pre-converted files with the suffix
2494 @samp{.orig}---the same as @samp{-K} (which enables it).
2496 @c @item backups = @var{number}
2497 @c #### Document me!
2499 @item base = @var{string}
2500 Consider relative @sc{url}s in @sc{url} input files forced to be
2501 interpreted as @sc{html} as being relative to @var{string}---the same as
2502 @samp{--base=@var{string}}.
2504 @item bind_address = @var{address}
2505 Bind to @var{address}, like the @samp{--bind-address=@var{address}}.
2507 @item ca_certificate = @var{file}
2508 Set the certificate authority bundle file to @var{file}. The same
2509 as @samp{--ca-certificate=@var{file}}.
2511 @item ca_directory = @var{directory}
2512 Set the directory used for certificate authorities. The same as
2513 @samp{--ca-directory=@var{directory}}.
2515 @item cache = on/off
2516 When set to off, disallow server-caching. See the @samp{--no-cache}
2519 @item certificate = @var{file}
2520 Set the client certificate file name to @var{file}. The same as
2521 @samp{--certificate=@var{file}}.
2523 @item certificate_type = @var{string}
2524 Specify the type of the client certificate, legal values being
2525 @samp{PEM} (the default) and @samp{DER} (aka ASN1). The same as
2526 @samp{--certificate-type=@var{string}}.
2528 @item check_certificate = on/off
2529 If this is set to off, the server certificate is not checked against
2530 the specified client authorities. The default is ``on''. The same as
2531 @samp{--check-certificate}.
2533 @item convert_links = on/off
2534 Convert non-relative links locally. The same as @samp{-k}.
2536 @item cookies = on/off
2537 When set to off, disallow cookies. See the @samp{--cookies} option.
2539 @item connect_timeout = @var{n}
2540 Set the connect timeout---the same as @samp{--connect-timeout}.
2542 @item cut_dirs = @var{n}
2543 Ignore @var{n} remote directory components. Equivalent to
2544 @samp{--cut-dirs=@var{n}}.
2546 @item debug = on/off
2547 Debug mode, same as @samp{-d}.
2549 @item delete_after = on/off
2550 Delete after download---the same as @samp{--delete-after}.
2552 @item dir_prefix = @var{string}
2553 Top of directory tree---the same as @samp{-P @var{string}}.
2555 @item dirstruct = on/off
2556 Turning dirstruct on or off---the same as @samp{-x} or @samp{-nd},
2559 @item dns_cache = on/off
2560 Turn DNS caching on/off. Since DNS caching is on by default, this
2561 option is normally used to turn it off and is equivalent to
2562 @samp{--no-dns-cache}.
2564 @item dns_timeout = @var{n}
2565 Set the DNS timeout---the same as @samp{--dns-timeout}.
2567 @item domains = @var{string}
2568 Same as @samp{-D} (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
2570 @item dot_bytes = @var{n}
2571 Specify the number of bytes ``contained'' in a dot, as seen throughout
2572 the retrieval (1024 by default). You can postfix the value with
2573 @samp{k} or @samp{m}, representing kilobytes and megabytes,
2574 respectively. With dot settings you can tailor the dot retrieval to
2575 suit your needs, or you can use the predefined @dfn{styles}
2576 (@pxref{Download Options}).
2578 @item dots_in_line = @var{n}
2579 Specify the number of dots that will be printed in each line throughout
2580 the retrieval (50 by default).
2582 @item dot_spacing = @var{n}
2583 Specify the number of dots in a single cluster (10 by default).
2585 @item egd_file = @var{file}
2586 Use @var{string} as the EGD socket file name. The same as
2587 @samp{--egd-file=@var{file}}.
2589 @item exclude_directories = @var{string}
2590 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
2591 download---the same as @samp{-X @var{string}} (@pxref{Directory-Based
2594 @item exclude_domains = @var{string}
2595 Same as @samp{--exclude-domains=@var{string}} (@pxref{Spanning
2598 @item follow_ftp = on/off
2599 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents---the same as
2600 @samp{--follow-ftp}.
2602 @item follow_tags = @var{string}
2603 Only follow certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval,
2604 just like @samp{--follow-tags=@var{string}}.
2606 @item force_html = on/off
2607 If set to on, force the input filename to be regarded as an @sc{html}
2608 document---the same as @samp{-F}.
2610 @item ftp_password = @var{string}
2611 Set your @sc{ftp} password to @var{string}. Without this setting, the
2612 password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, which is a useful default for
2613 anonymous @sc{ftp} access.
2615 This command used to be named @code{passwd} prior to Wget 1.10.
2617 @item ftp_proxy = @var{string}
2618 Use @var{string} as @sc{ftp} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2621 @item ftp_user = @var{string}
2622 Set @sc{ftp} user to @var{string}.
2624 This command used to be named @code{login} prior to Wget 1.10.
2627 Turn globbing on/off---the same as @samp{--glob} and @samp{--no-glob}.
2629 @item header = @var{string}
2630 Define a header for HTTP doewnloads, like using
2631 @samp{--header=@var{string}}.
2633 @item html_extension = on/off
2634 Add a @samp{.html} extension to @samp{text/html} or
2635 @samp{application/xhtml+xml} files without it, like @samp{-E}.
2637 @item http_keep_alive = on/off
2638 Turn the keep-alive feature on or off (defaults to on). Turning it
2639 off is equivalent to @samp{--no-http-keep-alive}.
2641 @item http_password = @var{string}
2642 Set @sc{http} password, equivalent to
2643 @samp{--http-password=@var{string}}.
2645 @item http_proxy = @var{string}
2646 Use @var{string} as @sc{http} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2649 @item http_user = @var{string}
2650 Set @sc{http} user to @var{string}, equivalent to
2651 @samp{--http-user=@var{string}}.
2653 @item https_proxy = @var{string}
2654 Use @var{string} as @sc{https} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2657 @item ignore_case = on/off
2658 When set to on, match files and directories case insensitively; the
2659 same as @samp{--ignore-case}.
2661 @item ignore_length = on/off
2662 When set to on, ignore @code{Content-Length} header; the same as
2663 @samp{--ignore-length}.
2665 @item ignore_tags = @var{string}
2666 Ignore certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval, like
2667 @samp{--ignore-tags=@var{string}}.
2669 @item include_directories = @var{string}
2670 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
2671 downloading---the same as @samp{-I @var{string}}.
2673 @item inet4_only = on/off
2674 Force connecting to IPv4 addresses, off by default. You can put this
2675 in the global init file to disable Wget's attempts to resolve and
2676 connect to IPv6 hosts. Available only if Wget was compiled with IPv6
2677 support. The same as @samp{--inet4-only} or @samp{-4}.
2679 @item inet6_only = on/off
2680 Force connecting to IPv6 addresses, off by default. Available only if
2681 Wget was compiled with IPv6 support. The same as @samp{--inet6-only}
2684 @item input = @var{file}
2685 Read the @sc{url}s from @var{string}, like @samp{-i @var{file}}.
2687 @item limit_rate = @var{rate}
2688 Limit the download speed to no more than @var{rate} bytes per second.
2689 The same as @samp{--limit-rate=@var{rate}}.
2691 @item load_cookies = @var{file}
2692 Load cookies from @var{file}. See @samp{--load-cookies @var{file}}.
2694 @item logfile = @var{file}
2695 Set logfile to @var{file}, the same as @samp{-o @var{file}}.
2697 @item mirror = on/off
2698 Turn mirroring on/off. The same as @samp{-m}.
2700 @item netrc = on/off
2701 Turn reading netrc on or off.
2703 @item noclobber = on/off
2706 @item no_parent = on/off
2707 Disallow retrieving outside the directory hierarchy, like
2708 @samp{--no-parent} (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}).
2710 @item no_proxy = @var{string}
2711 Use @var{string} as the comma-separated list of domains to avoid in
2712 proxy loading, instead of the one specified in environment.
2714 @item output_document = @var{file}
2715 Set the output filename---the same as @samp{-O @var{file}}.
2717 @item page_requisites = on/off
2718 Download all ancillary documents necessary for a single @sc{html} page to
2719 display properly---the same as @samp{-p}.
2721 @item passive_ftp = on/off
2722 Change setting of passive @sc{ftp}, equivalent to the
2723 @samp{--passive-ftp} option.
2725 @itemx password = @var{string}
2726 Specify password @var{string} for both @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval.
2727 This command can be overridden using the @samp{ftp_password} and
2728 @samp{http_password} command for @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} respectively.
2730 @item post_data = @var{string}
2731 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send @var{string} in
2732 the request body. The same as @samp{--post-data=@var{string}}.
2734 @item post_file = @var{file}
2735 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the contents of
2736 @var{file} in the request body. The same as
2737 @samp{--post-file=@var{file}}.
2739 @item prefer_family = IPv4/IPv6/none
2740 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
2741 with specified address family first. IPv4 addresses are preferred by
2742 default. The same as @samp{--prefer-family}, which see for a detailed
2743 discussion of why this is useful.
2745 @item private_key = @var{file}
2746 Set the private key file to @var{file}. The same as
2747 @samp{--private-key=@var{file}}.
2749 @item private_key_type = @var{string}
2750 Specify the type of the private key, legal values being @samp{PEM}
2751 (the default) and @samp{DER} (aka ASN1). The same as
2752 @samp{--private-type=@var{string}}.
2754 @item progress = @var{string}
2755 Set the type of the progress indicator. Legal types are @samp{dot}
2756 and @samp{bar}. Equivalent to @samp{--progress=@var{string}}.
2758 @item protocol_directories = on/off
2759 When set, use the protocol name as a directory component of local file
2760 names. The same as @samp{--protocol-directories}.
2762 @item proxy_user = @var{string}
2763 Set proxy authentication user name to @var{string}, like
2764 @samp{--proxy-user=@var{string}}.
2766 @item proxy_password = @var{string}
2767 Set proxy authentication password to @var{string}, like
2768 @samp{--proxy-password=@var{string}}.
2770 @item quiet = on/off
2771 Quiet mode---the same as @samp{-q}.
2773 @item quota = @var{quota}
2774 Specify the download quota, which is useful to put in the global
2775 @file{wgetrc}. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop
2776 retrieving after the download sum has become greater than quota. The
2777 quota can be specified in bytes (default), kbytes @samp{k} appended) or
2778 mbytes (@samp{m} appended). Thus @samp{quota = 5m} will set the quota
2779 to 5 megabytes. Note that the user's startup file overrides system
2782 @item random_file = @var{file}
2783 Use @var{file} as a source of randomness on systems lacking
2786 @item random_wait = on/off
2787 Turn random between-request wait times on or off. The same as
2788 @samp{--random-wait}.
2790 @item read_timeout = @var{n}
2791 Set the read (and write) timeout---the same as
2792 @samp{--read-timeout=@var{n}}.
2794 @item reclevel = @var{n}
2795 Recursion level (depth)---the same as @samp{-l @var{n}}.
2797 @item recursive = on/off
2798 Recursive on/off---the same as @samp{-r}.
2800 @item referer = @var{string}
2801 Set HTTP @samp{Referer:} header just like
2802 @samp{--referer=@var{string}}. (Note it was the folks who wrote the
2803 @sc{http} spec who got the spelling of ``referrer'' wrong.)
2805 @item relative_only = on/off
2806 Follow only relative links---the same as @samp{-L} (@pxref{Relative
2809 @item remove_listing = on/off
2810 If set to on, remove @sc{ftp} listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it
2811 to off is the same as @samp{--no-remove-listing}.
2813 @item restrict_file_names = unix/windows
2814 Restrict the file names generated by Wget from URLs. See
2815 @samp{--restrict-file-names} for a more detailed description.
2817 @item retr_symlinks = on/off
2818 When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain files; the
2819 same as @samp{--retr-symlinks}.
2821 @item retry_connrefused = on/off
2822 When set to on, consider ``connection refused'' a transient
2823 error---the same as @samp{--retry-connrefused}.
2825 @item robots = on/off
2826 Specify whether the norobots convention is respected by Wget, ``on'' by
2827 default. This switch controls both the @file{/robots.txt} and the
2828 @samp{nofollow} aspect of the spec. @xref{Robot Exclusion}, for more
2829 details about this. Be sure you know what you are doing before turning
2832 @item save_cookies = @var{file}
2833 Save cookies to @var{file}. The same as @samp{--save-cookies
2836 @item secure_protocol = @var{string}
2837 Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are @samp{auto}
2838 (the default), @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, and @samp{TLSv1}. The same
2839 as @samp{--secure-protocol=@var{string}}.
2841 @item server_response = on/off
2842 Choose whether or not to print the @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} server
2843 responses---the same as @samp{-S}.
2845 @item span_hosts = on/off
2848 @item strict_comments = on/off
2849 Same as @samp{--strict-comments}.
2851 @item timeout = @var{n}
2852 Set all applicable timeout values to @var{n}, the same as @samp{-T
2855 @item timestamping = on/off
2856 Turn timestamping on/off. The same as @samp{-N} (@pxref{Time-Stamping}).
2858 @item tries = @var{n}
2859 Set number of retries per @sc{url}---the same as @samp{-t @var{n}}.
2861 @item use_proxy = on/off
2862 When set to off, don't use proxy even when proxy-related environment
2863 variables are set. In that case it is the same as using
2866 @item user = @var{string}
2867 Specify username @var{string} for both @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval.
2868 This command can be overridden using the @samp{ftp_user} and
2869 @samp{http_user} command for @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} respectively.
2871 @item verbose = on/off
2872 Turn verbose on/off---the same as @samp{-v}/@samp{-nv}.
2874 @item wait = @var{n}
2875 Wait @var{n} seconds between retrievals---the same as @samp{-w
2878 @item waitretry = @var{n}
2879 Wait up to @var{n} seconds between retries of failed retrievals
2880 only---the same as @samp{--waitretry=@var{n}}. Note that this is
2881 turned on by default in the global @file{wgetrc}.
2885 @section Sample Wgetrc
2886 @cindex sample wgetrc
2888 This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution.
2889 It is divided in two section---one for global usage (suitable for global
2890 startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for
2891 @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}). Be careful about the things you change.
2893 Note that almost all the lines are commented out. For a command to have
2894 any effect, you must remove the @samp{#} character at the beginning of
2898 @include sample.wgetrc.munged_for_texi_inclusion
2905 @c man begin EXAMPLES
2906 The examples are divided into three sections loosely based on their
2910 * Simple Usage:: Simple, basic usage of the program.
2911 * Advanced Usage:: Advanced tips.
2912 * Very Advanced Usage:: The hairy stuff.
2916 @section Simple Usage
2920 Say you want to download a @sc{url}. Just type:
2923 wget http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
2927 But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is lengthy?
2928 The connection will probably fail before the whole file is retrieved,
2929 more than once. In this case, Wget will try getting the file until it
2930 either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the default number of retries
2931 (this being 20). It is easy to change the number of tries to 45, to
2932 insure that the whole file will arrive safely:
2935 wget --tries=45 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
2939 Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its progress
2940 to log file @file{log}. It is tiring to type @samp{--tries}, so we
2941 shall use @samp{-t}.
2944 wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &
2947 The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in the
2948 background. To unlimit the number of retries, use @samp{-t inf}.
2951 The usage of @sc{ftp} is as simple. Wget will take care of login and
2955 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/welcome.msg
2959 If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory listing,
2960 parse it and convert it to @sc{html}. Try:
2963 wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
2968 @node Advanced Usage
2969 @section Advanced Usage
2973 You have a file that contains the URLs you want to download? Use the
2980 If you specify @samp{-} as file name, the @sc{url}s will be read from
2984 Create a five levels deep mirror image of the GNU web site, with the
2985 same directory structure the original has, with only one try per
2986 document, saving the log of the activities to @file{gnulog}:
2989 wget -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
2993 The same as the above, but convert the links in the @sc{html} files to
2994 point to local files, so you can view the documents off-line:
2997 wget --convert-links -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
3001 Retrieve only one @sc{html} page, but make sure that all the elements needed
3002 for the page to be displayed, such as inline images and external style
3003 sheets, are also downloaded. Also make sure the downloaded page
3004 references the downloaded links.
3007 wget -p --convert-links http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
3010 The @sc{html} page will be saved to @file{www.server.com/dir/page.html}, and
3011 the images, stylesheets, etc., somewhere under @file{www.server.com/},
3012 depending on where they were on the remote server.
3015 The same as the above, but without the @file{www.server.com/} directory.
3016 In fact, I don't want to have all those random server directories
3017 anyway---just save @emph{all} those files under a @file{download/}
3018 subdirectory of the current directory.
3021 wget -p --convert-links -nH -nd -Pdownload \
3022 http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
3026 Retrieve the index.html of @samp{www.lycos.com}, showing the original
3030 wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
3034 Save the server headers with the file, perhaps for post-processing.
3037 wget --save-headers http://www.lycos.com/
3042 Retrieve the first two levels of @samp{wuarchive.wustl.edu}, saving them
3046 wget -r -l2 -P/tmp ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
3050 You want to download all the @sc{gif}s from a directory on an @sc{http}
3051 server. You tried @samp{wget http://www.server.com/dir/*.gif}, but that
3052 didn't work because @sc{http} retrieval does not support globbing. In
3056 wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://www.server.com/dir/
3059 More verbose, but the effect is the same. @samp{-r -l1} means to
3060 retrieve recursively (@pxref{Recursive Download}), with maximum depth
3061 of 1. @samp{--no-parent} means that references to the parent directory
3062 are ignored (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}), and @samp{-A.gif} means to
3063 download only the @sc{gif} files. @samp{-A "*.gif"} would have worked
3067 Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
3068 interrupted. Now you do not want to clobber the files already present.
3072 wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.org/
3076 If you want to encode your own username and password to @sc{http} or
3077 @sc{ftp}, use the appropriate @sc{url} syntax (@pxref{URL Format}).
3080 wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@@unix.server.com/.emacs
3083 Note, however, that this usage is not advisable on multi-user systems
3084 because it reveals your password to anyone who looks at the output of
3087 @cindex redirecting output
3089 You would like the output documents to go to standard output instead of
3093 wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/
3096 You can also combine the two options and make pipelines to retrieve the
3097 documents from remote hotlists:
3100 wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
3104 @node Very Advanced Usage
3105 @section Very Advanced Usage
3110 If you wish Wget to keep a mirror of a page (or @sc{ftp}
3111 subdirectories), use @samp{--mirror} (@samp{-m}), which is the shorthand
3112 for @samp{-r -l inf -N}. You can put Wget in the crontab file asking it
3113 to recheck a site each Sunday:
3117 0 0 * * 0 wget --mirror http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3121 In addition to the above, you want the links to be converted for local
3122 viewing. But, after having read this manual, you know that link
3123 conversion doesn't play well with timestamping, so you also want Wget to
3124 back up the original @sc{html} files before the conversion. Wget invocation
3125 would look like this:
3128 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
3129 http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3133 But you've also noticed that local viewing doesn't work all that well
3134 when @sc{html} files are saved under extensions other than @samp{.html},
3135 perhaps because they were served as @file{index.cgi}. So you'd like
3136 Wget to rename all the files served with content-type @samp{text/html}
3137 or @samp{application/xhtml+xml} to @file{@var{name}.html}.
3140 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
3141 --html-extension -o /home/me/weeklog \
3145 Or, with less typing:
3148 wget -m -k -K -E http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3157 This chapter contains all the stuff that could not fit anywhere else.
3160 * Proxies:: Support for proxy servers
3161 * Distribution:: Getting the latest version.
3162 * Mailing List:: Wget mailing list for announcements and discussion.
3163 * Reporting Bugs:: How and where to report bugs.
3164 * Portability:: The systems Wget works on.
3165 * Signals:: Signal-handling performed by Wget.
3172 @dfn{Proxies} are special-purpose @sc{http} servers designed to transfer
3173 data from remote servers to local clients. One typical use of proxies
3174 is lightening network load for users behind a slow connection. This is
3175 achieved by channeling all @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} requests through the
3176 proxy which caches the transferred data. When a cached resource is
3177 requested again, proxy will return the data from cache. Another use for
3178 proxies is for companies that separate (for security reasons) their
3179 internal networks from the rest of Internet. In order to obtain
3180 information from the Web, their users connect and retrieve remote data
3181 using an authorized proxy.
3183 Wget supports proxies for both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} retrievals. The
3184 standard way to specify proxy location, which Wget recognizes, is using
3185 the following environment variables:
3190 If set, the @code{http_proxy} and @code{https_proxy} variables should
3191 contain the @sc{url}s of the proxies for @sc{http} and @sc{https}
3192 connections respectively.
3195 This variable should contain the @sc{url} of the proxy for @sc{ftp}
3196 connections. It is quite common that @code{http_proxy} and
3197 @code{ftp_proxy} are set to the same @sc{url}.
3200 This variable should contain a comma-separated list of domain extensions
3201 proxy should @emph{not} be used for. For instance, if the value of
3202 @code{no_proxy} is @samp{.mit.edu}, proxy will not be used to retrieve
3206 In addition to the environment variables, proxy location and settings
3207 may be specified from within Wget itself.
3211 @itemx proxy = on/off
3212 This option and the corresponding command may be used to suppress the
3213 use of proxy, even if the appropriate environment variables are set.
3215 @item http_proxy = @var{URL}
3216 @itemx https_proxy = @var{URL}
3217 @itemx ftp_proxy = @var{URL}
3218 @itemx no_proxy = @var{string}
3219 These startup file variables allow you to override the proxy settings
3220 specified by the environment.
3223 Some proxy servers require authorization to enable you to use them. The
3224 authorization consists of @dfn{username} and @dfn{password}, which must
3225 be sent by Wget. As with @sc{http} authorization, several
3226 authentication schemes exist. For proxy authorization only the
3227 @code{Basic} authentication scheme is currently implemented.
3229 You may specify your username and password either through the proxy
3230 @sc{url} or through the command-line options. Assuming that the
3231 company's proxy is located at @samp{proxy.company.com} at port 8001, a
3232 proxy @sc{url} location containing authorization data might look like
3236 http://hniksic:mypassword@@proxy.company.com:8001/
3239 Alternatively, you may use the @samp{proxy-user} and
3240 @samp{proxy-password} options, and the equivalent @file{.wgetrc}
3241 settings @code{proxy_user} and @code{proxy_password} to set the proxy
3242 username and password.
3245 @section Distribution
3246 @cindex latest version
3248 Like all GNU utilities, the latest version of Wget can be found at the
3249 master GNU archive site ftp.gnu.org, and its mirrors. For example,
3250 Wget @value{VERSION} can be found at
3251 @url{ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/wget/wget-@value{VERSION}.tar.gz}
3254 @section Mailing List
3255 @cindex mailing list
3258 There are several Wget-related mailing lists, all hosted by
3259 SunSITE.dk. The general discussion list is at
3260 @email{wget@@sunsite.dk}. It is the preferred place for bug reports
3261 and suggestions, as well as for discussion of development. You are
3262 invited to subscribe.
3264 To subscribe, simply send mail to @email{wget-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}
3265 and follow the instructions. Unsubscribe by mailing to
3266 @email{wget-unsubscribe@@sunsite.dk}. The mailing list is archived at
3267 @url{http://www.mail-archive.com/wget%40sunsite.dk/} and at
3268 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.general}.
3270 The second mailing list is at @email{wget-patches@@sunsite.dk}, and is
3271 used to submit patches for review by Wget developers. A ``patch'' is
3272 a textual representation of change to source code, readable by both
3273 humans and programs. The file @file{PATCHES} that comes with Wget
3274 covers the creation and submitting of patches in detail. Please don't
3275 send general suggestions or bug reports to @samp{wget-patches}; use it
3276 only for patch submissions.
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://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.patches}.
3283 @node Reporting Bugs
3284 @section Reporting Bugs
3286 @cindex reporting bugs
3290 You are welcome to send bug reports about GNU Wget to
3291 @email{bug-wget@@gnu.org}.
3293 Before actually submitting a bug report, please try to follow a few
3298 Please try to ascertain that the behavior you see really is a bug. If
3299 Wget crashes, it's a bug. If Wget does not behave as documented,
3300 it's a bug. If things work strange, but you are not sure about the way
3301 they are supposed to work, it might well be a bug.
3304 Try to repeat the bug in as simple circumstances as possible. E.g. if
3305 Wget crashes while downloading @samp{wget -rl0 -kKE -t5 -Y0
3306 http://yoyodyne.com -o /tmp/log}, you should try to see if the crash is
3307 repeatable, and if will occur with a simpler set of options. You might
3308 even try to start the download at the page where the crash occurred to
3309 see if that page somehow triggered the crash.
3311 Also, while I will probably be interested to know the contents of your
3312 @file{.wgetrc} file, just dumping it into the debug message is probably
3313 a bad idea. Instead, you should first try to see if the bug repeats
3314 with @file{.wgetrc} moved out of the way. Only if it turns out that
3315 @file{.wgetrc} settings affect the bug, mail me the relevant parts of
3319 Please start Wget with @samp{-d} option and send us the resulting
3320 output (or relevant parts thereof). If Wget was compiled without
3321 debug support, recompile it---it is @emph{much} easier to trace bugs
3322 with debug support on.
3324 Note: please make sure to remove any potentially sensitive information
3325 from the debug log before sending it to the bug address. The
3326 @code{-d} won't go out of its way to collect sensitive information,
3327 but the log @emph{will} contain a fairly complete transcript of Wget's
3328 communication with the server, which may include passwords and pieces
3329 of downloaded data. Since the bug address is publically archived, you
3330 may assume that all bug reports are visible to the public.
3333 If Wget has crashed, try to run it in a debugger, e.g. @code{gdb `which
3334 wget` core} and type @code{where} to get the backtrace. This may not
3335 work if the system administrator has disabled core files, but it is
3341 @section Portability
3343 @cindex operating systems
3345 Like all GNU software, Wget works on the GNU system. However, since it
3346 uses GNU Autoconf for building and configuring, and mostly avoids using
3347 ``special'' features of any particular Unix, it should compile (and
3348 work) on all common Unix flavors.
3350 Various Wget versions have been compiled and tested under many kinds
3351 of Unix systems, including GNU/Linux, Solaris, SunOS 4.x, OSF (aka
3352 Digital Unix or Tru64), Ultrix, *BSD, IRIX, AIX, and others. Some of
3353 those systems are no longer in widespread use and may not be able to
3354 support recent versions of Wget. If Wget fails to compile on your
3355 system, we would like to know about it.
3357 Thanks to kind contributors, this version of Wget compiles and works
3358 on 32-bit Microsoft Windows platforms. It has been compiled
3359 successfully using MS Visual C++ 6.0, Watcom, Borland C, and GCC
3360 compilers. Naturally, it is crippled of some features available on
3361 Unix, but it should work as a substitute for people stuck with
3362 Windows. Note that Windows-specific portions of Wget are not
3363 guaranteed to be supported in the future, although this has been the
3364 case in practice for many years now. All questions and problems in
3365 Windows usage should be reported to Wget mailing list at
3366 @email{wget@@sunsite.dk} where the volunteers who maintain the
3367 Windows-related features might look at them.
3371 @cindex signal handling
3374 Since the purpose of Wget is background work, it catches the hangup
3375 signal (@code{SIGHUP}) and ignores it. If the output was on standard
3376 output, it will be redirected to a file named @file{wget-log}.
3377 Otherwise, @code{SIGHUP} is ignored. This is convenient when you wish
3378 to redirect the output of Wget after having started it.
3381 $ wget http://www.gnus.org/dist/gnus.tar.gz &
3384 SIGHUP received, redirecting output to `wget-log'.
3387 Other than that, Wget will not try to interfere with signals in any way.
3388 @kbd{C-c}, @code{kill -TERM} and @code{kill -KILL} should kill it alike.
3393 This chapter contains some references I consider useful.
3396 * Robot Exclusion:: Wget's support for RES.
3397 * Security Considerations:: Security with Wget.
3398 * Contributors:: People who helped.
3401 @node Robot Exclusion
3402 @section Robot Exclusion
3403 @cindex robot exclusion
3405 @cindex server maintenance
3407 It is extremely easy to make Wget wander aimlessly around a web site,
3408 sucking all the available data in progress. @samp{wget -r @var{site}},
3409 and you're set. Great? Not for the server admin.
3411 As long as Wget is only retrieving static pages, and doing it at a
3412 reasonable rate (see the @samp{--wait} option), there's not much of a
3413 problem. The trouble is that Wget can't tell the difference between the
3414 smallest static page and the most demanding CGI. A site I know has a
3415 section handled by a CGI Perl script that converts Info files to @sc{html} on
3416 the fly. The script is slow, but works well enough for human users
3417 viewing an occasional Info file. However, when someone's recursive Wget
3418 download stumbles upon the index page that links to all the Info files
3419 through the script, the system is brought to its knees without providing
3420 anything useful to the user (This task of converting Info files could be
3421 done locally and access to Info documentation for all installed GNU
3422 software on a system is available from the @code{info} command).
3424 To avoid this kind of accident, as well as to preserve privacy for
3425 documents that need to be protected from well-behaved robots, the
3426 concept of @dfn{robot exclusion} was invented. The idea is that
3427 the server administrators and document authors can specify which
3428 portions of the site they wish to protect from robots and those
3429 they will permit access.
3431 The most popular mechanism, and the @i{de facto} standard supported by
3432 all the major robots, is the ``Robots Exclusion Standard'' (RES) written
3433 by Martijn Koster et al. in 1994. It specifies the format of a text
3434 file containing directives that instruct the robots which URL paths to
3435 avoid. To be found by the robots, the specifications must be placed in
3436 @file{/robots.txt} in the server root, which the robots are expected to
3439 Although Wget is not a web robot in the strictest sense of the word, it
3440 can downloads large parts of the site without the user's intervention to
3441 download an individual page. Because of that, Wget honors RES when
3442 downloading recursively. For instance, when you issue:
3445 wget -r http://www.server.com/
3448 First the index of @samp{www.server.com} will be downloaded. If Wget
3449 finds that it wants to download more documents from that server, it will
3450 request @samp{http://www.server.com/robots.txt} and, if found, use it
3451 for further downloads. @file{robots.txt} is loaded only once per each
3454 Until version 1.8, Wget supported the first version of the standard,
3455 written by Martijn Koster in 1994 and available at
3456 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html}. As of version 1.8,
3457 Wget has supported the additional directives specified in the internet
3458 draft @samp{<draft-koster-robots-00.txt>} titled ``A Method for Web
3459 Robots Control''. The draft, which has as far as I know never made to
3460 an @sc{rfc}, is available at
3461 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots-rfc.txt}.
3463 This manual no longer includes the text of the Robot Exclusion Standard.
3465 The second, less known mechanism, enables the author of an individual
3466 document to specify whether they want the links from the file to be
3467 followed by a robot. This is achieved using the @code{META} tag, like
3471 <meta name="robots" content="nofollow">
3474 This is explained in some detail at
3475 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/meta-user.html}. Wget supports this
3476 method of robot exclusion in addition to the usual @file{/robots.txt}
3479 If you know what you are doing and really really wish to turn off the
3480 robot exclusion, set the @code{robots} variable to @samp{off} in your
3481 @file{.wgetrc}. You can achieve the same effect from the command line
3482 using the @code{-e} switch, e.g. @samp{wget -e robots=off @var{url}...}.
3484 @node Security Considerations
3485 @section Security Considerations
3488 When using Wget, you must be aware that it sends unencrypted passwords
3489 through the network, which may present a security problem. Here are the
3490 main issues, and some solutions.
3494 The passwords on the command line are visible using @code{ps}. The best
3495 way around it is to use @code{wget -i -} and feed the @sc{url}s to
3496 Wget's standard input, each on a separate line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
3497 Another workaround is to use @file{.netrc} to store passwords; however,
3498 storing unencrypted passwords is also considered a security risk.
3501 Using the insecure @dfn{basic} authentication scheme, unencrypted
3502 passwords are transmitted through the network routers and gateways.
3505 The @sc{ftp} passwords are also in no way encrypted. There is no good
3506 solution for this at the moment.
3509 Although the ``normal'' output of Wget tries to hide the passwords,
3510 debugging logs show them, in all forms. This problem is avoided by
3511 being careful when you send debug logs (yes, even when you send them to
3516 @section Contributors
3517 @cindex contributors
3520 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org},
3523 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Niksic @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org},
3525 and it is currently maintained by Mauro Tortonesi @email{mauro@@ferrara.linux.it}.
3527 However, the development of Wget could never have gone as far as it has, were
3528 it not for the help of many people, either with bug reports, feature proposals,
3529 patches, or letters saying ``Thanks!''.
3531 Special thanks goes to the following people (no particular order):
3534 @item Dan Harkless---contributed a lot of code and documentation of
3535 extremely high quality, as well as the @code{--page-requisites} and
3536 related options. He was the principal maintainer for some time and
3539 @item Ian Abbott---contributed bug fixes, Windows-related fixes, and
3540 provided a prototype implementation of the breadth-first recursive
3541 download. Co-maintained Wget during the 1.8 release cycle.
3544 The dotsrc.org crew, in particular Karsten Thygesen---donated system
3545 resources such as the mailing list, web space, @sc{ftp} space, and
3546 version control repositories, along with a lot of time to make these
3547 actually work. Christian Reiniger was of invaluable help with setting
3551 Heiko Herold---provided high-quality Windows builds and contributed
3552 bug and build reports for many years.
3555 Shawn McHorse---bug reports and patches.
3558 Kaveh R. Ghazi---on-the-fly @code{ansi2knr}-ization. Lots of
3562 Gordon Matzigkeit---@file{.netrc} support.
3566 Zlatko @v{C}alu@v{s}i@'{c}, Tomislav Vujec and Dra@v{z}en
3567 Ka@v{c}ar---feature suggestions and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3570 Zlatko Calusic, Tomislav Vujec and Drazen Kacar---feature suggestions
3571 and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3575 Darko Budor---initial port to Windows.
3578 Antonio Rosella---help and suggestions, plus the initial Italian
3583 Tomislav Petrovi@'{c}, Mario Miko@v{c}evi@'{c}---many bug reports and
3587 Tomislav Petrovic, Mario Mikocevic---many bug reports and suggestions.
3592 Fran@,{c}ois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3595 Francois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3599 Karl Eichwalder---lots of help with internationalization, Makefile
3600 layout and many other things.
3603 Junio Hamano---donated support for Opie and @sc{http} @code{Digest}
3607 People who provided donations for development---including Brian Gough.
3610 The following people have provided patches, bug/build reports, useful
3611 suggestions, beta testing services, fan mail and all the other things
3612 that make maintenance so much fun:
3631 Kristijan @v{C}onka@v{s},
3640 Bertrand Demiddelaer,
3653 Aleksandar Erkalovi@'{c},
3656 Aleksandar Erkalovic,
3675 Erik Magnus Hulthen,
3694 Goran Kezunovi@'{c},
3707 $\Sigma\acute{\iota}\mu o\varsigma\;
3708 \Xi\varepsilon\nu\iota\tau\acute{\epsilon}\lambda\lambda\eta\varsigma$
3709 (Simos KSenitellis),
3718 Nicol@'{a}s Lichtmeier,
3724 Alexander V. Lukyanov,
3764 @c Texinfo doesn't grok @'{@i}, so we have to use TeX itself.
3766 Juan Jos\'{e} Rodr\'{\i}guez,
3769 Juan Jose Rodriguez,
3787 Szakacsits Szabolcs,
3801 Douglas E. Wegscheid,
3812 Apologies to all who I accidentally left out, and many thanks to all the
3813 subscribers of the Wget mailing list.
3820 @cindex free software
3822 GNU Wget is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL),
3823 which makes it @dfn{free software}. Please note that ``free'' in ``free
3824 software'' refers to liberty, not price. As some people like to point
3825 out, it's the ``free'' of ``free speech'', not the ``free'' of ``free
3828 The exact and legally binding distribution terms are spelled out below.
3829 The GPL guarantees that you have the right (freedom) to run and change
3830 GNU Wget and distribute it to others, and even---if you want---charge
3831 money for doing any of those things. With these rights comes the
3832 obligation to distribute the source code along with the software and to
3833 grant your recipients the same rights and impose the same restrictions.
3835 This licensing model is also known as @dfn{open source} because it,
3836 among other things, makes sure that all recipients will receive the
3837 source code along with the program, and be able to improve it. The GNU
3838 project prefers the term ``free software'' for reasons outlined at
3839 @url{http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html}.
3841 The exact license terms are defined by this paragraph and the GNU
3842 General Public License it refers to:
3845 GNU Wget is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
3846 under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
3847 Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
3848 option) any later version.
3850 GNU Wget is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
3851 ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
3852 FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License
3855 A copy of the GNU General Public License is included as part of this
3856 manual; if you did not receive it, write to the Free Software
3857 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
3860 In addition to this, this manual is free in the same sense:
3863 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
3864 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
3865 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
3866 Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
3867 Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section
3868 entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.
3871 @c #### Maybe we should wrap these licenses in ifinfo? Stallman says
3872 @c that the GFDL needs to be present in the manual, and to me it would
3873 @c suck to include the license for the manual and not the license for
3876 The full texts of the GNU General Public License and of the GNU Free
3877 Documentation License are available below.
3880 * GNU General Public License::
3881 * GNU Free Documentation License::
3889 @unnumbered Concept Index